From announcements of fake results to the use of bot accounts, the country saw a no-holds-barred campaign for votes and legitimacy on social media.
The general elections in Nigeria this year were tightly contested — the presidential race especially. Nothing illustrates this better than the results declared by the electoral commission, which show that three major political parties all had majority votes in 12 states each, with the distribution of votes following a similar trend. But the battleground spread beyond the various polling stations. The campaigns also took place online, but not all of it was organic or even anchored on facts.
The presidential and national assembly elections were held on Feb. 25, and the gubernatorial polls followed two weeks later. The top presidential candidates were Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Atiku Abubakar of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP), and Rabiu Kwankwaso of the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP).
In their struggle for votes, some of the political parties resorted to pushing coordinated campaigns on social media.
Analysing thousands of posts on X (the platform formerly known as Twitter), HumAngle observed multiple trends of inorganic hashtags and disinformation fuelled by social media influencers, party keypad warriors, and bot accounts. Experts say the disinformation campaigns were aimed at discrediting rival candidates and exploiting voter sentiments.
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