Democratic Regimes And Social Media In Nigeria: Examining The Substance Of Youth Participation In Governance

Citizens' participation in governance in Nigeria has been greatly affected by the system of autocratic, undemocratic and even democratic regimes. These regimes have inculcated fear into the youth and have not provided a free flow platform for transparency, accountability, and feedback from its citizens, particularly the youth. However, the emergence of social media breathes a new life into the citizens' participation drive. The paper investigates 'to what extent did advent of social media enhance citizens' participation in governance, especially among the youths. While survey and content analysis were used to elicit information from 100 randomly selected respondents in Ibadan North Local Government, Theory of Digital Democracy was adapted as theoretical framework. Findings revealed that the majority of the respondents' (58%) contents posted for the past three (3) months are connected to political issues, corruption-related issues, religion, and political personalities. Facebook is the most preferred social network among the respondents. It was, therefore, confirmed that social media users in Nigeria are tremendously increasing while information on politics and government activities is reflecting easily on it in the discussions among the citizens. The paper concludes that the internet and social media have reduced the fear of witch-hunting and increased the citizens' rate of participation in government activities, hence the important part of democracy (government of the people) and its democratization substance resuscitated. It recommends that government, political elites and Civil Society Organizations should continue to emphasize social media as a verifiable platform to increase citizens' participation in governance and politics