Social media expert can comment on ‘messianic figure’ in Nigerian election

LAWRENCE – Like Barack Obama, upstart Nigerian presidential candidate Peter Obi is younger than his main rivals and more astute in his deployment of social media. But Nigerian social media expert James Yékú said there are many differences between Obama’s “Yes We Can” campaign of 2008 and the Obi-dient Movement of 2022-23 that is rallying young voters across Nigeria.

Yékú, University of Kansas assistant professor of African digital humanities, is available to comment on how the political battle is being waged online ahead of the Feb. 25 election. 

Unlike Obama's successful election, Yékú predicted that Obi will lose to one of his two main “gerontocratic” rivals – Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress or Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party – or perhaps even to a fourth contender, Rabiu Kwankwaso of the New Nigeria Peoples Party, who was once was courted by the Obi camp to join forces to upstage the more established parties.

That’s partly, Yékú said, because the realities of a class-based social media in Nigeria are often not directly translatable outside digital spaces. Also, there is the geographic (north-south) and ethno-religious (Muslim-Christian) political balancing act that successful Nigerian political leaders must consider. Having picked a northern Muslim as his vice presidential running mate, Obi is aware of this, Yékú said, but he still has to contend with the common assumption that he lacks the “ground game” and infrastructure the two major political parties are known to have. Obi has claimed this advantage is a reflection of the ages-long structure of criminality and corruption he wishes to disrupt. But as he left the PDP to run under the Labour Party banner, some commentators are not so convinced.

But Obi has clearly been a success in mobilizing followers via social media, said Yékú, whose 2022 book, “Cultural Netizenship: Social Media, Popular Culture and Performance in Nigeria,” (Indiana University Press) is a cultural analysis of his native country’s vibrant online discussion space.

Yékú said Obi has drawn strength from the online energy generated by the #EndSARS campaign that began in 2017 and, in 2020, became an intense and comprehensive movement against a culture of police brutality and corruption by the Special Anti-Robbery Squad of Nigeria’s police.

“The Obi-dient Movement is basically the necessary emergence of a proverbial third force in Nigerian election discourses, because in the last couple of election cycles, the contest has always been between the PDP and the APC — two parties that are essentially the same in terms of ideologies and their constantly cross-carpeting personnel,” Yékú said.

“Being the youngest, the most progressive and ideologically sound of all the candidates, Peter comes to resemble a political messiah whom the Nigerian youth, most of whom are fed up with the country's political elites, imagine as the man to deliver the country from the plagues of endemic corruption and economic mismanagement which they spoke out against during #EndSARS. So the Obi-dient Movement is basically this youth-based, post-#EndSARS, social media-driven campaign for Peter Obi where everybody sees him as a messianic figure as well.

“The challenge for the Obi-dient movement,” Yékú said, “is whether Obi and his supporters can translate their online momentum and the frenzy of clicks and hashtags into offline electoral victory.” 

To interview Yékú, contact Rick Hellman, public affairs officer, at rick_hellman@ku.edu or (913) 620-8786.

Image: Detail from graphic tweeted Jan. 28 by campaign manager for Nigerian presidential candidate Peter Obi.