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The Facebook President: Oil, Citizenship, and the Social Mediation of Politics in Nigeria
Author(s) -
Adunbi Omolade
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
polar: political and legal anthropology review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.529
H-Index - 27
eISSN - 1555-2934
pISSN - 1081-6976
DOI - 10.1111/plar.12217
Subject(s) - social media , politics , citizenship , nigerians , mediation , sociology , state (computer science) , commonwealth , political science , media studies , public relations , social science , law , algorithm , computer science
On June 28, 2010, Nigerian President Jonathan announced that he had set up a Facebook page. Within a few days, his first post garnered 1,344 likes and more than 2,139 comments. This article examines how Nigerians use social media to interact with the state. It asks: How does social media facilitate conversations on what constitutes a national resource? How is social media creating citizens who are simultaneously anonymous and visible? It suggests that Facebook and other sites on which Jonathan established online presences were constructed as political spaces to interact with the youth of Nigeria, molding that constituency into loyal social media citizens ready to align with his aspirations. It also describes social media as sites on which the politics of claim‐making produce the social mediation of oil as a commonwealth in Nigeria. The use of the term “social media citizens” is anchored in the fluidity of citizenship. Jonathan's use of Facebook as both public and political spaces elevated the site to a national forum on a resource whose distribution must benefit all Nigerians: oil. The article suggests further that social media can serve as a site on which social media citizens can critique how the state manages and distributes oil.