Disinformation as a threat to Nigeria’s electoral democracy

BY AYOMIDE AJAYEOBA

Imagine you have a business partner that you have worked with for years but when you are just on the verge of embarking on a new business venture together, rumours about alleged shady deals by your partner surface on social media. This naturally creates doubt, unease and distrust even after vehement denial from them. Even though you are at ease now, any slight mistake by that person automatically brings back the feeling of distrust which means the partnership is now fractured and altered.

Such is the poison of disinformation; it weakens trust and twists points of view. Disinformation spreads quickly, especially with the aid of social media, and oftentimes the retraction that is meant to indicate that the information was false is not as widespread. In other words, not everyone gets to know that the information that they heard or saw was false, and even those that do see retractions are still left with tainted perspectives.

Basically, disinformation is a threat to the health of our democracy because democracy as a system of government thrives on trust. Democracy is a system where people elect representatives to govern on their behalf through elections, where they work hand in hand with these elected officials to better the society. Such a system cannot survive if there is no trust between the citizenry and those in positions of power, and disinformation is the harbinger of mistrust.

On the 25th of February, 2023 Nigeria held its seventh presidential election since the 1999 return to democracy, as well as the national assembly elections. Following this election, social media and mainstream media alike were flooded with concern from citizens about the validity of the elections. There was some level of distrust about the transparency of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). This is partly due to the disinformation ravaging Nigeria’s political space ahead of the elections.

Prior to the election, there were many stories circulating that cast doubt in the minds of voters. For example, there was a leaked audio of a presidential candidate and his running mate along with some party chieftains talking about how they planned to rig the election with the help of INEC. However, upon investigation and comprehensive fact-checking by the Disinformation Unit of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), it was discovered that the audio was doctored.

Unfortunately, many people had already heard the audio and whether or not they saw the information about it being false, they were already looking at INEC with different eyes.

The relationship between the citizenry and INEC is much like the one between you and your hypothetical business partner earlier discussed; it is built on complete trust just like democracy, and trust is fragile. False stories like the one I just mentioned paired with issues such as the malfunctioning of the BVAS and the failure to upload real-time results on the IReV portal on election day created a loss of confidence in the integrity of INEC.

If the people can’t trust that what they are being told by those in power is true then democracy will suffer. Left unchecked, the disinformation problem in the country will grow into a monster with an insatiable hunger.

The best way to nip this problem in the bud is for governing bodies, officials and electoral bodies such as INEC to improve their communication with the people; they should ensure that all people are clear about their objectives and the reasons for their actions.

After all, disinformation can only thrive when there is an information vacuum. Additionally, social media is the birthplace of most pieces of disinformation and seeing as social media platforms are where a lot of young people get their information from, the youth are the subset of society that is most vulnerable to disinformation.

As a young person who frequents many of these social platforms, I have seen first-hand how rampant the spread of disinformation is and how easily people fall prey to it. The simplest response I have to this observation is that people should be cautious of the information that they see on social media. Thus, it is best to check multiple sources to see if they all align before deciding whether something is true or not. The citizens of Nigeria must also do their part to curb this problem; as a people, we can no longer be gullible as this leaves us susceptible to manipulation through disinformation.

Ayomide Ajayeoba is a communications intern at Yiaga Africa