Finally, government is tweeting

Many more agencies of government are adopting the social media, particularly Twitter, as a means of interaction and information dissemination. Regrettably, ICT, Science and Technology ministries lag.
Senate President Bukola Saraki recently started what is turning into a cult movement on social networking site Twitter – the Made in Nigeria Challenge. According to him, the Challenge was to showcase everyday products that are produced by Nigerians in Nigeria.
Nevertheless, one aggrieved follower, out of his over half a million followers, felt Saraki was losing touch with reality and tweeted at him.
“@bukolasaraki you are so out of touch with SMEs. What they really need is for CAC (Corporate Affairs Commission), CBN (Central Bank of Nigeria), BOI (Bank of Industry) to work and reduce the bottlenecks they create,” Paul tweeted from the handle @justyn3xjp.
The Senate president wasted no time in responding: “Good morning, agencies mentioned will be invited to the #MadeinNigeria Roundtable where stakeholders will be able to discuss needed improvements.”
His response was retweeted 26 times and ‘Liked’ 28 times.
Bukola Saraki’s tactful response is one out of many examples of concerted efforts by officials in the Nigeria government to engage citizens and their communities using popular online social platforms like Twitter.
The office of the presidency alone boasts of six ‘verified’ Twitter accounts. These include @Mbuhari (President Buhari’s personal handle), @NGRPresident, @ProfOsinbajo (Vice President Yemi Osinbajo’s personal account), @AsoRock, @DigicommsNG, and @GarShehu (Garba Shehu, President’s official spokesperson’s personal handle).
Expectedly, the president’s personal account @Mbuhari commands the largest followership of all the official accounts with over 839,000. @ProfOsinbajo follows it closely with over 764,000 followers. @NGRPresident is third with over 421,000 followers, while @GarShehu and @DigicommsNG (by far the most regularly updated) makes the rear with 248,000 and 151,000, respectively.
Aside from presidents of countries like Ghana, Senegal, South Africa, Mauritius, and Rwanda, the president’s personal handle also follows Kayode Ogundamisi, a political commentator, Oby Ezekwesili, former education minister, Lola Shoneyin, an author and director of Ake Arts Festival, among others.
The presidential handles have become the public’s go-to places for original and important updates and information from the presidency. It could be tweets of a most recent speech from the president, a reaction over a national incident, a meeting with dignitaries from within or outside the country, explaining a policy statement and many more. The handles share updates on the activities and milestones of the various federal ministries, departments and agencies.
Over 70 percent of federal agencies own an account. Many of them are finding Twitter as an important platform to showcase their achievements and disseminate important information or updates. In December, the handle @NNPCgroup, belonging to the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation, emerged winner for overall social media use among federal parastatals in Nigeria at the Phillips Consulting and WebJurists award ceremony.
Out of the 22 federal ministries currently existing under the President Buhari administration, seven either have their accounts suspended or are yet to create one. Ministry of Petroleum Resources, Ministry of Science and Technology, Ministry of Women Affairs, and Ministry of Finance all have their accounts suspended, while Ministry of Sports and Youth Development, Ministry of Mines and Steel, and Ministry of Labour and Productivity do not have accounts.
The Ministry of Defence is the most followed of the ministries with over 162,000. The Ministries of Aviation, Information and Environment follow behind with over 125,000, 84,500 and 14,700 followers, respectively. While the Ministries of Defence, Industry, Trade and Investment, Environment, Health, and Agriculture have verified accounts, the Ministry of Information is the most updated with over 28,900 tweets.
The increased Twitter adoption by government officials and agencies is a clear progress from what it was in the past. For instance, the official government handle under the Goodluck Jonathan administration @GovNigeria only had 810 followers before the Buhari government abandoned it.
However, the account suspension of Ministry of Science and Technology may come as a disappointment, and so will the fact that the personal account of the minister in charge, Ogbonnaya Onu, only boasts of less than 600 followers.
In comparison, India’s Minister of Science and Technology, Harsh Vardhan, tweets from his verified handle @drharshvardhan to his over 1.36 million followers.
Social media has become a crucial part of how we interact with friends, community and even run our cities. Nigeria was ranked second most active Twitter users in Africa with 350 million geolocated tweets in 2015 by the Portlands Communications report released in 2016.
Being on Twitter offers several opportunities for any government. First, it gives citizens real-time access to air their concerns. Recall that arrowheads of the fuel subsidy protests in 2012 made very good use of Twitter to mobilize people to go on the street.
Today, we see more and more individual politicians and entire governments beginning to use Twitter to connect with their communities in new, open ways. India is one such government that has gone as far as rewarding cabinet members with special awards for Twitter use.
In the wake of plans to exit the European Union, the UK government deemed it very important to create a Brexit Twitter account @DExEUgov from which it hopes to drive citizen consciousness on the entire exit process.
Twitter is a type of soapbox for American politicians who use it to speak directly to their constituents. Even the Republicans largely viewed as very conservative are urging their members to get on social media.
The Nigerian Senate under Bukola Saraki has made significant advancement in embracing the platform to reach out to their constituents.
The state governments have also latched onto Twitter to reach their people within and outside their states. Out of the 36 states, it is only Yobe that does not have a Twitter account.
A popular trend with most of the handles is that they are most platforms for announcing various policies, projects and programmes. Very many of the public entities are actually utilizing their Twitter handles to interact with the general populace (apart from a few retweets) and their high doubt that the thousands of suggestions that they receive are ever looked at, let alone noted.