Peter Obi, INEC, CBN others top Google search trends for Q1 2023 in Nigeria

Peter Obi, Labour Party’s presidential candidate, has emerged as the most searched individual on Google in Nigeria in the first quarter of 2023. According to the latest trend report by the search giant covering the months of January to March, Nigerians were concerned about politics, pop culture, and Easter.

The country’s general elections, held on February 25, was one of the biggest events of the quarter, throwing up Obi as the most searched individual. Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the president-elect of Nigeria, was second most searched, while Atiku Abubakar the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) candidate came as fifth most searched individual.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) was the most searched entity, followed closely by Peter Obi and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), which had redesigned the currency prior to the elections.

Among the top trending song searches, Spyro’s ‘Who is your guy?’ led the category, followed by Ruger’s ‘Asiwaju’ and ‘Carry me go’ by Boy Spyce and Khaid.

For searches related to the ‘Who is’ questions, ‘Who is your guy?’; ‘Who is the President of Nigeria?’; and ‘Who is the winner of the 2023 presidential election?’ occupied the first three top trending spots.

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The report further revealed Nigerians were curious about religious occasions in the first three months of the year. Backing this up are the top three ‘When is’ questions for the first quarter which include ‘When is Easter 2023’; ‘When is WAEC 2023 starting’; and ‘When is Ramadan fast 2023?’.

Similarly, ‘How to check my polling unit?’; ‘How to drink a pornstar martini?’ and ‘How to become a heavy equipment operator?’ were the top three trending ‘how to’ questions from January to March 2023.

Google Trends is a publicly available tool by Google that displays relative search volume across geographies, time periods, and queries that people want to know about. These search trends information is gleaned from data collated by Google based on what Nigerians have been searching for and asking Google.

The search engine processes more than 40,000 search queries every second. This translates to more than a billion daily searches and 1.2 trillion searches per year worldwide.