In the past few weeks, the political landscape has been rocked by a series of controversial news stories. However, two political parties and their members have been at the forefront of the discourse.
These parties have engaged in a fierce war of words, each attempting to discredit the other. As a result, both parties have garnered a significant presence on social media platforms, whether it be positive or negative.
Lately, there has been a trend of people utilising hashtags to create tweets that are not related to the hashtags, with the sole purpose of boosting the content’s reach to a wider audience and elevating its position on the trend table.
Peter Obi, the Labour Party (LP) presidential candidate, and Bola Tinubu, Nigeria’s president-elect, have been the subject of intense scrutiny and have dominated social media discussions for four consecutive weeks.
Several hashtags such as #TinubuIsAConvictedDrugDealer, #BolaTinubuIsADrugDealer, #AsiwajuBolaAhmedTinubu, #TinubuOurPresident, #WHEREISTINUBU and #Jagaban have been linked to Tinubu during this period.
While #MrPeterObi, #PeterGregoryObi, #ItisPOssible and #PeterObi have also been linked to Obi.
Both individuals have been linked to several stories, but some controversies stood out more than others.
Peter Obi in London
Obi has found himself back in the public eye after the recent #YesDaddy controversy. This time, due to a controversy surrounding his recent trip to the United Kingdom (UK).
According to a statement released by Diran Onifade, the Head of Obi-Datti Media, Obi was detained and questioned by immigration officials at Heathrow Airport on April 7, 2023.
The exact reason for his detention is yet to be revealed, as UK authorities have not commented on the matter. This incident has sparked widespread discussion on social media platforms, with over 580,000 tweets posted and several individuals offering their opinions on the situation. You can read some of them here and here.
Despite the incident, Obi has opted to stay quiet and made his first post on Twitter on April 18, 2023, since the event. The tweet has surpassed 2.2 million views and can be viewed here.
Tinubu the Viral President
The hashtag #Uberfacts gained significant attention in relation to the ongoing discourse surrounding Tinubu and an alleged drug case in the United States.
On April 10, 2023, UberFacts posted several pictures of documents related to Tinubu’s case, garnering 18.9 million views, this can be viewed here.
The hashtag also trended with over 1 million tweets and sparked various opinions, which can be found here and here.
Another event that sparked widespread attention on social media occurred on April 16, 2023, when an investigative journalist, David Hundeyin, found himself trending on Twitter with the hashtag #DavidHundeyin, garnering over 46,000 tweets.
This came after he made a post revealing that Bola Tinubu, the president-elect of Nigeria, held a Guinea passport.
However, the post was quickly removed by Twitter for violating its rules. The deleted tweet can be seen here. This has raised several conversations surrounding whether social media platforms should have such power to regulate pieces of information.
Similarly, in this same week, a video allegedly showing the governor of Lagos state, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, and Bola Tinubu in a helicopter surfaced on social media on April 19, 2023.
The location of the video was reportedly in Guinea, and it quickly garnered attention, with the hashtag #Sanwo-Olu trending on Twitter with over 24,000 tweets.
Despite the online buzz, neither of the individuals in the video has made any public statements regarding the footage. A link to the tweet can be found here. Some of the reactions by individuals can be seen here and here
Nearly a governor
On March 18, 2023, the gubernatorial election took place in Adamawa State, Nigeria, and a supplementary election followed on April 15, 2023.
The All Progressives Congress (APC) fielded Aisha Binani as their candidate, who was poised to make history by becoming Nigeria’s first female elected governor.
She was touted to defeat the incumbent governor, Ahmadu Fintiri, who is the flagbearer of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
The public was so confident of her victory that several news stories claimed she had won, which we had to debunk and make clarifications.
Following the supplementary election, several controversies sparked up as she was illegally declared the winner, view one such post here.
#AishaBinani immediately started to trend with over 20,000 tweets when she made an acceptance speech having been illegally declared by the INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) in the state.
Although her supposed win has been retracted with several actions taken against the culprits, various discourse centered around the illegal declaration was still trending which can be viewed here and here
Conclusively, according to our forecast, it is likely that Peter Obi and Bola Tinubu will maintain their positions as the most talked-about individuals in the coming weeks.
The competition between them will revolve around their follower’s ability to generate and spread negative propaganda about each other in order to gain an upper hand in popularity.
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