Nigerian President Announces Candidacy on Facebook

Nigeria’s current president, Goodluck Jonathan, announced through a message on his Facebook profile that he would run in the upcoming presidential election. I am fascinated by this announcement for two reasons: First, Nigeria’s average wage is less than $1 per day, and very few Nigerians have access to the Internet. So how many potential voters will he reach?

Second, I feel that, although this is obviously a PR stunt meant to divert attention from his opponent, it is nonetheless brilliant to make this announcement using social media. Mr. Jonathan has over 211,000 Facebook followers, he posts almost daily and each of his posts receives massive engagement of over 4,000 comments and “likes”.

So, in a country with such scant Internet access, this is a bold move. It remains to be seen how many votes all this social media attention garners Mr. Jonathan come election day.

Well, to him I say: “Goodluck, Jonathan!”

A link to my original news source for this item can be found here: Nigeria's leader declares election bid on Facebook