SOCIAL MEDIA, PARTICIPATORY GOVERNANCE AND NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN NIGERIA
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1. Background of the study
The media and especially the social media have over the years been recognized as a major aspect of governance especially in the advanced countries. Before the advent of democracy, the front liners of the adoption of democracy in the Nigeria during the military era anchored the argument on the issue of participatory governance, where government would be run in an all-inclusive fashion instead of and exclusive form of governance where decisions are taken by a microscopic few. The actualization of this form of governance cannot be made p[possible without the media playing a pivotal role in driving this process. National development and participatory governance runs simultaneously as there will not be development without the masses participating in governance. It is through this participation that the government can adequately identify the needs of the people and work towards alleviating the sufferings of the masses, to this eect, the social media cannot be overlooked in the quest of ensuring adequate development in nations and especially in Nigeria where a lot has been said about the nature of our development not being adequate enough in satisfying at least a reasonable proportion of our populous nation. In the present day governance, the issue of Good Governance and development has assumed the front burner as an indispensable requirement for social, economic and political developments (World Bank, 1989, UNESCO, 2005; Nanda, 2006; Hout, 2007; Gisserlquit, 2012), yet better governance continues to be a source of worry and a big challenge to most countries including Nigeria. Despite these constitutional provisions, as well as the enormous financial resources, and huge potentials of the country, including the social and economic policies that have been implemented by successive administrations good governance and adequate developments continues to be elusive to Nigeria.
Nigeria’s democracy may be considered nascent when compared to the older democracies of the western world.
In another attempt to enthrone Good Governance in the country, recent democratic administrations, organized Good Governance and developmental tours, where officials of the federal ministry of information alongside Journalists from various media houses, inspect the progress of work on the projects executed by the different agencies of the federal and the state governments and post same on social media platforms like Facebook and twitter. To this effect, it was assumed that it would go a long way in ensuring that the social media is adequately carried along but this has not yielded the desired eect
as the social media may be selectively involved in the delivery of good governance to the Nigerian populace.
