Nigeria’s election in April promises to be full of surprises – and I am worried for the people in Nigeria and the region that it may not go well and descend the country into chaos. A Nigerian friend who should know has already said the country has only a 50/50 chance of getting through this unscathed. I don’t think he’s exaggerating, considering the rather shocking reports coming out of the country, such as this recent Amnesty International Urgent Action alert about another old friend, Anyakwee Nsirimovu. The organization Anyakwee started in Port Harcourt, Institute for Humanitarian and International Law, is one of the first 10 members of Kabissa. Here’s a quote from the AI alert:
Anyakwee Nsirimovu, Executive Director of the Institute for Human Rights and Humanitarian Law (IHRHL) in Rivers State, in the Niger delta, was attacked on 4 March, a week after an apparent threat to kill his family if he did not stop his human rights activities. Amnesty International believes that his life may be in danger.
There will no doubt be more reports of incidents like this as we get closer to the elections, which is discouraging to contemplate. However, I am heartened by the strong solidarity shown by members of the African Democracy Forum in response to a posting on their e-network of the AI alert about Anyakwee. People around Nigeria, Africa and indeed the world unequivocally stated their support and readiness.
One way to perhaps help to prevent widescale abuses might be to make this solidarity more readily visible on the Internet through a Nigerian Civil Society Election Blog. I did an Internet search and while there are some bloggers (like this and this and this) discussing the election and Global Voices and Pambazuka News have been covering the elections, I did not see any clear effort to use blogging specifically to prevent violence during the election.
Perhaps I am being naive and there are good reasons for this – I’d love to hear them. But I’m very enthusiastic about the blogosphere and am always wondering how it might be applied to the important work of civil society organizations in Africa. I have jotted down some ideas below that perhaps others might pick up on or that might spur a collaboration. And if not in Nigeria, maybe it will be useful for someone trying to do the same in another “emerging democracy”. Read on, and let me know what you think.
Even if such a coordinated effort does not take off, I’d like to encourage everyone that knows anything at all about what is going on in Nigeria these days to blog actively about it and to tag blog postings at Technorati, Del.icio.us and other social networking sites. The election must be carried out as much as possible in public view, and Nigeria must know the world is watching. If you are concerned for your own safety, you can always blog under a pseudonym at WordPress.com or one of the many other free blogging sites out there.
As I see it, the goal for this Nigerian Civil Society Election Blog would not be to attempt to create a replacement for existing media sources or even to create a particularly reliable source of news about the election. Instead, the goal would be simply to provide a space in the blogosphere where Nigerian citizens and others involved in the Nigerian election process can post their stories (anonymously or with their real name). The sharing of insights and experiences on the ground would shed light on abuses and thereby hopefully prevent them in the future. When credible sources like leading Nigerian civil society organizations or international organizations such as the World Organization Against Torture, Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch publish reports on their websites, they could be linked to through the blog. With all of these things coming together, the blog might then become an important gathering place, and might well make a real impact on the outcome of the election.
Ideally this blog would be set up and maintained by Nigerian civil society organizations, with the help of bloggers. Here are some thoughts on how it might be set up:
- Create a dedicated blog, perhaps using the same open source WordPress blog tool used to create saidia.org
- Give the blog a compelling name – something like NigeriaFreeElections.org – and register and use the domain name for the blog
- Create instructions on the blog for using the same compelling name to tag relevant Nigeria election news and content where you find it using social networking and bridge blog sites like Global Voices, Muti, Flickr, YouTube, Del.icio.us, Technorati, etc
- Create feeds on the blog from the above sites to display tagged headlines, photos, videos etc relevant to the Nigerian elections
- Create a badge like this for likeminded bloggers and organizations to place on their websites to spread the word and create solidarity around the issue of free and fair elections in Nigeria
- Configure the blog to accept not just direct web submissions but also submissions via email (including photos) and SMS
- Tag postings with meaningful names of Nigerian States, Cities as well as topics (e.g. Rivers State, Port Harcourt and police). If the blog is then successful, a tag cloud on the site might become a powerful way to visualize what is happening
Once the site is set up, advertise it widely on African e-mail groups, newsletters and blogs to encourage Nigerians, and in particular Nigerian civil society groups, to participate. For civil society groups engaged in voter education, election monitoring, etc, they could incorporate the blog into their efforts and prepare by training up staff and volunteers on how to contribute to the blog before election activities even begin
Here are some ways people might participate, anonymously or as registered users:
- Post to the blog
- Comment on posts
- Add links to other trusted sources on the web as the election nears and takes place
- Help others find their way to the blog and guide them through the blogging interfaces
- Help spread the word about the blog through their networks
- Post photos to flickr and videos to youtube, using the blog name as a tag so that they can then be linked to via the blog
And as a final word: other social networking tools and sites might be activated in support of this cause. For example, Twitter is a new service that enables the public and private sharing of short messages via web, SMS and instant messenger (google, yahoo etc). It is possible to sign up and find friends to “follow” via SMS (you get their SMS messages sent to Twitter) and also set up a badge on your website to show most recent twitter messages. It is being used by videobloggers and enthusiasts now to follow each other for fun, but as I’ve wondered already and Andy Carvin discusses cogently in his blog, perhaps Twitter can be used to save lives. If so, and if it is technically feasible to use it from Nigeria, it might also be used to cost effectively show signs of life or blow by blow accounts of election activities in April.
Sounds like you need a muti for Nigeria! Just ask and you shall receive
Have you contact the Africa Editors at Global Voices?
There several Nigerian blogs discussing politics and the upcoming elections in Nigeria. Do a Google search or visit Nigerianbloggers.com to see some. The core limitation of blogs is that they do not reach far and wide enough to be an effective tool; however, you could launch the initiative, and trust me several will follow suit.
Thanks for the feedback, folks!
Neville: thanks for so generously offering the muti platform – that would be interesting indeed! Let’s see what other interest emerges in this idea. Also, what I am trying to get my head around is whether it’s necessary to create lots of new infrastructure for this sort of effort, or if we can’t just create a simple blog that takes advantage of existing sites like muti, del.icio.us and technorati to raise awareness around possible election violence in Nigeria.
Beth: I’m in touch with the GV Africa Editors (indeed Sokari is in the Kabissa advisory group) but I haven’t talked to them about this particular idea. Good idea, though – perhaps they could help to focus the world’s attention on Nigeria through that platform. In a way they’d be ideally positioned to offer some of the stuff I was talking about – a Nigeria election homepage on their site that gathers the content and offers instructions for participating via badges, tags to use, etc. I’ll invite them to take a look at this post.
And Imnakoya: good points all, which do seem to support the need for some concerted effort. I was intrigued and amused to see how much goofing around there is on the blogs picked up by nigerianbloggers.com! The Nigerian blogosphere does seem to reflect the rest of the world in the mixture of content. I did see some good stuff in there though regarding the election that I had not seen before.
I’ve started tagging stuff I find at del.icio.us using the (oh so imaginative) tags “nigeria” and “election” – would be interesting to see the picture that emerges at
http://del.icio.us/tag/nigeria+election
Cheers,
Tobias
I have to agree with Imnakoya – there are many Nigerian blogs covering the elections though none of them can claim to be members of the “Civil Society”. If such a blog is to be created which is a great idea – it will have to come from within the country itself. The problem as I see it is that so far other than a few blogs/communities African social movements or civil society are not using blog technology. There isnt any real “offcial” Nigerian community of bloggers either and to be frank the majority do not deal with political or social issues at all.
[...] Так, например, выÑказываютÑÑ Ð¿Ñ€ÐµÐ´Ð»Ð¾Ð¶ÐµÐ½Ð¸Ñ Ð¸Ñпользовать Twitter во Ð²Ñ€ÐµÐ¼Ñ ÐпрельÑких выборов в Ðигери…. ПоÑкольку выборы ожидаютÑÑ Ð±ÑƒÑ€Ð½Ñ‹Ð¼Ð¸ правозащитникам, [...]
Google Translation of this Russian pingback is legible – check it out. It’s mainly expressing enthusiasm for twitter.com, the newly hyped web 2.0 service for keeping in contact with friends via web, email, and SMS text messaging.
Here’s a nice excerpt referring to saidia.org:
Так, например, выÑказываютÑÑ Ð¿Ñ€ÐµÐ´Ð»Ð¾Ð¶ÐµÐ½Ð¸Ñ Ð¸Ñпользовать Twitter во Ð²Ñ€ÐµÐ¼Ñ ÐпрельÑких выборов в Ðигерии .For example, there are proposals to use Twitter during the April elections in Nigeria. ПоÑкольку выборы ожидаютÑÑ Ð±ÑƒÑ€Ð½Ñ‹Ð¼Ð¸ правозащитникам, активиÑтам да и проÑтым гражданам может оказатьÑÑ Ð½ÐµÐ»Ð¸ÑˆÐ½ÐµÐ¹ возможноÑÑ‚ÑŒ ежеминутно Ñообщать и узнавать о том, что проиÑходит на улицах городов.As elections are expected to enjoy human rights, activists and so ordinary citizens can be nelishnei every opportunity to communicate and learn about what is happening in the streets of cities.
I would be really interested in finding out if anyone in Nigeria is able to use Twitter.
Hi
the article in “New Reality” blog was about the new service Twitter and the ideas of using it.
I decided to link your idea of using Twitter on Nigeria’s election in April as a good example.
The translation of this excerpt:
For example, there are proposals to use Twitter during the April elections in Nigeria. As elections are expected to be not so quiet, it could be good opportunity for human rights watchers, activists and so ordinary citizens to communicate and know about what is happening in the streets at the moment.
Ladies and gents:
Sorry, am kind of a neophite computer user, my children say I two centuries behind. So can you please help educate me about this “blogg” thing, you see I am in the US of A yet have not gotten into the internet “chatroom”, now you guys and girls are talking about “blogging”. I’d just wanted to know about what’s becoming of the upcoming Nigerian election and when I Google it, I came into your website.
The way folks talk about curruptions in African coutries in general and Nigeria in particular, it makes people think that curroption is sinanimous to Africa. There are curroption every where in cluding my beloved US oa A Or what will you consider the present adminstration taking billions of taxpayer money to plunge into the Iraq war and only the White House big guns got the fat and often inflated contracts? Or what would you can the Boston, Massachusett’s glorified BIG DIG where millions of dollars were syphone off by closely politically connected contractors? That’s just to name a few. Ok you’re talking about election. Has anyone been able to explain the 2000 Presidential elections – especially what obtained in the state of Florida? And how about subsequent elections frot with irregularities, which are always swept under the carpet just to keep “Democracies going”?
Now regaring Nigerian election, let’s pray that it will go on and that President Obasonjo with his boys will not try to hijack it. And let’s pray that violence will be very minimal so the most vulnerable members of society – the poor – will be spared unnecessary pain and losses. I remember President Obasonjo when he visited Harvard University school of government, immediately after his first term in office, stating the military interventions in Africa was sanctioned by the superpowers at one time and that they (the super powers) no longer consider it expedient for control, rather it’s civilian politicians. And given our US governments champoining “peration Freedom Irag”, albeit with the heviest of military might, I believe that the election in Nigeria a few days from now will hold. GOD save, Democarcy of Nigeria, in JESUS name.
AU
Baltimore, MD, US of A
greenlightnigeria.org
… it begins
Thanks for inspiring us to get this started, Mr Eigen, and for the support. We owe you and Kabissa yet another one.
Apart from some of the technology issues that people are raising here – and which you and I have talked back and forth offblog – I think Imnakoya and Sokari are highlighting the main challenges we have to overcome:
Nigeria and Africa isn’t up to speed with “blog” technology.
(I.e.: How to get Flickr, Technorati, Twitter, WordPress, Joomla, Tagging, YouTube and everything to work together so you can do something useful with them.)
To be fair… I think some European human rights activists, who think they know a thing or two about websites, are also lagging somewhere behind in understanding how it all works together… I’ve learned a lot this week
The other main challenge for us, which Imnakoya and Sokari are correctly identifying is that the Nigerian “blogverse” is fragmented at the moment.
I think that is a reflection of Nigerian politics… things are not falling apart, so much as very slowly crumbling. (I have written about this here. I also write a little there about my experiences in Port Harcourt at Easter in 2003. On which note, by a coincidence I’m writing this on Easter Sunday 2007 so Happy Easter everyone
)
Greenlightnigeria.org is going to be an interesting experiment, to see if we can get a wave of enthusiasm for blogging going across the whole country.
In fact, why stop there? If this becomes a useful tool during Nigeria’s elections – with the biggest electorate in Africa – it must be possible to use the same technologies and approaches throughout the continent.
But we are very much aware of the fact that this is an experiment. April is the start of the process… the real crunch time is in February, when local government elections are scheduled.
For now, the main advantages greenlightnigeria.org has are for election monitors, activists and indepedent witnesses to the elections; all of whom want to be able to get information, experiences and opinions out, but want to minimise the risks to themselves of going public.
I am going to have to do a bit of editing and managing as we will have multiple bloggers, plenty of opportunity for people to interact through comments and in other ways.
We will have to manage the garbage-in / garbage-out problem with having multiple contributors… there’s no getting around our legal obligations as publishers in the UK, so a certain amount of fact checking is unavoidable.
For this reason we would love people to approach us to become bloggers – as well as to be “commenters” etc – but we will probably have to pick people up slowly, do basic ID checks, etc…
However, despite these limitations I am really excited by the huge opportunities for people to interact and use this as a tool to create debate.
More to come… -t
[...] a comment to my Blueprint for a Nigerian Civil Society Election Blog, Tim Concannon announced the greenlightnigeria.org blog – I’m glad to see this development [...]
Yes gunmen can not stop Nigerian elections. You are damn right. They must not be allowed even if they can. Images of Nigeria in recent days have been badly damaged by the failure of the Africans to rally round Nigeria as we always do during our fellow continent nations difficulties.
The attacks from those fanatic Christians and Muslims to preach for moral grounds in a country in need first of unity and common goal is immoral. I have been visiting the African Muslim website esinislam.com for the past tow week everyday. I am depressed to read the Africans like these still cannot see the division the religions are causing in our problematic continent is much more deadly than any morality they teach.
Forget about Christianity. Forget about Islam. these are foreign faith and opposite of all that Africa stand for. Democracy? Well why not. It’s more modern than both Christianity and Islam. So we can relate. Although the recent articles from esinislam.com are gradually rubbing me my trust in democracy, the alternative, however, is a no go area. Wars, discriminations, hatred, tribalism, all in the name of religion.
Enough is enough. We have suffered enough from foreign ways of lives. Can’t we leave things for the Obas, Emirs, and Obis?
Well, that’s my point. Our own traditions.
[...] I got an email this morning from BBC inviting me to join their talk on today’s Have Your Say program is the Nigerian election. They appear to be interested in hearing about how technology is being used, and my post last month on Blueprint for a Nigerian Civil Society Election Blog. [...]
[...] focused his attention to blogging and civil society. He wrote a “Blueprint for a Nigerian Civil Society Election Blog,” arguing that the blog might help to prevent abuses: One way to perhaps help to prevent widescale [...]
[...] posted a Blueprint for a Nigerian Civil Society Election Blog in hopes of using blogging to prevent election violence, and after some discussions in the comments [...]