By Edikan Umoh
The Nigerian presidential and gubernatorial elections are set to take place in early 2027, and political party primaries and campaigns have already started. In the midst of this, there’s been a deliberate rewrite by the politically influenced media of what has happened over the past four years.
To combat this, new and diverse media outlets are evolving, offering interesting ways to present news and history, especially as we get closer to the elections.
To investigate this, I spoke with creators across several forms of diverse media.
How We Got Here?
The media famously serves as a watchdog and protector of the public interest. Presently, the industry is going through a transitional period in which old systems are being adapted to new tastes. Traditional media remains resilient, but independent media organisations have grown, shifting news consumption toward real-time, mobile-first platforms while challenging traditional legacy gatekeepers.
Nigeria has 109 million active internet users and 47.8 million active social media users, paving the way for the growth of these independent digital newsrooms. With 94 per cent of Nigerians relying on online media as their primary news source, and 79 per cent using social media to access news, these platforms have become increasingly important.
New media organisations, such as Zikoko, Stears, HumAngle, The Republic, GST, and Big Cabal Media, have become influential voices, with Stears raising $3.3 million for a data start-up and Big Cabal Media raising $2.3m to build and extend new content verticals.
But at what point did the decline in traditional media start?
The 2023 Reuters media report highlighted the struggle of traditional media to connect with the public because of the rising dependence on social media. And as scepticism towards the news grows, people are increasingly turning away from news. A variety of reasons contribute to this decline: bias, misreporting, and the rise of diverse media.
For Nigeria, the catalyst was during Nigeria’s EndSARS protests in October 2020. These protests were notable for their scale and decentralised nature. With no single leader or organising body, young Nigerians mobilised across cities to demand an end to police brutality. Equally striking was the limited coverage from much of Nigeria’s traditional media, creating a gap that independent outlets stepped in to fill.
Additionally, the 2023 presidential elections passed off largely peacefully, but turnout was affected by fuel shortages, insecurity, and evidence of voter suppression. Election rallies and political speeches received extensive media coverage, but questions remained about the objectivity of some reporting, particularly given traditional outlets’ reliance on political and government advertising. Trust was tempered by the public’s awareness of this interference, driving some audiences toward alternative digital spaces.
There’s an unbundling of media. Newsrooms are shrinking and audiences are fragmented across platforms, creating the opportunity for more agile intellectual spaces. Anyone with internet access can now become a citizen journalist or launch an independent platform, giving individuals and communities a greater voice and enabling coverage of niche topics often overlooked by mainstream media.
The Growth of Diverse Media and Why It Matters
Adedayo Agarau, a Nigerian poet and content designer, built 1000 reasons to vote out of pure political passion. The original launch garnered about one million views, with the project website gaining upwards of 45,000 monthly views over the past five months. It started as a project to collect a thousand reasons not to re-elect the current president in 2027, and its virality and resonance caused the project to evolve to about six more features, including documenting the people who have been looting Nigeria since 1960, a performance report card for every Nigerian federal officeholder and state governor, and more.
“We’re heavily reliant on the media in Nigeria, and because of that, many people aren’t able to distinguish between paid content and propaganda,” Adedayo says. “That’s where people like us come in.”
Adedayo explains that traditional Nigerian media operate under significant constraints. “You publish something and the National Broadcasting Commission can come after you. You write something critical, and suddenly you’re being questioned.” That’s why projects like these matter, he says, for people with the time, resources, creativity, technical skills and, importantly, the relative safety to build them.
Similarly, Archivi.ng’s goal is to provide historical context for understanding Nigeria as it exists today. They preserve old Nigerian newspapers, provide the public with access to this history, and help people make sense of them by highlighting the historical moments that are especially relevant to what’s happening today. In the past few years of operation, they have gained about 100,000 followers across multiple platforms on social media and 35,000 monthly views on their website. The question they ask is: How much context can we provide for current events by looking at what happened 30, 50, or even 100 years ago?
Chimamanda Odigboh, a 19-year-old student at Pan Atlantic University, started creating political content because she felt there was a severe lack of political consciousness in the Nigerian online space. “At the time, there was a trend where people made dancing videos with captions, and most of those captions were misogynistic, classist, or generally harmful,” she says. “I thought, if that format gets so much attention, why can’t we use the same format to talk about political issues? I started using dancing videos with political captions to get people thinking about Nigerian issues.” These dancing videos have garnered over 3 million views on TikTok, with the most popular one having one million views
How Diverse Media Impacts Audiences
By offering different perspectives and ways of presenting information, diverse media generates a wide range of reactions and actions among readers and audiences.
Adedayo found that his project changed the way people interact with data and the news by helping people understand how ordinary data affects their lives. For example, his inflation payslip tool shocked even educated professionals by revealing how much inflation and taxes had eroded their earnings over time. “That’s what data does,” he says, “Once you present data in a way that tells a story, people begin to see something that’s been in front of them all along from an entirely new perspective.”
Samson Toromade, the editorial and storytelling lead of Archiving, says their project aims to combat ignorance. “One thing that’s become very common on social media is that people can be confidently wrong, yet still receive thousands of reposts simply because they’re loud,” he says. “Unfortunately, many people have no reliable source to verify those claims. That’s why projects like our Election Context Project are valuable.”
Let’s take the example of the claim that President Tinubu introduced tribalism into Nigerian politics. While many feel ethnic politics intensified during recent elections, Nigeria’s political history shows that tribalism has been a feature for decades, with ethnic tensions contributing to the Nigerian Civil War. “If people have access to that historical context, they begin to ask better questions,” Samson says.
Chimamanda’s TikTok videos had a significant impact on the mindset of many Nigerian youth. After Trench Talk, more young people started making talking videos and creating political content because they realised there was actually an audience interested in those conversations. “I have a public folder on my TikTok filled with videos from people making think pieces about Trench Talk,” she says. “Many of them agreed with what I was saying and argued that those conversations needed to happen. A lot of people genuinely engage in good faith.”
However, Adedayo thinks Nigerians are not very good at sustained awareness. “We’re angry, but we’re people of the moment,” he says. “There’s a concept in machine learning called recall. Recall is the ability to retrieve information that you’ve already learned. We remember things, but we don’t really recall them. Something happens, we’re angry for a while, and then we move on. We don’t really hold on to issues or revisit them over time.”
Since he stopped posting regularly about 1000 Reasons, engagement has dropped. The resources are still there, and Nigerians should be sharing them if they genuinely care about information and accountability. Since people are paid to spread negative narratives, fund Twitter bots, and encourage division and tribalism every day, it’s incredibly important that Nigerians return to tools like 1000 Reasons regularly to push back against those narratives.
Understanding History Ahead of the 2027 Elections
Political awareness about one’s country’s political system is crucial to its political growth and level of citizenship. And the more people use the media to access the news, the higher their political awareness, which is essential to both political participation and development. As diverse media grows, the platforms provide opportunities for political growth, democracy strengthening, and political reform.
Samson from Archiving believes Nigerians need to be acutely aware of our public memory. “I’ve covered two Nigerian elections, so I understand how election coverage is typically approached,” he says. “One thing I’ve noticed is that we tend to treat every election cycle as an isolated event. The pattern is the same: campaigns, primaries, election day, results and then everyone moves on until four years later. But many of the questions we’re asking today already have historical answers if we simply study the past.”
For example, Samson was surprised to read Chinua Achebe’s 1982 interview discussing vote buying, as it showed that the practice has much deeper roots in Nigeria’s political history. “Instead of asking, ‘Why is this happening now?’ you begin asking, ‘Why has this persisted for more than 40 years?” he says. “And once you ask better questions, you develop a much deeper understanding of the issues.”
Archiving’s biggest advantage is historical perspective. During the 2027 election cycle, their coverage will focus on providing historical context for current events rather than documenting every development.
The Audience’s Perspective
I spoke to Anthonia Francis, a broadcast journalist at Isle 95.9 FM, about her interaction with these different kinds of media. “As a university student, I kept up with the news through newspapers, TV and radio,” she says. “But as social media became more popular, news became more accessible on these platforms.”
However, she approaches these platforms with caution. “For political news, you have to assume every news outlet has a bias they report from,” she says. “Instead of trusting news sources, I have to filter them by understanding their bias and getting the facts.”
Anthonia began turning to independent media platforms because she prioritises sources that are grounded in facts. “As political tensions increased, a lot of the journalists I looked up quit their jobs to become independent journalists, confirming my observation of the assumed bias in reporting,” she says. “They report stories you wouldn’t normally find in mainstream news outlets, hence why I rely on them.”
However, she’s of the opinion that these platforms can only show so much. Their reporting gives a different perspective to what you see on mainstream news outlets, but due to restrictions and lack of resources, they cannot show the full picture, at least not entirely.
The Future of Journalism in the Age of Diverse Media
Archivi.ng sees their work as strictly complementary to traditional media. Traditional media organisations document what’s happening today, while they provide the historical context that helps people better understand those events.
“There are still things traditional media can do that smaller independent organisations simply can’t, whether that’s because of resources, audience reach, or infrastructure,” he says. “Likewise, traditional media picks up ideas, data, or trends from independent platforms, while independent creators also build on reporting from established news organisations.”
By contrast, Adedayo noted that traditional media outlets have largely avoided featuring his work.
“I would have thought that when the project went viral, and everybody saw it, traditional media would have spotlighted it because it’s important work,” he says. “Instead, they’re avoiding it like the plague. So I don’t think it’s complementing traditional media. I think we’re doing important work outside traditional media. Traditional media doesn’t really care about this work and, perhaps, they feel they can’t.”
The Hope For the 2027 Elections
As Nigeria moves towards the 2027 elections, the question is whether projects like 1000 Reasons to Vote will leave a lasting mark beyond the information they provide. For Agarau, that impact may ultimately depend on whether Nigerians return to these resources, question the narratives they encounter, and demand greater accountability from those seeking their votes.
Similarly, Odigboh’s influence may be measured not simply by how many people watch her videos, but by whether the conversations she starts continue beyond the screen. Trench Talk has already encouraged other young Nigerians to create political content, while her video essays push audiences towards books, research and more critical engagement with political ideas. The challenge now is whether that growing interest can become something more sustained.
And Archiving’s influence will be measured by whether Nigerians begin to see the election as part of a much longer story rather than an isolated political moment. By making historical records easier to access and connecting them to today’s issues, the platform hopes to give voters the context to question recurring patterns, evaluate promises, and understand the choices before them. In addition to encouraging more informed conversations and civic participation, Archiving’s impact may extend beyond the 2027 election itself, building a stronger public memory for past and future elections.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Media Diversity Institute. Any question or comment should be addressed to [email protected]
