"Where there is no vision, the people perish; but where there is no truth, the people turn against each other."
The question of whether social media poses an existential threat to Nigeria may at first seem improbable. Yet in today's Nigeria, where the political order is strained, where cohesion is brittle, where cynicism is rampant and where the state struggles to project authority or inspire trust, this question deserves sober reflection. Social media has become the central arena in which national anxieties, frustrations, grievances, and aspirations are expressed.
It has given voice to millions of young Nigerians long excluded from government or traditional institutions, and it has created unprecedented channels of civic awareness. But it has also become a potent accelerant of misinformation, fake news, polarisation, ethnic and religious antagonisms, subversion and emotional mobilisation. In a fragile country, such mixture of potent and volatile forces cannot be treated with levity.
A recent international development illustrates just how seriously other nations now view the challenge posed by social media. Australia, one of the world's most stable democracies and a developed economy, has imposed restrictions on teenage access to social media, citing fears about mental health, the erosion of civic values, and the vulnerability of young people to algorithmic manipulation. This was not an authoritarian impulse but an admission by a stable democracy that unregulated digital platforms can undermine national cohesion. If a wealthy, cohesive society feels threatened by social media's influence, how much more precarious must the situation be for Nigeria, where institutional capacity is weaker, the economy is struggling and the social fabric more fragile?
Social media magnifies and sometimes distorts whatever it encounters. In stable societies, it amplifies constructive debate and broadens civic participation. In fragile ones, it intensifies division and accelerates conflict. Nigeria falls into the latter category not because social media is inherently malign, but because the Nigerian state is too weak, too fragmented, and too distrusted to moderate or mediate its effects. The threat arises from the interaction between a volatile digital ecosystem and a governance architecture unable to contain or counteract its pressures.
The first vulnerability lies in the weakness of state communication. In the digital age, governments must respond to events in real time. Credible information must be provided swiftly; rumour must be neutralised before it metastasises. Nigeria has not adapted to this reality. When crises occur, whether security-related, economic, or communal, the state often responds late, poorly, or incoherently. Silence, contradictions, and defensive denials create a vacuum that social media rushes to fill. In this environment, misinformation becomes more convincing than official explanations, and panic spreads faster than reassurance. The state loses control of the narrative before it even begins to speak. Cases abound to buttress this point.
This breakdown of narrative authority is inseparable from Nigeria's broader crisis of institutional legitimacy. Decades of unfulfilled promises, dubious elections, bad politics, erratic governance, constrained political royalties and perceived injustices have produced a citizenry deeply sceptical of official claims. Nigerians doubt official reports, second-guess judicial outcomes, question economic data, and take government statements with more than a pinch of salt. In such a climate, social media narratives, whether factual, fabricated, or manipulated, gain traction more easily than pronouncements from established institutions. The digital realm becomes the unofficial parliament of national opinion, driven more by raw emotion than by cold evidence.
Australia's concerns echo this problem, but perhaps even more revealing is the United States' fierce controversy over TikTok, which American lawmakers argued posed a national security threat. The worry extended far beyond data privacy. U.S. officials feared that TikTok's algorithm, shaped by a foreign-owned company, could influence political discourse, manipulate public sentiment, and subtly destabilise the democratic process. They feared that a platform used by millions of American teenagers could become an instrument of foreign influence, altering their worldview, values, and civic identity. If a state as powerful, wealthy, and technologically advanced as the United States fears losing interpretive control over its youth and its national narrative, then Nigeria's vulnerabilities, given its weaker institutions, technological limitations and more fragile cohesion, are exponentially greater.
Security challenges further deepen Nigeria's vulnerability. Social media has become a strategic tool in modern conflict. Insurgent groups such as Boko Haram and ISWAP have mastered the psychological dimension of warfare, using videos and statements to intimidate the population and portray the state as irresolute, weak or absent. Even when such materials are fabricated or exaggerated, they travel faster than any counter-narrative the government can generate. Australia and the United States worry about foreign manipulation; Nigeria must also contend with domestic insurgents who treat social media as a battlefield.
Regulation presents an additional challenge. Whereas Australia has adopted targeted, evidence-based measures and the United States has pursued legal frameworks to mitigate the risks of foreign-controlled platforms, Nigeria's approach veers between blunt repression and inaction. Genuine abuses such as hate speech, impersonation, disinformation, extremist mobilisation, ethnic profiling, etc, go largely unaddressed. The absence of intelligent regulation allows digital toxicity to flourish. Offenders face no consequences, and harmful narratives circulate unimpeded, thereby aggravating tension and expanding dangerous cleavages.
Economic hardship further intensifies the emotional dynamics of Nigeria's digital landscape. Millions of young people facing unemployment and insecurity channel their frustrations into social media. What Australia fears for its teenagers in the forms of distorted self-perception, mental distress, and social fragmentation, Nigeria experiences at a deeper political level in the forms of alienation, anger, disillusionment, and radicalisation. Economic disenchantment fuels online resentment, and resentment fuels political instability and insecurity.
The Australian and American cases affirm a crucial lesson: even the most capable democracies now recognise that social media shapes behaviour, identity, and citizenship in ways that states no matter how powerful can no longer ignore. The challenge is universal. But in countries like Nigeria, where institutions are fragile, social cohesion thin, and trust depleted, the danger becomes existential.
The platforms themselves are neutral; the threat emerges from the weakness of the state confronting them.
?If Australia, stable and cohesive, must act to protect its social fabric; if the United States, powerful and technologically advanced, fears losing control of its national narrative to algorithmic manipulation, then Nigeria faces an even more urgent imperative. Unless the Nigerian state strengthens its capacity, rebuilds trust, and adopts a deliberate digital governance strategy, social media will continue to magnify instability, minimise progress, accelerate division, debase patriotism and undermine national cohesion. The question, therefore, is no longer whether social media is a threat, but whether Nigeria possesses the institutional strength and strategic foresight to prevent that threat from becoming an existential crisis.