Lexicon-based bot-aware public emotion mining and sentiment analysis of the Nigerian 2019 presidential election on Twitter

Online social networks have been widely engaged as rich potential platforms to predict election outcomes' in several countries of the world. The vast amount of readily-available data on such platforms, coupled with the emerging power of natural language processing algorithms and tools, have made it possible to mine and generate foresight into the possible directions of elections' outcome. In this paper, lexicon-based public emotion mining and sentiment analysis were conducted to predict win in the 2019 presidential election in Nigeria. 224,500 tweets, associated with the two most prominent political parties in Nigeria, People's Democratic Party (PDP) and All Progressive Congress (APC), and the two most prominent presidential candidates that represented these parties in the 2019 elections, Atiku Abubakar and Muhammadu Buhari, were collected between 9th October 2018 and 17th December 2018 via the Twitter's streaming API. tm and NRC libraries, defined in the 'R' integrated development environment, were used for data cleaning and preprocessing purposes. Botometer was introduced to detect the presence of automated bots in the preprocessed data while NRC Word Emotion Association Lexicon (EmoLex) was used to generate distributions of subjective public sentiments and emotions that surround the Nigerian 2019 presidential election. Emotions were grouped into eight categories (sadness, trust, anger, fear, joy, anticipation, disgust, surprise) while sentiments were grouped into two (negative and positive) based on Plutchik's emotion wheel. Results obtained indicate a higher positive and a lower negative sentiment for APC than was observed with PDP. Similarly, for the presidential aspirants, Atiku has a slightly higher positive and a slightly lower negative sentiment than was observed with Buhari. These results show that APC is the predicted winning party and Atiku as the most preferred winner of the 2019 presidential election. These predictions were corroborated by the actual election results as APC emerged as the winning party while Buhari and Atiku shared very close vote margin in the election. Hence, this research is an indication that twitter data can be appropriately used to predict election outcomes and other offline future events. Future research could investigate spatiotemporal dimensions of the prediction

Twitter Discourse on the Pre-Presidential Election Campaign in Nigeria

Citizens’ political participation and engagement on various social media handles have made it necessary for scholars to investigate and understand the potentials inherent in the political engagement and discourse of individual citizens. Hence, the study examined Twitter discourse on the 2019 pre-presidential election campaign in Nigeria. Purposive sampling technique with thematic textual research method was used to thematically analyse tweets based on the research questions. Findings from the study showed that the kind of engagement made or done by Nigerians regarding the 2019 pre-presidential election campaigns was based on the topic, with most topics being met with sarcasm. The sarcasm found in the tweets pointed to the way Nigerians react in a situation that they have no way of rectifying. Also, findings from the study showed that celebrity tweet gets more engagement compared to tweets made by unpopular tweeps. Conclusively, the study found that the level of discourse on Twitter regarding Nigeria’s 2019 pre-presidential elections was very rich and participatory this implies that Nigerians have a high propensity to relate on social media as their rate of responses as well as their frequency of responses remained high throughout the election campaign period which to a large extent predicts real-life events

Twitter and Election Campaigns: Measuring Usage in Nigeria’s 2015 Presidential Election

This study put the effectiveness of Twitter on the radar in Southeast Nigeria with regard to the 2015 presidential electioneering campaigns of the two leading candidates. The need existed to understand if the online platform used by the incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan of the Peoples‘ Democratic Party (PDP) and challenger Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressive Congress (APC), as part of a complimentary media strategy, was effective in shaping voter behaviour in that part of the country. Data generated from 200 respondents showedthat although Twitter provided the information needed via voters‘ interaction with political candidates, it did not significantly alter voter interest nor affect voting decision. Voters could not recall their use of Twitter as a factor in casting their ballot owing to post election time lapse

The Obidient movement on Twitter and 2023 general election in Nigeria: an extrapolative analysis

The study highlighted that Twitter can be a powerful platform for political mobilization, it is one among many channels for engaging with voters. However, Extrapolation on Obidient Movement in the 2023 general election in Nigeria involves making predictions or projections based on existing trends or pattern. Movements and hashtags on Twitter can draw attention to specific issues, shape narratives, and amplify voices that may otherwise go unheard. They can also facilitate discussions, engage with policymakers, and galvanize support for various causes. The study adopted the survey method and area of study is Imo State. The population is 5,830,489 and sample size of 384 was attained using Wimmer and Dominick calculator. The multistage/cluster sampling technique was adopted and questionnaire was used as the instrument of data collection. The mean and percentage descriptive statistics were used for data presentation. At a mean average of 2.8, there is a greater motivation behind the emergence of the Obidient Movement in Nigeria's 2023 election. The movement have had significant impact on voter behaviour and electoral outcomes in the 2023 general election 2.5 (N=378). The study recommended that those in charge of electoral process in Nigeria must ensure readiness as there will be improved voter participation in subsequent election in the country. Furthermore, political movements must look at the broader political and social dynamics leading up to subsequent elections

The Political Consequences of the Protests against Neo-Liberal Reforms in Nigeria: The Case of OccupyNigeria Movement

This paper analyses the mechanisms, outcomes, and consequences of the Nigerian protest movement using longitudinal qualitative research. To go about this, the paper looks at the protests in the context of neo-Liberal reforms, the essential trigger of the movement, its objectives, and its achievements are described. The movement started on January 2, 2012 as a direct response to the Nigerian government’s announcement of the commencement of fullscale deregulation of the downstream sector of the petroleum industry. The movement took public protests in Nigeria to a new level with lasting impacts on the political system. This paper observes the “non-institutional” mechanisms adopted by the protesters to achieve their objectives

Twitter and Election Campaigns: Measuring Usage in Nigeria’s 2015 Presidential Election

This study put the effectiveness of Twitter on the radar in Southeast Nigeria with regard to the 2015 presidential electioneering campaigns of the two leading candidates. The need existed to understand if the online platform used by the incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan of the Peoples‘ Democratic Party (PDP) and challenger Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressive Congress (APC), as part of a complimentary media strategy, was effective in shaping voter behaviour in that part of the country. Data generated from 200 respondents showedthat although Twitter provided the information needed via voters‘ interaction with political candidates, it did not significantly alter voter interest nor affect voting decision. Voters could not recall their use of Twitter as a factor in casting their ballot owing to post election time lapse

Validation of Twitter opinion trends with national polling aggregates: Hillary Clinton vs Donald Trump

Measuring and forecasting opinion trends from real-time social media is a long-standing goal of big-data analytics. Despite its importance, there has been no conclusive scientific evidence so far that social media activity can capture the opinion of the general population. Here we develop a method to infer the opinion of Twitter users regarding the candidates of the 2016 US Presidential Election by using a combination of statistical physics of complex networks and machine learning based on hashtags co-occurrence to develop an in-domain training set approaching 1 million tweets. We investigate the social networks formed by the interactions among millions of Twitter users and infer the support of each user to the presidential candidates. The resulting Twitter trends follow the New York Times National Polling Average, which represents an aggregate of hundreds of independent traditional polls, with remarkable accuracy. Moreover, the Twitter opinion trend precedes the aggregated NYT polls by 10 days, showing that Twitter can be an early signal of global opinion trends. Our analytics unleash the power of Twitter to uncover social trends from elections, brands to political movements, and at a fraction of the cost of national polls

An appraisal of the utilisation of social media for political communication in the 2011 Nigerian presidential election

The study is a survey aimed at examining the utilisation of social media for political communication during the 2011 presidential election in Nigeria. The rationale behind the study was to determine whether voters’ choice of presidential candidates was influenced by their social media use. 249 respondents selected through random sampling responded to 249 copies of questionnaire administered. The results of the descriptive statistics show that majority of the respondents’ choice of presidential candidates during the 2011 presidential election was influenced by the use of social media as indicated by high value of mean (1.5805). Similarly, the respondents were of the opinion that the two selected presidential candidates were popular because they used social media in their political campaign (mean value of 1.5575). In addition, the respondents affirmed that their voting pattern during the 2011 presidential elections was influenced by social media usage. This was validated by a high mean value of (1.6667). Similarly, the result of the test of hypothesis indicated that voters’ choice of political candidates was influenced by political communication on social media. The findings further indicated that religious affiliations and ethnicity were also factors that influenced voter’s choice of candidates. In view of the findings of this study, it was therefore concluded that social media have redefined the landscape of political communication in Nigeria and it should continue to be used in future elections in Nigeria. It is also recommended that electorate should also ensure that they deemphasized ethnic and religious considerations in their voting patterns in future elections; only credible candidates should be voted into power.Keywords: Communication, Election, Politics, and Social medi

Youths and the Use of Social Media in the Peaceful Conduct of the 2015 General Elections in Nigeria

The history of elections in Nigeria is replete with records of violence and malpractices. However, with the advent of social media which is globally been used as a tool for political engineering, especially during elections, there is a noticeable change in the attitude of the Nigerian youths.  This paper examines the positive use of social media by organized youth in the peaceful conduct of the 2015 elections in Nigeria. The research adopts a secondary source of data through a critical review of related literatures on the subject matter. The paper posits that unlike the previous elections in Nigeria where youth were used to perpetrate vices, especially through the use of social media, the organised youths in the 2015 elections used the same technology to advocate for peace. Keywords: youth, social media, election, peac