How Twitter is Used to Hold the Nigerian Government Accountable in Nigeria: Case Study of BudgIT and TrackaNG

The rise of social media has given ordinary citizens the tools they need to serve as watchdogs to leaders in elected positions in Nigeria. This power is needed in an age where public perception is that mainstream media works for a select few and not the masses. This research was conducted to determine how non-governmental organizations in Nigeria uncover the misuse of public office by elected officials in Nigeria. A comparative study was conducted on Twitter to monitor tweets posted by NGOs using the Twitter handle @BudgIT and @TrackaNG. These Twitter handles were purposely chosen because they are coordinated by influential citizen journalists in Nigeria who have been known to ask direct questions to elected officials on how they use funds allocated to their offices. A deductive coding sheet was developed and used for this study to answer the research questions. The study covers the period from 1 October 2019 to 7 January 2020 because this was the period of budget debates, signing and allocation of funds. 232 tweets counted during limitation of the study, selected for the study through content analysis. The study employed the purposive sampling method. Items measured in this research are; accountability, allocation, asking questions, administrative problems, themes and presentation. The results were coded by two coders. The inter-coder reliability tests revealed high level of agreement between the two coders. The highest level of agreement was presentation at 1.000 while the lowest agreement was accountability at .674. The findings of the research reveal that BudgIT and TrackaNG used their platform to hold the government accountable and to inform the citizens on how each state fund is distributed and to uncover administrative problems. 75.5% of the tweets discussed accountability while 20.5% discussed governance in general; for asking questions, 51.5% asked questions and demanded increased allocation for underfunded sectors in Nigeria’s budget while 55.5% discussed administrative problems while asking questions. The recurring themes in the tweets analysed for this research were financial integrity which was 46.5%, increased allocation of resources which was 35% and civic participation at 18.5%. The study recommends that BudgIT, TrackaNG and similar organizations in Nigeria should establish partnerships with mainstream media, international organizations and human rights organisations as a protective measure against the government. It also recommends that further studies should be done to compare how alternative media and mainstream media cover financial matters in Nigeria. Keywords: Social Media, Twitter, Citizen Journalists, Nigeria, BudgIT, TrackaNG