Three major policies and decisions had the most social media impact within Tinubu’s first 60 days in office, Dataphyte’s newly released sentiment analysis showed. These include the removal of subsidies, signing the Access to Higher Education law that establishes a Student’s Loan Fund, and announcing the first batch of ministerial appointments. The report essentially focuses on these economic, educational, and political policies and decisions.
Data Overview
The research utilized open-source intelligence tools to scrape social media conversations related to President Tinubu’s policies in his first 60 days. The focus was on three keywords: Tinubu’s Subsidy (from May 29 to May 31), Tinubu’s Education loan (from June 12 to June 15), and Tinubu’s Ministerial appointment (from July 27 to July 29). On Facebook, data was sourced only from public pages, while on Twitter, algorithms were used.
The data was prepared by excluding GIFs, memes, videos, emoticons, and posts from users who used trending words and hashtags for different purposes. The results showed that the subsidy removal and education loan attracted more social media engagements.
Based on this methodology, the results show that the subsidy removal attracted the highest number of commentaries on Facebook (861) and the second highest on Twitter (699).
The number of commentaries on the Student Loan/Access to Higher Education Act came second on Facebook (755) but made the lowest count on Twitter (312).
The political discussion on ministerial appointments attracted opposite interest on the two main social media platforms. They had the least commentaries on Facebook (495) but the highest commentaries on Twitter (755).
Subsidy Removal – Economy
President Bola Tinubu announced the removal of fuel subsidies in Nigeria, which has been continuously subsidized due to the country’s incapability to meet local demands. The subsidy regime has been alleged to provide room for corruption and embezzlement. This led to the call for its removal by many.
However, the sudden announcement by Tinubu during his inaugural speech on May 29 led to a rise in the price of petrol, causing an increase in inflation and poverty. Citizens were concerned about the manner in which the subsidy removal was announced and the lack of trust in the government to commit to prudent spending.
Nevertheless, international rating agencies see the subsidy removal as a positive step for the country’s credit profile.
This, however, did not stop backlashes from citizens as some of them on social media platforms described Tinubu as a “dull president,” “proud and arrogant,” and a “mugu” that “only knows drugs.”
Higher Education Access Act – Education
The Access to Higher Education Act was signed by President Tinubu in June 2023 to establish an interest-free Education Loan Fund (ELF) for Nigerians to attend higher institutions. The loan is to be paid back in instalments two years after completing the mandatory National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) programme.
However, concerns were raised about the high cost of tertiary education and the accessibility of the loan’s conditions, requiring at least two guarantors of high status. Some Nigerians doubted that the loan may only be accessible to the privileged, and there were doubts about the recovery of loans since 1972 when the Nigeria Student Loan Board was first established.
Despite these concerns, many others applauded the initiative, including the committee of Vice Chancellors of private universities. Some economists also backed the bill as a good one for the country’s development in the long run.
Ministerial Appointments – Politics
On the 59th day of his presidency, Bola Tinubu, the Nigerian President, presented a list of 28 ministerial appointments to the Senate House for screening. The list failed the test of affirmative action, with only 28% women appointees. Mixed reactions greeted the news, with concerns raised about the historical records of some persons selected and the fact that very little of their expertise may have been considered. The nomination of Nyesom Wike as a Minister received the most interest, with many citizens seeing this as a betrayal of his party and likened him to “Judas,” which biblically means a betrayer.
Others shared the sentiment that the nomination was a “reward for election riggers” and “compensation for election rigging.”
Election and Ethnic Sentiments
Overall, citizens were also greatly concerned with where the nominated ministers came from and which region may be overrepresented or underrepresented. A group from southwestern Nigeria raised concerns against lopsided appointments that may discriminate against other southwesterners.
The research’s findings indicate that social media comments within the 60 days were still directly linked to the 2023 presidential election, and these comments were marked with tribal and ethnic sentiments.
Also, Peter Obi and the PDP were mentioned more times than the ruling party, APC.
Comments analysed across the platforms referenced Tinubu’s pre-election activities, such as his refusal to attend debates and avoidance of campaign debates.
Further analysis showed that the word “election” was mentioned almost as often as the words “court/tribunal”. This suggests that the election ambience may not be totally over until maybe a formal judgement from the tribunal or supreme court, as the case may be.