BY: Mustapha Lawal
Ahead of the 2023 General elections, as Nigerians headed to the polls to elect a new president, social media platforms were flooded with videos, voice notes, and purported election results. Some claimed polling units had been attacked. Others alleged that electoral officials had been arrested. Many contained dramatic images and videos that appeared convincing at first glance.
Some were true. Many were not. Yet within minutes, these claims had already spread through WhatsApp groups, Facebook pages, Telegram channels, and X timelines, reaching thousands of people before journalists, election observers, or fact-checkers could verify them. The incident exposed a growing challenge confronting Nigeria’s information ecosystem: access to information is expanding faster than the ability to evaluate it.
At the heart of this challenge lies a problem that receives far less attention than misinformation itself: low digital literacy.
Nigeria’s Information Revolution
Nigeria has experienced one of Africa’s fastest digital transformations. Today, millions of Nigerians receive news through smartphones rather than newspapers, television, or radio. Social media platforms such as Facebook, WhatsApp, TikTok, Instagram, and X have become primary sources of information for many citizens.
This transformation has produced enormous benefits. Citizens can report events in real time. Marginalised communities can amplify their voices. Government officials can communicate directly with the public. Information that once took days to circulate can now reach millions within minutes.
But the same technology that democratized information has also democratized misinformation. Every smartphone user is now a potential publisher. Every Whatspp group is a potential news distribution network. Every social media account can become a source of information, regardless of whether that information is accurate.
The challenge is that while millions of Nigerians have learned how to access information online, far fewer have learned how to verify it.
Digital Literacy Is More Than Knowing How to Use a Smartphone
Many people assume digital literacy simply means knowing how to browse the internet or operate a device. In reality, digital literacy is about critical thinking in the digital age. It includes the ability to:
- Verify the credibility of information sources.
- Distinguish facts from opinions and propaganda.
- Recognise manipulated images and videos.
- Identify misleading headlines.
- Understand how algorithms influence what appears online.
- Cross-check claims before sharing them.
Without these skills, even highly educated individuals can become vulnerable to misinformation. The challenge is not intelligence. It is information verification.
Why WhatsApp Has Become Nigeria’s Most Powerful Misinformation Channel
When people discuss misinformation, attention often focuses on public platforms such as Facebook or X. Yet some of the most influential misinformation campaigns occur in private spaces.
WhatsApp has become one of Nigeria’s most powerful information networks. Messages frequently move through family groups, religious communities, professional associations, alumni networks, and neighbourhood forums. Because information often comes from people users know personally, it carries a level of trust that anonymous social media posts rarely achieve.
A forwarded message from a stranger may be ignored. The same message sent by a pastor, family member, colleague, or community leader is far more likely to be believed. This creates a significant challenge for fact-checkers. By the time misinformation reaches public attention, it may have already circulated through hundreds of private groups where corrections are unlikely to reach.
Elections Expose the Literacy Gap
Election periods often reveal how vulnerable information ecosystems can become. During Nigeria’s 2023 general election, false election results, recycled videos, manipulated photographs, and misleading narratives spread widely online.
Several claims accumulated thousands of shares before verification efforts could catch up. In many cases, people shared information not because they had confirmed it was true but because it aligned with their political preferences.
Research consistently shows that people are more likely to accept information that confirms what they already believe. This is one reason misinformation thrives during elections. Political loyalty often overrides verification. One of the most dangerous consequences of low digital literacy is that people increasingly judge information based on whether it feels true rather than whether it is true. Nigeria has witnessed this phenomenon repeatedly.
During the 2023 elections, several AI-generated images and videos circulated widely online. Despite obvious inconsistencies, many supporters accepted the content as authentic because it reinforced existing political beliefs.
In one public experiment conducted by Zikoko Citizen, participants were shown AI-generated political content and asked whether they believed it was real. Several respondents accepted the content as genuine and even indicated they would share it with others because it supported their preferred political narrative.
The Real Problem Is Structural
It would be easy to blame individual users for sharing false information. But misinformation is not simply an individual failure. It is a structural challenge. Nigeria’s education system rarely teaches media literacy as a core civic skill. Students learn how to use digital tools but often receive little training on how to evaluate online information critically.
At the same time, social media platforms continue to reward engagement over accuracy. Content that generates outrage, fear, anger, or excitement often receives greater visibility than content that is factual but less emotionally compelling. This creates an ecosystem where misinformation can flourish.
Building a More Resilient Information Ecosystem
Addressing Nigeria’s misinformation challenge requires more than fact-checking individual claims. It requires building a digitally literate society.
Schools need to integrate media and information literacy into their curricula. Journalists and civil society organizations must continue educating citizens on verification techniques. Technology companies should improve transparency around manipulated and AI-generated content.
Governments must also recognize digital literacy as a matter of national resilience. A society unable to distinguish facts from falsehoods becomes vulnerable not only to misinformation but also to political manipulation, social unrest, and democratic erosion.
The Future Depends on Information Literacy
Nigeria’s digital transformation is one of the country’s greatest success stories. But access to information alone does not create an informed society. In an age where every citizen can publish information and every smartphone can influence public opinion, digital literacy has become as important as traditional literacy.
The future of Nigeria’s information ecosystem will depend not only on how quickly information moves, but on how effectively citizens can determine whether that information deserves to be believed. Because in the digital age, the most valuable skill is no longer finding information. It is knowing what information to trust.
EDITOR’S NOTE:
This article is part of FactCheckAfrica series examining the growing harms of artificial intelligence (AI) across Africa, with a particular focus on Nigeria. As AI systems increasingly shape elections, employment, security, and public discourse, this series interrogates who benefits, who is harmed, and who is held accountable when technology outpaces governance.
