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Abstract
This paper interrogates the visual images and texts Nigerians posted on social media – Facebook as a counter-narrative to President Buhari’s narrative that ‘we have a very young population, a lot of them have not been to school, and they are claiming they should sit and do nothing but get housing, health care, and education free’. The narrative of Muhammadu Buhari was interpreted by Nigerians as suggesting that the youths are lazy. This attracted a swift reaction from Nigerians, who used social media platforms as the medium through which to present their counter-narrative not merely to the President but global consumers that Nigerian youths are not lazy. In doing this, eight visual images that show young Nigerians engaged in different socio-economic activities were analysed and some interactive texts that convey counter-narrative were interpreted. The analysis reveals that despite government failure in providing a developmental plan for the youths in Nigeria, they are either acquiring skills in furniture making or fashion designs. Some others engage in hawking of different products as a means of livelihood. Besides, a group of young men waiting under the sun on motorcycles in another visual image reflects commercial motorcycle transporters. We concluded that the visual images demonstrate that young Nigerians are not lazy but hardworking and energetic.
DISCLOSURE STATEMENT
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
[1] This view was expressed by Arnould et al, in their article ‘Africa uprising? The protest, the drivers, the outcomes.’
[2] See Brian Creech (Citation2014).
[3] See Gheytanchi and Moghadam Citation2014.
[4] Definition of youths by the United Nations [O]. Available:http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/documents/youth/fact-sheets/youth-definition.pdf.
[6] Simon Kemp, digital 2021: Nigeria. Datareportal. [O] Available: https://datareportal.com/reports/digital-2021-Nigeria.
[7] See Munachim Amah and Bukola Adebayo, article titled ‘We are not lazy,’ Nigerian youth lash out a President Buhari on social media. CNN 21 April 2018.
[8] Homi Bhabha (Citation1990).
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Sule Ameh James
Sule Ameh James obtained his Ph.D. in Visual Studies from the University of Pretoria. His research focuses on modern/contemporary art history and visual culture.
Olubunmi Omobola Sule
Olubunmi Omobola Sule is a Ph.D. candidate in Computer Science at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. Her research focuses on image processing, computer vision, and deep learning.