The second round of Nigeria’s national elections are over, with results for the big presidential race still to come. I wrote a story about the role of new media and technology in changing local political culture:
This type of engagement is hardly heroic—and you won’t see Nigerians setting themselves aflame anytime soon. But it is a major shift in local civics, says Garrick, whose organization (which is completely virtual) staged a March debate in the capital, Abuja, that incorporated questions submitted via social media. These voters still worry about employment, education, and power generation, But “in the age of BlackBerrys and iPhones and all that, it’s easy for you to just plug in and connect with people at the grassroots level,” she says. “While it’s not all demographics that have access to these media, people understand that we can spread it and we have to start from somewhere.”
