Emily van Egmond sent the home fans into delirium just before the interval, tapping home a sweeping move to give Australia the lead.

With the stadium bouncing as the Australia fans celebrated, Uchenna Kanu delivered the first sucker punch to dampen the mood at the Brisbane Stadium, somehow managing to scramble home a scuffed cross.

In the second half, a close-range header from Osinachi Ohale and Asisat Oshoala’s finish from a tight angle extended Nigeria’s lead.

And although Alanna Kennedy did score in the 10th minute of added time to give Australia late hope, Nigeria held on for a memorable victory to send the Super Falcons top of Group B.

The result means Nigeria has a one point lead going into its final group game against already eliminated Ireland, while Australia face a must-win game against Canada, sitting a point behind the Olympic champion.

Upsetting the hosts

A World Cup host playing in front of its own fans is always a spectacle.

An energetic crowd, full of energy and song, cheering on their favorite players decked out in their home kit; and at the Brisbane Stadium, it was no different.

The bouncing fans, in their gold and green kits, serenaded the Matildas in their game against Nigeria – both teams’ second match of the Women’s World Cup.

As Australia came forward in waves of attacks, cheers peaked then fell each time the Matildas got the ball, sliding into a communal sigh when the chance to score slipped away.

A drum beat marked time in the background as Australian fans spontaneously broke into a synchronized clap, willing their team to the other end of the pitch.

Those fans’ passion and commitment was eventually rewarded, Van Egmond steering a well-directed cross into the bottom corner and ran to celebrate with the rest of her teammates and coaching staff.

The goal was met with thunderous, almost deafening applause and it looked like Australia, who had beaten Ireland in its opening group game, was well on its way to booking its spot in the knockout stages of the Women’s World Cup.

[CNN]

Real Madrid midfielder Jude Bellingham has opened up on his bust-up with Manchester United defender Lisandro Martinez during both teams’ pre-season friendly tie.

Bellingham was involved in a heated confrontation with Martinez during the encounter.

The friendly match was played at the NRG Stadium in Texas in the early hours of Thursday (Nigerian time).

“The little tiff with [Lisandro] Martinez is one of those things,” said Bellingham during his post-match interview. “He is a brilliant player.

“I came in at half-time and I was f’ing this and f’ing that. But when he came over to wish me all the best when he came off, I really respected it. I know what goes on the pitch stays on the pitch.”

He added, “He is a great competitor and a great player. Just like me, he wants to win. Sometimes it spills over. That is part of the game. I am really respectful.”

Bellingham recently joined Madrid from Dortmund this summer.

The England international is expected to play a key role in Carlo Ancelotti’s side next season.

[DailyPost]

After playing the ostrich for so many years, it has now become apparent that state police is inevitable. The call by Lagos State speaker, Mudashiru Obasa during the House of Assembly’s first plenary on July 11, on lawmakers of the Senate and the House of Representatives to “begin an amendment of the constitution to contain the creation of the alternative policing” should therefore only serve as a sad reminder of our past folly.

 For close to 50 years, the south and other well informed Nigerians have called for the establishment of state police on the premise that ‘local problems require local solutions’. The hegemonic powers who wish to preside over an empire of slaves rejected such a call because of selfish political considerations.

More tragic, our military, a creation of the colonial powers, share the same mind-set with their creator and role model. Subsequently, when our military leaders including Obasanjo through Babangida and Buhari, men who were never trained to manage the affairs of society, fortuitously found themselves in power, they, like the departed occupying powers, arrogantly equated their periodic brain-wave to a viable policy alternative for a conquered territory.

First was the delusion that 36 federating states and 774 LGAs created and funded from Abuja without objective criteria was best for a multicultural, multi-ethnic and heterogeneous society where groups were at different levels of cultural development. Their own selfish desire to maintain a strangle-hold on the people aligned with the northern leaders’ opposition to state police that could threaten their monopoly of power through control of law and order over their empire of slaves.

The revolt of the poor, uneducated and marginalized who have no say in how they were being governed bred terrorists, jihadists, bandits, kidnappers and armed herdsmen, that took refuge inside North’s huge ungoverned forests from where they visited violence on the people.

Nigerians had looked up to President Buhari, the man they massively voted into power because of his pan-Nigeria outlook, to end their nightmare. Buhari and his ‘loyal gatekeepers’ ignored the cry of Northern Elders Forum, the July 2021demand by northeast governors of Adamawa, Taraba, Bauchi, Gombe, Yobe and Borno for state and community police just as they did to that of September 2022, northern governors and northern traditional rulers councils’ call for the establishment of state police to tackle security challenges in their region.

 But while anarchy reigned supreme in the north, President Buhari’s “loyal gate keepers” appeared to be more interested in replicating the northern tragedy in the south. Or what other explanation can one give for relentless war waged by Shehu Garba (Buhari’s senior media adviser and Abubakar Malami (his Minister of Justice) against Governor Rotimi Akeredolu’s efforts to eject killer herdsmen illegally occupying reserved forests in his state, and Southwest Governors Forum’s efforts to set up Amotekun local security outfit to tackle kidnappings and killings by those believed to be invading immigrant herdsmen?

Buhari and his men continued to dig deeper into the hole even as his federal government which the northern hegemonic power depended on to maintain law and order was unable to perform. In the face of an impending anarchy, his vice president, Yemi Osinbajo admitted to their government’s heroic failure to end the nation’s nightmare.  While admitting “Every Nigerian, is entitled to adequate security from the government for their livelihoods”, he confessed that their   “Government fails in that responsibility” because “For a country of our size to meet the ‘one policeman to 400 persons’ prescribed by the United Nations would require triple our current police force; far more funding of the police force and far more funding of our military and other security agencies.”

For instance The Punch in an editorial had raised an alarm that “With 371,000 officers, the Nigeria Police Force are overwhelmed, and many parts of the country lack any permanent police presence. Insurgents of different stripes taking advantage of this have seized control of some hinterland territories, imposing brutal, bloody rule over the locals”. (Punch July 21)

Vanguard newspapers on its part has also argued that “federal-controlled police force in a diverse, complicated federation with an exploding population of over 200 million people, policed by 371,800 personnel, with up to a third of them attached to VIPs”, is not only injurious to the health of the nation, maintaining the military command structure in our federal system is undemocratic, anti-people and does not promote good and accountable governance.”

Our leaders continued to play the ostrich even with the periodic harvest of deaths in the north-central states of Benue, Plateau and southern Zaria where armed immigrant herdsmen in aid of settlers who lust over their host’s land, had embarked on inter-communal killings of poor subsistence farmers whose land is confiscated with survivors reduced to inmates of IDP camps. Peace has continued to elude the northeast and Buhari’s northwest region after his eight years of heroic failure. And of course the southeast remains restive with the ongoing intra-communal bestial and brutish killings which the perpetrators blame on federal government and its agents. 

Now that we have seen the folly in the continuing objection to the establishment of state police, there can be no better period to allow the people take control over their own security through state and community policing than now.

It is a relief that we have a new sheriff in town that is answerable to neither ethnic,   religious group, nor godfathers and owners of Nigeria. He has promised embark on what he believes to be best for our country. No one, including the leading lights of his party can therefore hold him to ransom or derail this noble endeavour

And it was just as well that it was his immediate constituency, Lagos State that reminded him two weeks back that his success or failure will be determined not by building roads and bridges like his predecessor or turning the economic fortune of the nation around but by his efforts at liberating individuals and groups from the tyranny of the state through devolution of powers.

People want to take control of their own security, decide education and the moral values to be imbibed by their children in addition to the water they drink, the air they breathe and the God or gods they worship without interference from dysfunctional Abuja. And since we operate a federal system, what federalism sets out to achieve is individual and group rights which can be defined in form of language, culture, and religion or socio economic status.

The president is not being asked to invent the wheel. He can easily borrow from the experiences of India, a more heterogeneous and populous nation and Canada, the first federation to adopt multi-culturalism as a policy that has shown how a plural society can manage its group differences.

He must start in earnest the mobilization of National Assembly members for the constitutional amendment required to institutionalize state and community policing.  This will allow each of the country’s six geo-political zones protect its territory and its citizens from armed gangs from neighbouring federating states or from the Sahel region of the north and central Africa. There is no better evidence of anarchy than when a Governor Bala Mohammed of Bauchi will without restraints, declare Fulani from any part of Africa a Nigerian.

A High Court of the Federal Capital Territory sitting at Maitama, on Thursday, rejected a fresh application the Department of State Services, DSS, filed for an order to further detain the suspended Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, Mr. Godwin Emefiele, for another 14 days.

The court, in a ruling that was delivered by Justice Hamza Muazu, held that the application constituted an abuse of the judicial process, adding that the court had no jurisdiction to entertain it.

Specifically, the security agency, in the application marked: FCT/HC/M/12105/2023, told the court that it uncovered a fresh evidence that would require it to further retain the suspended governor of the apex bank in its custody.

It, therefore, prayed the court to allow it to hold Emefiele in custody for another 14 days, to give room for the conclusion of its ongoing investigation.

However, when the case was called up for hearing, Justice Muazu asked the counsel that represented the agency, Mr. Victor Ejelonu, to address him on whether the court has the requisite jurisdiction to grant the application, in view of provisions of Sections 293 and 296 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act.

Justice Muazu noted that the said provisions vested exclusive rights of granting such application on the Magistrate Court.

Following the observation of the judge who maintained that the high court lacked the jurisdiction to grant the order, counsel to the DSS, Mr. Ejelonu, applied and withdrew it.

It will be recalled that operatives of the DSS had on June 10, stormed Emefiele’s Ikoyi residence in Lagos and arrested him.

The arrest came a day after Emefiele was suspended as the governor of the CBN by President Bola Tinubu.

The embattled CBN boss remained in custody until Wednesday when he was arraigned before the Federal High Court in Lagos on a two-count charge of illegal possession of a firearm and ammunition.

Meanwhile, upon his arraignment and plea of innocence, the court granted Emefiele bail to the tune of N20million with one surety in the like sum.

Trial Justice Nicolas Oweibo ordered that the defendant should be remanded in prison custody, pending the perfection of his bail conditions.

Not willing to comply with the court order, the DSS re-arrested Emefiele in the court premises, in an operation that led its operatives to violently manhandle a senior prison official.

While reacting to the fresh request by the DSS for a detention order, Abuja based lawyer, Mr. Nnamdi Mba, argued that the security agency treated the court with disrespect.

He said: “You cannot be charging someone to court and yet you cannot obey the same court.

“What the DSS is doing is tantamount to intimidating the courts.”

Likewise, another lawyer, Mr. C. C Nwodu, added: “Ordinarily, when a person is brought to court and takes his plea, it is no longer the duty of the security agency that brought the defendant to court to determine where the person will be held in custody. It is the duty of the court.

“Hence, once a defendant is granted bail, except the judge specifically mentioned otherwise, the men of the Nigeria Correctional Service take custody of such person until the bail conditions are perfected.

“In the case of Emefiele, the DSS practically abducted him from the custody of the Correctional Service and have now filed for an order seeking to further detain him for 14 days, when they have held him consecutively for over six weeks and have exhausted the maximum two previous orders to detain him for 28 days.

“No judge, knowing the true facts of this matter can grant them such application. I am glad to hear that the judge courageously struck out the application,” he added.

[Vanguard]

Oil price, on Thursday, rose to $83 a barrel.

Brent crude, the global oil benchmark, rose 0.75 percent to trade at $83 a barrel, while the US West Texas Intermediate jumped 0.86 percent to $79. 

The development came on the back of expected tightening of supply due to production cuts by the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and its allies, known collectively as OPEC+, as well as some involuntary outages.

The uptick in global crude prices also comes a week ahead of when key OPEC+ ministers are expected to meet on August 4 to review the oil market.

The increased price of Brent crude, Nigeria’s oil benchmark, is said to inadvertently push the international spot price of petrol — a major determinant of the commodity’s price in Nigeria in the post-subsidy regime.

Last week, when petrol price increased from N540 to N617 per litre, Farouk Ahmed, chief executive officer (CEO) of the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA), explained that the price hike was a result of rising crude prices.

“A week or so ago, the price of crude was hovering around $70 per barrel. Now, it’s over $80 per barrel. So, of course, the crude prices also drive the product price,” he said.

⁣“As the importers are importing, they base it on the cost of importation plus the freight plus other costs elements in terms of local distribution.”

[TheCable]

The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has insisted on going on its scheduled strike, which commences on August 2, 2023.

The labour union has said the strike is their way of rescuing Nigerians from the shackles of the government’s ‘poor policies.’

The NLC president, Joe Ajaero, while featuring on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Wednesday, said the strike is to liberate Nigerians from policies of the new administration that has caused hardship.

Naija News recalls that the labour union earlier gave the government a seven-day ultimatum to reverse what it described as “all anti-poor” policies, including the hike in the price of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), known as petrol.

However, during the programme, the NLC president explained that the union was still analysing the situation with the possibility that the government policy could further plague already worse conditions of Nigerians.

He said, “The situation would be worsened. It is rather a move to rescue Nigerians, to see whether the government can show some level of empathy for us to do things differently to enable Nigerians to survive.

“It can’t get worse than it is today. The impact we are talking of is either the impact on commodities or the impact on the people.

“What we are resisting, what we are fighting against, is the impact on the people, and the impact is so much. It is worse.

“I don’t know what other consideration one can look at; every government policy in a nation is aimed at benefiting the nation.

“The naira is gone, economic activity is gone, foodstuff gone. (In terms of) movement, you can’t move, and transportation is gone.”

Governor of Jigawa State, Umar Namadi, has revealed what Nigerians should expect as governors elected on the platform of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) played a significant role in the emergence of President Bola Tinubu’s ministerial list.

Naija News understands that the much-anticipated list of ministerial nominees is expected to be fully unveiled today by the National Assembly, as reports claimed the President had forwarded the same to lawmakers.

Speaking, however, on speculations about the development, Governor Namadi said Nigerians should be expectant of a rancour-free list.

According to him, the list has the blessings of the ruling party’s governors.

During an interaction with journalists on Wednesday in Dutse, Jigawa State capital, Namadi said President Tinubu has been consulting with governors and that when the list is finally released, it will not cause any rancour among the state leaders.

“Of course, governors were carried along. Yes, we were carried along. Certainly, Nigerians can expect a list that would not cause any rancour amongst us,” Namadi told Daily Trust.

The governor, who spoke on several issues, also said the much-touted “calculator” that has become synonymous with Jigawa State by virtue of its former governor being known as ‘Mr Calculator’ was not as bad as some people had been painting it to be.

He explained that all the calculator phenomenon means was the judicious and prudent use of the state’s resources for the overall good of the public.

Namadi said: “The problem is that people are misperceiving what this calculator thing truly means. The calculator is to ensure the judicious use of resources and that there is value for money. To ensure that every kobo is accounted for and as much as possible, this government would try to do what is right for the people.

“The money is meant to be spent for the benefit of the people, and there is no reason why you’ll keep the money. Even for the past government, it is not so that the money has been kept, but we’ve been prudent. That is why you can see that for the last eight years, on the 25th of every month, Jigawa State will pay a salary, and on the 10th of the following month, we pay a pension. This process is continuing; we have paid the salary already, and you know the FAAC is not out yet, but we have paid.”

Nigerians have taken to social media to react to the alleged listing of former Rivers governor, Nyesom Wike as one of ministerial nominees of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. 

Recall that Tinubu finally sent the list to Senate President Godswill Akpabio on Friday morning, in line with the constitutional provision that the list should get to the National Assembly within 60 days after the presidential inauguration.

Wike, who was instrumental in the emergence of Tinubu’s presidency in the 2023 general elections, stirred reactions on the internet after the name of the former governor reportedly appearer amongst those who made the cut in the much anticipated Ministerial list.

Below is how Nigerians reacted to the development.

Gonzak wrote: “Those expecting new faces on the ministerial list good morning. Nigeria is already a captured state by the political and ruling elites. The fight must be how to rescue our country.”

It is no longer news that when faced with difficult socio-economic conditions, Nigerians often resort to desperate measures to cushion the resultant effects.

Little wonder since President Bola Tinubu announced the discontinuation of the petrol subsidy during his inaugural speech on May 29, 2023, and the recent hike in the price of petrol, Nigerians have devised strategies to ameliorate the resultant effects.

For years, the Nigerian government subsidised the price of petroleum products, especially petrol, and kerosene, to alleviate the burden of high costs on consumers.

In the past, the subsidy removal was often met with public outrage and stiff resistance, because it would result in higher fuel prices for consumers which eventually led to protests and demonstrations.

However, such was not the case when President Tinubu stated during his inaugural speech that “fuel subsidy is gone” finally because it (subsidy) could no longer justify its ever-increasing costs.

He said; “We commend the decision of the outgoing administration in phasing out the petrol subsidy regime which has increasingly favoured the rich more than the poor. Subsidy can no longer justify its ever-increasing costs in the wake of drying resources. We shall instead re-channel the funds into better investment in public infrastructure, education, health care, and jobs that will materially improve the lives of millions.”

Below are 10 things Nigerians are doing to survive the hardships imposed by subsidy removal.

Menial jobs/entrepreneurship
Since the prices of commodities have doubled and income has hardly increased, many Nigerians are beginning to engage in menial jobs, as well as establishing small-scale businesses to generate more income to support their families. This might include street vending, artisanal crafts, or starting small businesses.

Farming

No doubt, agriculture plays a significant role in the Nigerian economy, which is why during hard times, many people resort to subsistence farming to provide for their basic needs. Some of the farm produce may be sold to make more income, used as barter, or better still used as an alternative source of feeding for the family.

Seek family support

For most Nigerians, seeking family support in times of dire need is usually one of their most viable options in a bid to ameliorate the hardship they suffer. This sense of community helps to alleviate some of their financial challenges.

Seek spiritual support
In 2016, the Archbishop of Lagos, Adewale Martins, disclosed in an interview that the economic meltdown had seriously affected the church. According to him, many people that came to parish offices to see priests did so with the intention of seeking one form of assistance or the other. The case is the same in recent times as Nigerians have begun to seek financial help from the various churches they attend.

Barter

Before civilisation, bartering goods and services was a way to acquire necessities without necessarily using cash. This practice has gradually found its way back into society as Nigerians now make frantic efforts to sustain themselves in the face of the growing hardship.

Thrift contribution

Though thrift contribution has been in existence before now, because of the current economic realities, more people have begun to participate in informal savings groups or cooperative societies where members pool their money and take turns receiving lump sums, helping them tackle financial needs among other things.

Adaptation

As earlier mentioned, Nigerians often demonstrate resilience by adapting to changing circumstances and being flexible in their approach to emerging economic realities which eventually result in untold hardship.

Self-development

As difficult as this may seem, during challenging times, some individuals invest in education and skill acquisition to increase their employability or create new opportunities for themselves. This is one strategy many Nigerians have resorted to in recent times to improve their income.

Religious and community support

Religion and community involvement can provide psychological and emotional support during hard times, offering hope and a sense of belonging. This is also one of the things Nigerians are currently involved in to ease the hard times.

Government palliative

When available, Nigerians ensure they tap into whatever form of palliative the government offers as temporary relief for those in need. Currently, mixed reaction has continued to trail Tinubu’s proposed N8,000 palliative for 12 million poor families. However, Nigerians are expectant.

It’s important to remember that every individual’s circumstances are unique, and the strategies they employ to survive difficult times can vary widely. The above points serve as general observations based on the Nigerian context, and not every Nigerian will adopt all these strategies simultaneously.

When I first voted in an election in Nigeria in 1983, the Internet was just newly born. It had not even been properly named. 

Forty years later when I voted for the fifth time, my daughter who attained voting age only 13 years ago and has since voted only once, as far as I know, was telling me from thousands of miles away, where she now lives with her family, how she thought I should have voted and for who. I laughed.

This was by no means a unique experience. A very close friend and managing director of one of Nigeria’s leading media houses told me at the height of the 2023 elections that the politics of who to vote for and why so polarised his home that he had to convene a family meeting where it was decided that all political talk was off limits until after the elections.

As a teenager in 1977 when I joined my parents to the airport to see off my aunt to the UK, there were roughly 120k phone lines in Nigeria. And such luxury well beyond a kid like me from a poor family severely limited not just what I could say to my aunt for many years, but also the speed and frequency.

 Today, it’s a different world!

A new book by Niyi P. Ibietan, the fruit of his doctoral research, and entitled, Cyber Politics: Social Media, Social Demography and Voting Behaviour in Nigeria, deals with this fraught, long-standing debate.

Seventy-five years ago, or so, when Paul Lazarsfeld and others took this question to the streets of North Carolina after the US Presidential election to ascertain what influences voter behaviour in what is now famously called the Columbian studies, the researchers concluded that media and campaigns have minimal effects on voters. 

Or to adapt Bernard Cohen’s famous phrase, the press was increasingly vital in awareness and relevance, but not necessarily in voter behaviour and attitude.

Before Lazarsfeld and others conducted the Columbian studies, contributions from social psychology in the 1930s, especially following the impact of Hollywood which was then on the rise, and Hitler’s exceptional propaganda in the War, had created the impression that people were like “sitting ducks” for information, or what in technical jargon was the “Hypodermic Needle” theory. 

The social context for it in Europe at the time was that it was unlikely for Hitler, especially, to have succeeded, if individuals had not become isolated, atomised and left completely vulnerable to the “bullet” of propaganda.

By the time Marshall McLuhan wrote the Gutenberg Galaxy (1962), expressing the view that instantaneous communication would undermine geographically based power imbalances, the world had almost gone full circle from Laswell to Lazarsfeld, Melvin DeFleur and other scholars whose studies showed that social factors also play a role in mediating information.

So, what is the point of Ibietan’s Cyber Politics? 

He not only examines earlier studies on the impact of social factors, including peer, opinion leader and family influences on voter behaviour, he also sets out the broad objectives of the book, raising issues that are both specific and contemporaneous in value.

In other words, instead of leaving the reader wondering what happened on the streets of North Carolina in Lazarsfeld’s studies decades ago and how that affects him in Gwagwalada, Abuja, Cyber Politics uses Nigeria’s 2015 general elections as anchor. 

It explores, among other things, the question of whether political conversations amongst Nigeria’s estimated 33 million active social media users, especially the influencers as of 2021 had any significant impact on the outcome of the 2015 election. 

Interestingly, the winner of that election, President Muhammadu Buhari, thought social media helped him win. Did it, really? And could it mean that President Goodluck Jonathan who in 2011 actually announced his intention to run for president on Facebook, lost momentum four years later in that space? Or were there other factors for Buhari’s victory?

What commends Cyber Politics, is its laser-beam focus on the role of three pre-selected social media platforms – Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp – on voter behaviour especially in the election under reference. 

Whatever anyone says, I suspect politicians believe that social media works. Whether it counts at the ballot is another matter – and of course, the subject of this book. 

What do I mean? When it became obvious during the 2023 general elections that political ads were not coming to LEADERSHIP as projected, for example, I called folks in the campaign of one of the major parties to ask why. “Well, sorry,” one of the seasoned media guys on the campaign told me. “We’re doing more on social media now.”

I was scandalised that folks who had built their careers in the mainstream and whom we were banking on would leave us high and dry! But I understood, even if I did so with a heavy heart! Why? A BBC online report  said, “Politicians are investing heavily in the use of websites, blogs, podcasts and social networking websites like Facebook and Twitter as a way of reaching voters.”

“During the 2019 election campaign,” the BBC report continued, “the Conservatives spent one million pounds on Facebook alone, at a point, running 2,500 adverts.”

  As of the time of writing, my anecdotal research in the mass communication curriculum of the University of Lagos; Ahmadu Bello University; and the University of Nigeria, turned up virtually no current locally authored full-length texts in cyber politics. 

In light of the exponential growth in social media adoption and use in the last few years, two election cycles after 2015, COVID-19 and #Endsars, students, researchers and scholars would find Cyber Politics a valuable resource material.

As a journalist, for example, shouldn’t I be concerned about the emergence of social media as the “Fifth Estate of the Realm”, a prospect that the author raised in his book?

Would this new estate, in which users are both producers and consumers of information, displace the Fourth Estate, especially if as Time Magazine said in its February 5, 2009 edition, journalism was already in its death throes? 

Well, it’s nearly a decade and a half since, and we have seen that the death of journalism was perhaps slightly exaggerated. Convergence has also taught us that it is possible for the Fourth – and perhaps the Fifth – Estates not only to coexist, but also to be mutually reinforcing. 

Cyber Politics helps the voter ponder if the social networks they belong to or the influencers they follow have any potential effects on their political behaviour either in terms of mobilisation or their actual voting decisions. Sometimes we think we’re our own man, until we realise like Pavlov’s dog, that someone somewhere might be pulling the strings. 

The author makes the important point that “social” did not start with the Internet – after all man is a ‘social’ animal. What the Internet or technology has done, however, is to put a seal on our global village.

But is it true that social media influencers are “motivated to undertake organised campaigns during the election using their platforms, largely due to the need to bring about a better social order?” It does appear to me (and perhaps this was unique to the 2023 elections) that social media influencers were just a force for good as they were a force for mayhem. 

The sludge of fake news sometimes unleashed by so-called influencers, not to mention toxicity of the avatars in that space who often insisted it was either their way or the highway, left people like me bereft and alienated. 

What about the adverse role of Big Tech in privacy breaches and data manipulation – I’m speaking of course about Meta’s $725 million settlement over the Cambridge Analytica scandal and Elon Musk’s $44 billion Twitter adventure! Were these also motivated by a desire to do good? It would be interesting to see how Cyber Politics 2.0 or any other research into the 2023 election explores these episodes.

Yet, whatever Cyber Politics or any other text on voter behaviour may say to politicians, our politicians, while they may keep one eye on social media they will, as Joseph Stalin famously said, keep the other eye on “the people who count the vote!”

Politicians can also not be too far from the millions of voters in remote villages and influencers currently out of the social media loop, who still speak in tongues other than clicks and bytes. 

Yet, even that landscape is changing slowly. What Ibietan does in his book is to help us understand, and perhaps, better navigate an evolving social space where a simple networked device is fundamentally affecting our shared values and interests.