Titled “The Media’s Agenda-Setting Role: Insights from Coverage of Nigeria’s 2023 Elections,” the study assessed the nature of media coverage during the 2023 elections in Nigeria, aiming to identify key elements shaping narratives and assessing the media’s effectiveness in providing education and information during the electoral process.

Covering 10 national and 36 state media outlets across 18 strategically selected states, the study monitored online/print, TV, and radio platforms. The national media outlets monitored include Arise TV, Channels, DailyTrust, NTA, Premium Times, and The Cable.

Analysis of the topics covered by the media during the 2023 Elections revealed a significant focus on non-programmatic issues, such as election logistics, party politics and campaigns, corruption scandals and controversies, comprising 80% of news items monitored. Programmatic topics like education, health, vulnerable groups, humanitarian issues, and security received less focus, accounting for only 20% of coverage.

The report also highlighted the underrepresentation of women in media coverage, with only 0.4% of news stories focusing on gender-related topics, indicating a gap in mainstreaming gender discourse in Nigerian politics. Other findings in this report include the origin and sources of the voices that shaped the election narrative and their political affiliations.

“The outcome of this research underscores the media’s vital role in shaping public discourse and influencing electoral outcomes,” said Oluseyi Olufemi, Insight Lead at Dataphyte. “With this media monitoring exercise, we aim to stimulate dialogue and encourage self-assessment within the media industry on its role in sustaining democracy and the responsibility of information and education that rests on its shoulders. 

In conclusion, the report emphasises the need for greater focus on programmatic issues like education, healthcare, and gender equality to foster informed public discourse during elections. Media organisations are urged to represent diverse voices and viewpoints, ensure balanced coverage, and highlight more gender-related issues.

The full report, “The Media’s Agenda-Setting Role: Insights from Coverage of Nigeria’s 2023 Elections,” is available below.Role

Click this image to download the report

The post The Media’s Agenda-Setting Role: Insights from the Coverage of Nigeria’s 2023 Elections appeared first on Dataphyte United Kingdom.

A prominent example of such ‘digital arms race’ is the ongoing US-China tech competition. This ‘Great Tech Rivalry’ as we know it broadly plays out in two forms: the first is the protectionist approach each party takes to limit the influence of the other’s technologies on its economy. For instance, in the last few years, Washington has imposed tough sanctions on Chinese tech companies — including limiting their access to critical American technologies such as semiconductors; banning the sale and import of services or products from Huawei and ZTE; and the recent scrutinisation of TikTok, prohibiting its usage on US’ state-owned devices. America is now also heavily concerned about the national security implications of its interdependence on Chinese technologies. Nonetheless, for all its recent decoupling efforts, Washington has historically been more open to technology relations with China than China has with it. On its end, Beijing is closed to all forms of foreign competition, not just with the U.S.; as evident in its highly restrictive import regime for digital services, a highly regulated internet space, and strong data localisation laws. 

Click this image to download the report

The post Africa and the US-China Tech Competition appeared first on Dataphyte United Kingdom.

This first edition, titled “Nigeria’s Post Oil Economy: Going the Housing Consumer Credit Path”, is a critical analysis of the employment cum income potentials of the manufacturing and construction sectors, positioning the housing subsector especially as an alternative for revitalizing Nigeria’s economy, and as a viable revenue alternative to the government’s perennial debt financing.

The Housing Advisory Note explains the unsustainability of aggressive deficit spending to sustain economic growth and the undesirability of the monetisation of deficit which rather weakens macroeconomic outcomes.

It examines previous attempts to stimulate the economy and how these attempts have predominantly focused on production, neglecting consumption. It explains how tapping into consumer demand can boost economic growth.

The report presents a clear path on how housing construction and homeownership may be a silver bullet, stimulating the construction and manufacturing sector, which can, in turn, create more jobs and employment, and drastically reduce Nigeria’s huge housing deficit. Homeownership in Nigeria is lower than in most countries. Only 35.7 percent of Nigerians residing in urban areas own their homes, down from the 2016 level of 48.1 percent. 

This deficit is indicative of challenges with affordability and availability, and the report suggests directing interventions at the Mortgage origination sector which could, in turn, trigger huge housing construction and jobs. 

Given that 60 percent of the investment in Housing will result directly in the purchase of construction input like aggregates, cement, wood & wood products, basic metal, iron & steel, electrical & electronics, and non-metallic products subsectors, such investment could potentially create millions of manufacturing, logistic and mining jobs in the short to medium term, thus, stimulating those sectors to productivity.

To reposition the housing sector, the report recommended deepening the secondary market for mortgage-backed securities, standardizing mortgage and foreclosure laws, simplifying mortgage payment structures, and reviewing the cost of building materials and training for local craftsmen.

The Dataphyte Advisory Note: Nigeria’s Post Oil Economy Going the Housing Consumer Credit Path” is a veritable resource for policymakers, especially as conversations around stimulating the economy and reducing Nigeria’s debt burden continue to take centre stage. Stakeholders in the Housing Sector will also benefit from the report’s insight on positioning the sector for big wins that underscore cross-cutting development.

The advisory note can be accessed using this link

The post Nigeria’s Post Oil Economy: Going the Housing Consumer Credit Path appeared first on Dataphyte United Kingdom.

On June 4, 2021, the Nigerian government banned the operations of microblogging site, Twitter, stating that the company’s activities are “capable of undermining Nigeria’s corporate existence”. Some have argued that the government’s action was not really predicated on a democratic concern about Twitter’s influence on Nigeria’s politics, but a vindictive reaction to the platform’s deletion of President Buhari’s violence-invoking, anti-Biafra Tweet. Yet, regardless of whether the Nigerian government’s decision was reactionary or truly democratic, Nigeria’s Twitter ban feeds into a broader global concern about the big techs’ monopolising power over social conversations.

The influence of digital tech platforms has permeated all aspects of global politics and economy — from being able to disrupt the stock market (the GameStop short squeeze on Reddit) and making cross-border tax regulations more difficult (intangibility of assets), to the risks of data surveillance and misinformation. More worryingly, big techs’ reach far outpaces the extent to which governments and international institutions have been able to regulate their activities. This reach produces impacts in the most unusual ways, raising a fundamental concern of whether the powers of social media platforms could truly be checked by the government.

The consequences of a heavily digitised globe are innumerable — from concerns of data privacy to cross-border inconsistency in data governance; cybersecurity; as well as misinformation and content moderation during important political moments. As a result, governments are becoming resistant of the scarcely regulated world of data assets in which big social media companies are in possession of large amount of customers’ data that are rarely subject to public accountability (for instance, data on the numeric and demographic composition of Twitter users are publicly unavailable, while historic big data on trends/hashtags is only available to academic researchers).

As such, there have been numerous regulations or efforts targeting the governance and economic dynamics of digital tech —such as the push for a special antitrust law for big techs in the US, the Global Data Protection Regulation and Digital Sovereignty frameworks in the EU. Such policies that are generally “governance” and “economically ” oriented have moved swiftly across the global south, as we begin to see a solid policy reaction in developing (African) countries in the areas of data protection (e.g., the Nigeria Data Protection Regulation), the digital economy, cybersecurity, and data sharing.

Click this image to download the report

The post Digital Technology‘s Long Shadow over Elections and Democracy appeared first on Dataphyte United Kingdom.

The post Gender in Nigeria 2020 appeared first on Dataphyte United Kingdom.

The research brief also examines the various government interventions through the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) like the Anchor Borrower’s Programme and the Agricultural Credit Guarantee Scheme Fund (ACGSF). These appear not to have produced the desired outcome, noting that commercial bank loans and advances to the agriculture sector have remained low even though the sector accounts for about 26.84% of economic activities in Nigeria.

The post From Farm to Future: Thoughts on Food Security, Farmers’ Prosperity and Fiscal Stability in Nigeria appeared first on Dataphyte United Kingdom.

This briefing paper delves into the driving forces behind foreign influence in West Africa’s security sector, examining the impact of established external powers on the region. With a focus on economic partnerships, trade relations, and the growing presence of non-state actors, the paper aims to uncover the motivations and implications of these influences on security dynamics in the region. By analysing the evolving alliances and investments in security, the paper seeks to provide insights into the complexities of addressing non-state actors and maintaining regime security in West Africa.

The post Foreign Influence in West Africa’s Security Sector: The West, Russia, and China appeared first on Dataphyte United Kingdom.

The post Illegal Chinese Mining in Nigeria and its Political Implications appeared first on Dataphyte United Kingdom.

The post #DailyDataCards: World Environment Day (Part 2) – Percentage of plastic produced that are eventually recycled or incinerated or discarded globally appeared first on Dataphyte United Kingdom.

The post #DailyDataCards: Change in Dollar to Naira Rate in each Administration appeared first on Dataphyte United Kingdom.

The post #DailyDataCards: Prices of Petrol (PMS) in Oil Exporting Countries with former and present ties with OPEC as of May 29, 2023 appeared first on Dataphyte United Kingdom.

The ethnic cleansing did not come as a surprise, regardless of the debates over it being systematic or sporadic in execution.

It bore the same strain of subrational cruelty and mass hysteria that seedlings of mistrust and hate bear when their demons mature.

And Rwanda’s mass fratricide was rooted in the same existential causes as other large scale mortal betrayals – unmitigated social injustices, economic inequities, and political struggles.

These 3 causes and the overlapping diminished social cohesion measure how fragile a state is, according to the Fund for Peace. 

To the unsuspecting observer, these triad of tragedies are often masked in a cloak of racial, ethnic, or religious superiority. 

A commentary on this deception in Rwanda, 30 Aprils ago, has it that:

“To make the economic, social and political conflict look more like an ethnic conflict, the President’s entourage, including the army, launched propaganda campaigns to fabricate events of ethnic crisis caused by the Tutsi and the RPF. The process was described as “mirror politics”, also known as “accusation in a mirror” whereby a person accuses others of what the person himself/herself actually wants to do.”

This same tragedy eventually evolves everywhere these lies are conserved, from Burundi and Rwanda to Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The genocide, an immediate development from the Rwandan Civil War, saw the Hutus target the minority Tutsi population for annihilation through the vilest murders and ancillary afflictions like public rape and mass infection of surviving Tutsi women with HIV/AIDS.

These horrors lasted 100 days, between April 7 and July 19, 1994, leaving in its toll 800,000 murdered souls and mutilated bodies, mostly of ethnic Tutsis, and moderate Hutus and Twas. 

An estimated 250,000 to 500,000 women were raped, and over 2 million displaced.

Thirty years after the genocide, Rwanda continues its efforts at recovery to ensure the state is less fragile. It continues rebuilding a country that is less vulnerable to a crisis situation like the 1994 episode.

Rwanda still has a long way to go. So are the other 53 divided states of Africa.

Remembering Rwanda offers all a time to reflect on the social, economic and political challenges of their communities, counties, and countries.

It’s a time to reflect on the arguments that each suffer because their neighbour was born by an accident of nature into the other ethnic group or into the family of adherents of the other religion. 

It’s a time to rethink the elites wearing ethno-religious coats on their naked ineptitude to deliver things so basic to a more cohesive and less chaotic life for all.

It’s time to ask: How fragile is my community? How fair is the social, economic, political systems in my county? And how far is my country today from April 7, 1994, somewhere in Rwanda?

Rwanda: How Fragile?

Rwanda’s road to stability has been slow but steady, judging by its State fragility in the last 18 years.

The Fragile States Index, measured by The Fund for Peace, shows that civil war or genocide is less likely to occur in Rwanda now than it was before. 

The country’s 2023 state fragility score is the lowest and best in the last 18 years. 

On the global ratings, Rwanda is the 44th most fragile country out of 179, with a fragility score of 82.3 out of 120.

This indicates that Rwanda is not out of the woods yet but is working hard to ensure the country never experiences another major upset.

Its highest and worst score in the last 18 years was in 2006, 12 years after the 1994 genocide. Then, the country recorded a high fragility score of 92.9 out of 120, ranking as the 24th most fragile state in the world.

According to The Fund for Peace, “The fragility State Index measures the vulnerability of states to collapse.” The Index is measured by summing up each country’s score in 4 key indicators. The score for each indicator is also the sum of its 3 sub-indicators:

Lack of Cohesion

One of the factors that spurred Rwanda’s genocide in 1994 was the ethnic divide, which pre-dated the country’s independence in 1962.

Also, the history of the genocide revealed that the armed forces were factionalised – the Hutu majority government armed forces and the rebel Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) led by Tutsi exiles in Uganda.

In 1993, hardline Hutus launched their Radio Television Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM) radio channel. The channel was used to incite hatred towards the Tutsis by using propaganda and racist ideologies such as the Hutu Ten Commandments.

These funded and fanned embers of Hutu hatred against Tutsis led to full scale genocide in April 1994. 

Currently, the country is becoming more cohesive. Its threats to cohesion score was reduced from 22.8 in 2022 to 22.2 in 2023 out of 30. (0 = No Cohesion problems; 30 = Highest Cohesion problem).

Under the Cohesion Indicators, Rwanda’s Security Apparatus score is 5.2 out of 10. This indicates that Rwanda is a moderately secure state. The security threat level from rebel force movements or militias is not very high, and the citizens have a measure of trust in domestic security.

The Factionalized elites score of Rwanda is 8 out of 10.

According to the Fund of Peace, “The factionalised elite indicator measures the fragmentation of the state institutions along ethnic, class, clan, racial or religious lines… It also factors the use of nationalistic political rhetorics by ruling elites, often in terms of nationalism, xenophobia, communal irredentism… or communal solidarity (e.g., “ethnic cleansing” or “defending the faith”).”

The factionalised elite indicator is measured considering the questions around identity:

1. National Identity: Is there a sense of national identity? Are there strong feelings of nationalism? Or are there calls for separatism?
2. Extremist Rhetorics: Does Hate Media and radio exist?
3. Stereotyping: Is religious, ethnic, or other stereotyping prevalent, and is there scapegoating?
4. Cross-cultural Respect: Does cross-cultural respect exist?

The high score implies that there is still a high measure of fragmentation among the ethnic groups in Rwanda.

Their score on group grievance is the highest among the cohesion indicators: 9 out of 10. This implies that there is still a very high number of aggrieved groups in Rwanda.

The post Remembering Rwanda appeared first on Dataphyte United Kingdom.