For months, there has been heated debates among opinion leaders in every stratosphere in Nigeria over who is the best candidate for Nigeria’s presidency. From Seun Kuti and Paul Okoye slandering each other on social media over their political choices to Yoruba veteran actors like Jide Kosoko and Femi Adebayo endorsing a candidate that led to immense backlash from young Nigerians. The 2023 election campaign season has been tense in every sense of the word.
In an election where police brutality, rising unemployment, inflation, economic woes, terrorism and insecurity, among other issues, are expected to dominate conversations and influence the decision of young voters, it appears the majority of young voters have suddenly forgotten the roads that led to 2023. We experienced a train hijack that led to the death of a promising dental surgeon, Dr. Chinelo Megafu, and the kidnapping of over 60 people. There was the Owo massacre that claimed the lives of 41 people and left 60 injured. For seven months, young Nigerians had to settle for VPN to access Twitter because it was banned. Cryptocurrency – a major source of income for young Nigerians, was banned. We’ve experienced fuel and naira scarcity and police brutality that has led to the death of many and many more horrendous things.
With some of these issues, we all have an idea of what is at stake. Currently, young voters can see from the state of the country that we need an innovative, sound-minded, firm, and thorough leader with a viable plan and understanding of the country to lead Nigeria. We also understand that if action is not taken to secure the future, Nigeria will remain as it is for the next eight years if a wrong candidate is elected as the president.
Out of 18 candidates contesting in the presidential elections, realistically, we have three options – Peter Obi (Labour Party), Bola Ahmed Tinubu (APC), and Atiku Abubakar (PDP). While choosing a candidate to vote for at the presidential elections on Saturday, February 25, 2023, Neusroom through the creative support of X3M ideas, deployed an AI platform to predict what Nigeria would be like in eight years if Nigerians don’t get it right with their choice of leader in 2023.
Through this voter awareness and sensitisation campaign, youths, before the polls, can get a glimpse of the future of Nigeria through images generated by the AI Platform, Mid Journey.
“These results were from the AI platform’s assessment of our past and present,” Mike Miller, Executive Creative Director at X3M Ideas said. “We told Mid Journey (An image-generating AI platform) to show us what Nigeria would look like in the near future and the results we got were not desirable of the kind of country we want Nigeria to be in the future.”
From the AI-generated images, we can deduce that Nigeria would still be lacking in power supply and basic infrastructure, including proper transportation systems. This means we are basically going to be experiencing Nigeria the way it is now and even worse.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) puts the number of young electorates at 37 million, which accounts for 39.65% of the total number of registered voters. These numbers clearly show that change can be achieved if we are not divided, and people of influence are not after their immediate and monetary needs in place of the future of Nigeria.
As much as young Nigerians have a mind of their own, the place of opinion leaders cannot be oversimplified. Pastors, CEO’s, media organisations, content creators, entertainers, and more have been strategically positioned to influence thoughts. Whether they are harmed with the right resources or knowledgeable enough to be in these positions or not, for years they have influenced buying behaviour, influenced thoughts and so many other things.
Right now, it’s important that they are also aware of how powerful their platforms are and how well they can use it to cause a change. Although we are days away from the election, we all can still be on board to choose the right candidate because this is our last chance of getting it right for our generation.