No abstract

ICTs have successfully changed the social, economic and political spaces globally. Through globalisation, ICTs have reduced the world to a global clan and assumed a cyclopean force driving human civilisation by the scruff. The impact of ICTs has virtually diffused through all sectors, forcing technological changes and creating a culture of dependence on technology. In Nigeria, the presence of ICTs has become ubiquitous and its knowledge has deepened. However, the use of ICTs for human development purposes has remained grossly limited. ICTs have only been co-opted for the creation of web portals, email addresses, B2B, B2C interactions and for inconsequential undertakings. The use of ICTs for educational and manpower development, knowledge transmission, health education, research and development, medical treatment and others for human development purposes is yet embryonic. This may not be unconnected with the byzantine socio-economic crises like spotty power supply, moribund infrastructure, witless political leadership, lack of priority in investments by the state, endemic official corruption and a host of challenges facing the Nigerian state. To assume a pole position in the present knowledge economy, Nigeria needs to find that nexus between ICTs and its human development needs. This study is cast against the backcloth of the Diffusion of Innovations and Human Development Theories which support the diffusion of ICT-enabled human development programmes in Nigeria to realise true development. This paper argues that the political leadership in Nigeria will benefit more at a fragment of the cost when it adopts ICTs in catalysing its human development programmes. In addition, resolving some of the embedded social and ethical problems facing the country will free resources for the government to invest massively in ICTs that could help it leap-frog its human development challenges and improve the lives of its citizens.

There are contradictions located in the Nigerian political economy. In the midst of the grinding poverty and marginalisation suffered by the majority, a tiny elite controls the political and economic levers of the state for the perpetuation of its hegemonic interests. On one hand, while the state role-plays as an indifferent ideological base for all interests within its territory, on the other hand, it seems to provide a stronghold that shelters the interests of the tiny elite or plutonomy. Additionally, members of this class indulge in a panoply of stupefying ostentation, grandeur and waste while the majority leads a precarious existence. Alarmingly, this gap between the privileged minority and the star-crossed majority has continued to distend, inescapably leading to a dangerous class conflict that may fulfil the Marxian apocalypse of the end of the capitalist or pseudo-capitalist system in the country. The youth precariat class, now a dangerous class, has emerged all over the country vociferously demanding equal access to the resources of the state which up until now have been in the stranglehold of the plutocracy. Situating this study within the Social Conflict Theory, as espoused by Karl Marx and other social conflict ideologues, the conflict between the dominant minority with the dominated majority appears unavoidable and increase Nigeria's fragility if existing contradictions in the Nigerian political economy are sustained. This paper calls for a multi-stakeholder intervention involving government, the public and private sectors, faith organisations, civil society, the media, and the international community to arrest the looming apocalypse that may threaten Nigeria's statehood unless the demands of the youth precariat class are met or their social and economic realities are improved upon.

The world has increasingly become a global clan through the instrumentality of ICT tools. The behemoth influence of ICTs can be felt in their dominance of all areas of human endeavours where they seem to define and refine interactions, social relations, work processes and standards. ICTs have recorded much success in many sectors and it is the contention in this paper that they can transmogrify the educational sector positively, particularly higher education. However, there are political and economic forces which have conflated to hamstring higher education of the much anticipated role it can play in the Nigerian society. In the presence of these albatrosses, even the integration of ICTs in higher education may not change the ugly narrative. However, ICTs have been identified as having the potential to change the complexion and content of higher education if the tools are put to work. It is expected that government will provide the required political and economic wherewithal needed for the easy adoption of ICT tools in driving higher education processes and objectives in Nigeria.

The objectives of this chapter are to examine social media and citizens' participation in elections in Nigeria's Fourth Republic; appraise social media and delivery of democratic dividends in Nigeria's Fourth Republic; and identify the relationship among social media, citizen participation in elections, and delivery of democratic dividends in Nigeria's Fourth Republic. The study was hinged on the social capital and democratic participant media theories and a review of relevant academic literature. The study finds that while social media facilitated citizen participation during elections in Nigeria's Fourth Republic, actual voter turnout was low. Also, the study shows that in spite of social media use by Nigerian citizens, democracy dividends are yet to be delivered to Nigerian citizens. And lastly, findings reveal that there appears to be a weak relationship between social media and citizens' participation in elections in Nigeria and that social media use by Nigerians has not delivered the dividends of democracy to the people.