Hannah Arendt argued that one of the fundamental conditions of human existence is plurality. She cited the biblical phrase, “Male and female created He them,” to emphasise that human beings exist not simply as Man, but as a plurality of distinct persons.
She reinforced this point by referring to the Romans, who used “to live” and “to be among men” )as synonymous expressions. For Arendt, plurality is therefore not merely related to politics; it is the essential condition of political life.
From this arises the importance of action and speech. Arendt described action as the activity that takes place directly between human beings, without the mediation of things or matter. Elsewhere, she expressed the related idea that politics arises between human beings and is established through relationships.
Taking this idea in a broader, everyday sense, politics arises wherever men and women have to interact, negotiate interests, exercise influence and make collective decisions. In the office, we talk about office politics; in church, church politics. This extends the word “politics” beyond Arendt’s more specific conception of the political realm, but the underlying point about plurality and relationships remains useful.
On my own, there is no politics. As soon as I become a member of a real or virtual community, however, relationships emerge: interests differ, alliances form, people persuade one another, influence is exercised, and collective decisions have to be made.
This brings me to Nigerian politics.
Several elections since the 2023 general election have underscored something I have increasingly noticed: political discourse among highly active social-media users does not necessarily correspond with electoral politics on the ground.
Spend enough time in certain corners of Nigerian social media and you could easily come away with the impression that the African Democratic Congress (ADC) and Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC) are the dominant opposition forces in the country. That may accurately describe the prominence they enjoy within particular online political communities, but recent election results tell a more complicated story.
In the November 2025 Anambra governorship election, APGA’s Charles Soludo won all 21 local government areas, polling 422,664 votes. APC came second with 99,445 votes, while ADC received 8,208 votes. ADC scored less than 2% of all votes.
In the June 2026 Ekiti governorship election, APC’s Biodun Oyebanji won all 16 local government areas with 319,224 votes. PDP came a distant second with 40,543 votes, while ADC finished third with 12,872. ADC scored less than 4% of all votes.
The legislative by-elections tell a similar story of highly localised political strength. In the August 2025 by-elections across 16 constituencies, APC won 12 seats, APGA won two, while PDP and NNPP won one each. Neither ADC nor Labour Party won a seat.
Most recently, in the September 19, 2026 by-elections in Gombe, Kano, Bauchi and Delta, APC won four of the five seats. The only non-APC victory was recorded by the Allied Peoples Movement (APM), whose candidate won the Sakwa State Constituency seat in Bauchi.
ADC and NDC collectively had statistically insignificant outcome.
None of this means that social media is irrelevant to Nigerian politics. Politics is certainly being played there. Ideas are developed, narratives are constructed, supporters are mobilised and politicians themselves increasingly participate in these spaces.
What the election results do suggest, however, is that visibility on social media should not be confused with electoral strength.
The people writing political articles, sharing them, arguing beneath them and generating thousands of likes may constitute an important political community. But how closely that community corresponds to the much larger population that actually votes is another question entirely.
The two worlds certainly intersect. The interesting question is not whether they intersect, but how large that intersection really is.
Recent Nigerian elections suggest that we should be very careful about mistaking the politics we see on our screens for the politics taking place on the ground.
