It is no news anymore that the historic victory of President Barack Obama is largely influenced or made possible by the application of social media and web 2.0. I must say that it revolutionized both the business and the political world! Many social media practitioners wrote about it and some even wrote books on the almighty effect of the social media on the last election in the US.

Nigeria is no exception in this Social Media application. Nigeria was reported to have an estimated 10 million users on the internet, which I believe would have grown by now. Nigeria also has reputation for online scam which has damaged her image over the years. It is also important to note that the perception of Nigeria has changed greatly as more youths are engaged in productive activities online. With its impacts, Nigeria now has more than 600,000 users on Facebook, as Facebook now maintains second slot as the most visited site in Nigeria while Twitter usage is rallying to the top.

Nigerian youths with influence all over Africa and beyond felt the need to bring a change to our economy by advocating for improved electricity supply in the country. The term “Light Up Nigeria” was coined by people I call, “The Concerned Nigerians”. The aim is to “Unite and Influence” for a simple cause; to Light up Nigeria.

The group on Facebook currently has 16,750 while 100s of tweets are being beamed daily!

The movement has garnered mentions from numbers of Media outfits in the country, it has also gained a blog post on US official blog site here

With this movement, a massive offline peaceful protest is being scheduled for October 1^st (Nigeria’s Independence Day).

I see this movement creating a shift in our social sphere as we are beginning to feel the impact of the internet offline.

Your can join the movement:

On twitter
http://search.twitter.com/search?q=lightupnigeria

On flickr
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lightupnigeria

Website: http://lightupnigeria.org/

JOIN THE FORUM (You can log in with FB ID)
http://lightupnigeria.org/forum/