By Emegwoako C. Paschal
Atiku Abubakar, the Peoples Democratic Party’s presidential candidate, leads the poll of visibility among other presidential candidates on major social media platforms.
As of Friday, Atiku had six million social media followers out of the 12 million recorded on the candidates’ various verified social media platforms.
The former vice president had five million followers on Twitter under the handle @atiku, 1.2 million on Facebook, and 447,000 on Instagram, accounting for 49 percent of those engaging the presidential candidates on the platforms.
On Friday, October 28th, a visit to his pages revealed that Atiku posted at least once per day on average.
The Labour Party’s presidential candidate, Peter Obi, came in second with 2.3 million followers on Twitter, 636,000 on Facebook, and 430,000 on Instagram, accounting for 26% of the number of politically inclined netizens on the platforms. Obi’s social media pages revealed that he posted at least three times per day.
However, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, the flagbearer of the ruling All Progressives Congress, received 14% of the total number of social media followers, as a visit to his social media pages revealed that he had 1.4 million followers on Twitter, 264,000 on Facebook, and 147,000 on Instagram. Tinubu posted two new tweets on Thursday, October 27th the first since Saturday, October 22, 2022.
Rabiu Kwankwaso, a former governor of Kano State and the presidential candidate of the New Nigeria Peoples Party, received 4% of the total number of social media followers. Kwankwaso had 259,000 Twitter followers, 185,000 Facebook followers, and 18,000 Instagram followers.
Adewole Adebayo of the Social Democratic Party, Omoyele Sowore of the African Action Congress, and Kola Abiola of the Peoples Redemption Party all had lower social media presences than Atiku.
Adebayo had 12,500 Twitter followers, 104 Facebook followers, and 2,496 Instagram followers. He had 572 followers, accounting for 0.11 percent of the total.
Sowore had 814,000 followers on Twitter, 387,364 followers on Facebook, and 194,000 followers on Instagram. He had 582,000 followers, accounting for 5% of the candidates’ social media popularity.
Abiola had 234 followers on Twitter and 338 followers on Instagram. However, a Facebook search for Abiola revealed that there were many unverified Facebook accounts with his name and picture, but few or no followers.
