Counter narrative of President Buhari's narrative on Nigerian youths with visual images and texts on Facebook

Abstract

This paper interrogates the visual images and texts Nigerians posted on social media – Facebook as a counter-narrative to President Buhari’s narrative that ‘we have a very young population, a lot of them have not been to school, and they are claiming they should sit and do nothing but get housing, health care, and education free’. The narrative of Muhammadu Buhari was interpreted by Nigerians as suggesting that the youths are lazy. This attracted a swift reaction from Nigerians, who used social media platforms as the medium through which to present their counter-narrative not merely to the President but global consumers that Nigerian youths are not lazy. In doing this, eight visual images that show young Nigerians engaged in different socio-economic activities were analysed and some interactive texts that convey counter-narrative were interpreted. The analysis reveals that despite government failure in providing a developmental plan for the youths in Nigeria, they are either acquiring skills in furniture making or fashion designs. Some others engage in hawking of different products as a means of livelihood. Besides, a group of young men waiting under the sun on motorcycles in another visual image reflects commercial motorcycle transporters. We concluded that the visual images demonstrate that young Nigerians are not lazy but hardworking and energetic.