Influence of Political Parties' Social Media Voter Education on Voting Behaviour among Ilorin Youths during the 2023 Presidential Election

This preprint presents a revised and publication-quality version of an undergraduate research study examining the influence of political parties’ social media voter education on the voting behaviour of youths in Ilorin during the 2023 Nigerian presidential election. The empirical analysis focuses specifically on Twitter, examining voter-education communication by the All Progressives Congress (APC), Labour Party (LP), and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). The study adopted a descriptive research design combining quantitative content analysis and survey research. Content analysis covered 171 sampled Twitter posts from the three political parties between 1 November 2022 and 31 January 2023, while the survey involved 224 University of Ilorin undergraduates. Findings indicated generally high levels of interaction with the political parties’ selected voter-education posts, although the frequency of voter-education content was relatively low. Candidate-agenda content was prominent, while several practical voter-education themes received less attention. Among respondents, 98.2% reported that political parties’ social-media voter education influenced them to cast their votes, 88.8% reported that it discouraged them from selling their votes, and 86.2% reported that it mobilised them to participate actively in the election. However, 86.3% disagreed that the social-media voter education helped them understand the thumbprinting procedure. The study concludes that political parties’ social media can contribute to youth political participation, mobilisation and political awareness, but its value as a voter-education channel is stronger when campaign communication is accompanied by clear, practical and inclusive electoral information. This article is derived from the author’s undergraduate research completed in 2023. The present document is the 2026 repository publication version. The empirical data, study period and reported findings relate to the original 2023 research and were not newly collected in 2026.