Troll Cabal

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Troll Cabal (also written, especially on Twitter, as #TrollCabal) is an informal nonprofit advocacy group of Nigerians that use Twitter to try to bring about social change through what it defines as "harmless trolling," making mockery "of the drama that characterizes Nigeria's political space," providing a "counter-narrative that is non-violent/Harmless and at the same time humorous". [1] It has also been described as an online movement which irreverently parodies the happenings in the Nigerian State. [2] [3] [4] [5]

Advocacy groups use various forms of advocacy in order to influence public opinion and/or policy. They have played and continue to play an important part in the development of political and social systems.

Nigerians

Nigerians or the Nigerian people are citizens of Nigeria or people with ancestry from Nigeria. Nigeria is composed of multiple ethnic groups and cultures and the term Nigerian refers to a citizenship-based civic nationality. Nigerians derive from over 250 ethnic groups and languages. Though there are multiple ethnic groups in Nigeria, economic factors result in significant mobility of Nigerians of multiple ethnic and religious backgrounds to reside in territories in Nigeria that are outside their ethnic or religious background, resulting in the intermixing of the various ethnic and religious groups, especially in Nigeria's cities. The English language is the lingua franca of Nigerians. About 50 percent of Nigerians are Christians and the other 50 percent are Muslims.

Twitter micro-blogging Internet service

Twitter is an American online news and social networking service on which users post and interact with messages known as "tweets". Tweets were originally restricted to 140 characters, but on November 7, 2017, this limit was doubled for all languages except Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. Registered users can post, like, and retweet tweets, but unregistered users can only read them. Users access Twitter through its website interface, through Short Message Service (SMS) or its mobile-device application software ("app"). Twitter, Inc. is based in San Francisco, California, and has more than 25 offices around the world.

Contents

Troll cabal shares nothing in common with Internet trolling. [6] [7] [8] Internet trolls are disruptive, abusive and sow discord by posting inflammatory messages in online communities. [9] [10] Rather, the Troll Cabal promotes tolerance in Nigeria's (Twitter) online spaces through humour that is based on truth. [11] [12] The Troll cabal also aims at using satire to highlight serious issues without offending sensibilities. [13] [14]

In Internet slang, a troll is a person who starts quarrels or upsets people on the Internet to distract and sow discord by posting inflammatory and digressive, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community with the intent of provoking readers into displaying emotional responses and normalizing tangential discussion, whether for the troll's amusement or a specific gain.

Founding and constitution

According to Nwachukwu Egbunike, the second "Convener," the group was founded in 2014 in response to the prevailing attitude on Nigerian twitter where so-called "overlords" who spoke on behalf of politicians dominated and distorted discourse in favour of their candidates. "Twitter soon morphed from being simply a networked public square to a theater of political battle." [15]

It is made up of Nigerian Twitter users from diverse ethnic nationalities, political leanings and cultural sympathies [16] [17] and thrives on "the community’s mastery of sarcasm, wit, parody, and playful performance in the criticism of political, social, and cultural anomalies." [18]

The organisation has as its head a "Convener" elected to a one-year term by users on Twitter. [19]

The last elections were held on the week of March 24, 2017. [20]

Elections in Nigeria

Elections in Nigeria are forms of choosing representatives to the Nigerian federal government and the various states in Nigeria.

Conveners

The founder and pioneering convener was Ikenna Okonkwo (@failedrift), a geologist, university lecturer, and blogger (2014-2015).

The second convener was Nwachukwu Egbunike (@feathersproject), a poet, social media scholar and publisher (2015-2016). [21] [22]

The third convener was also the first female to lead the #TrollCabal, Irene (@cremechic11) who resides in Nairobi, Kenya. [23] (2016-2017)

The fourth convener was Ose Anenih (@PapaDonkee) whose election also ushered in the position of a "Vice Convener" (now occupied by Yemi Adesanya: @toyosilagos) for the first time. [24] [25] (2017-2018)

The current Convener is Jaja(@jajaphd). [26]

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References

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  12. "The Thread: "Disgraceful" | Troll cabal claps back at APC overlords » YNaija". YNaija. 2017-10-20. Retrieved 2019-03-06.
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  24. Papadonkee (2017-03-18). "Abuja Politics: IF A TROLL BE WASHED AWAY BY THE SEA, THE CABAL IS THE LESS". Abuja Politics. Retrieved 2017-04-18.
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  26. https://twitter.com/buchionyegbule/status/973938155383676928?s=19