On the Representation of Youths as “Folk Devils” in Nigeria’s Changing Political Landscape

Stanley Cohen coined the term “Folk Devils” in 1972 from his PhD research on mods and rockers, two youth groups with deviant behaviours in the United States of America. Cohen contended that when the media reports on deviant behaviour, it creates a narrative with a clear villain: the folk devil. People with deviant behaviors, he and subsequent scholars argue, cannot be classified as threats to society and individuals unless moral entrepreneurs play critical roles. Moral entrepreneurs believe that deviance and crime should not be allowed to flourish. As a result, they must be identified and labelled.

Moral entrepreneurs must agree that a great concern exists. They must also agree that their resources must be used to tame the actors’ wings, or “the devils.” The second stage of realising the description and labelling is to have a media system that taps into moral entrepreneurs’ concerns. In this regard, reporters, editors, and other media practitioners will seek out entrepreneurs for interviews while also developing their own information materials about the deviants in order to reinforce the concerns.

Cohen and others developed the idea of understanding people through sociological perspectives. However, over the years, the concept has been used in many academic fields and applied in industries as well as sectors that have an interest in understanding youth cultures. For instance, participants and actors in many social and political movements in the global south and north have been seen as threats to established social and political institutions due to their approaches for actualizing desired goals and results, which many have termed antithetical to constitutional authorities and means of silencing opposing views.

Nigeria experienced various social and political movements between 2015 and 2019, as one of the countries where youths believe that old political leaders should allow the younger generation to take over political leadership. The need for political leadership was heightened in 2020 during the ENDSARS protests, in which youths demanded the cancellation of the Nigeria Police’s Special Anti-Robbery Squad. According to a number of sources, the protesters were initially invisible, and the protests in major cities were unstructured. Throughout the protests, moral entrepreneurs from the mainstream media to the new media called public attention to some of the destructive activities of the protesting youth.

As the country’s 2023 general elections draw closer, according to some social and public affairs analysts, the ENDSARS movement seems to find political solace in the Labour Party, which presents Mr. Peter Obi, a former governor of Anambra State, as its presidential candidate. For the youth who believe in the political change, the party was seen as a better alternative to the All-Progressives Congress, the ruling party, and the People’s Democratic Party, the erstwhile ruling party. Our analyst notes that for the first time in the history of political party formation and participation in general elections, Mr. Peter Obi’s party throws many surprises to ‘the experienced political parties’ with the winning of some parliament seats at the state and federal levels, including a governorship seat in the South East region.

Since the Labour Party and Mr. Peter Obi were seen as the best options by the youths, our analyst had earlier noted that the party and the former governor leveraged the support and had algorithmic campaign activities. In the course of executing the activities, in some cases, the youths did not hesitate to silence anyone who opposed their brands (LP and Mr. Peter Obi). This is not surprising because it is part of political campaigns throughout the world. However, seeing people who supported other political parties and candidates as outcasts and not ready for the needed political change were the key issues that pitted them against moral entrepreneurs on different media platforms. This situation continued after the presidential election.

In order to fulfil one of the premises of moral panic, the views of Professor Wole Soyinka on a private television station were further reinforced by other mainstream media platforms, while the virality of the views was ensured through Twitter, Facebook, and other social networking sites available to Nigerian digital citizens. Now, the bone of contention between the Nobel laureate and the youths was the use of fascism to describe their agitation for reclaiming Mr. Peter Obi’s alleged ‘stolen mandate’. Many other moral entrepreneurs, such as the candidate of the Young Progressives Party in the 2019 presidential election, Kingsley Moghalu, have also tolled Professor Soyinka’s path, blaming the youth, especially supporters of the LP, and Mr. Peter Obi for creating tension across the country ahead of the May 29 inauguration of the president-elect, Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

As Nigeria awaits the inauguration, how long will moral entrepreneurs regard the youths as “folk devils” as international communities keep an eye on the country?