Mobocracy: How the Cancel Culture Is Strangling Democratic Dissent in Nigeria By Olaitan Adesina
Mobocracy: How the Cancel Culture Is Strangling Democratic Dissent in Nigeria
By Olaitan Adesina
Democracy was never meant to be a chorus of identical voices. It thrives on disagreement, debate, and the tension between competing visions of society. Yet in today’s hyper charged digital space, dissent, the very soul of democracy, has become a dangerous concept. We have entered an age of mobocracy, where online wolf packs prowl social media platforms, ready to pounce on anyone who dares to step outside the narrow corridor of approved opinion.
In this climate, it is no longer enough to contribute thoughtfully to national discourse. One must now swear allegiance to whatever the dominant online faction believes or be dragged into the virtual public square for punishment. The targets are not only politicians or controversial commentators. Even long standing voices of conscience, those who have spent their lives interrogating power, are routinely attacked whenever their opinions fail to align perfectly with the moment’s fashionable outrage.
Recent online episodes have shown just how swiftly the mob can turn. Prominent scholars, cultural figures, journalists, activists and public intellectuals have all been subjected to coordinated harassment for nothing more than offering alternative perspectives. Anyone who questions exaggerated claims, calls for nuance or challenges misinformation is instantly branded an enemy of the people. Their personal histories, lifelong commitments and decades of public service are wiped away with a single viral accusation.
The irony is glaring. Many of the loudest enforcers of ideological conformity once insisted on freedom of expression as a sacred democratic value. Yet they now lead crusades to delegitimize any expression they dislike. These are the new censors, self righteous, self appointed guardians of public morality who have mistaken loudness for legitimacy and vitriol for virtue.
Nigeria’s political environment has always been unforgiving, but this new culture of online lynching has created a climate more corrosive than traditional censorship. At least the old censors openly declared their intentions. The new ones hide behind activism. They disguise intolerance as ideological purity. They brand opposing views as betrayal, nuance as cowardice and independent thinking as complicity. Their methods are not intellectual engagement but mass shaming, targeted harassment and reputational destruction.
Prominent public voices who dare to criticize excesses within anti government circles, challenge mob driven narratives or advocate for balanced analysis are quickly labelled as sellouts or collaborators. The goal is not to debate them. The goal is to erase them from the marketplace of ideas. It is a digital form of book burning. If a thought is inconvenient, incinerate the thinker.
What makes this phenomenon particularly troubling is its resemblance to the authoritarian intolerance many of these same critics claim to oppose. The policing of expression, the demand for ideological conformity and the hostility toward disagreement are the hallmarks of autocracy, not democracy. When citizens fear the mob more than they fear the state, society loses one of its most essential safeguards. That safeguard is the courage to speak the truth even when that truth is unpopular.
Nigeria cannot afford this intellectual monoculture. The nation stands at a moment of significant strain, with economic hardship, security anxieties, political mistrust and cultural fragmentation deepening daily. At such times, the country needs more debate, not less. It needs more independent thought, not forced unanimity. It needs critics of government, yes. It also needs critics of the critics, voices who can challenge groupthink, expose contradictions and insist that principles must never be sacrificed for populist rage.
Mobocracy reduces all of this to noise. It rewards impulsiveness, accusation and emotional manipulation over insight, evidence and reason. It empowers the most aggressive voices, not the most thoughtful ones. It punishes intellectual courage, particularly from those who have earned their standing through decades of careful work and public engagement.
The tragedy is that this destructive culture is being normalized. It is being presented as activism, accountability or speaking truth to power. But when activists themselves become intolerant, when those who demand justice refuse fairness and when those who proclaim democratic values become hostile to dissent, they do not advance progress. They sabotage it.
Public figures targeted in recent digital witch hunts do not require immunity from criticism. But they deserve the fundamental democratic courtesy of being allowed to express their views without being subjected to orchestrated character assassination. Criticize them, engage them, debate them. But to hound, insult and vilify them into silence is to attack the very foundation of free expression.
Mobocracy is not activism. It is not patriotism. It is an intellectual virus that threatens to suffocate the very discourse required to rebuild the nation. If digital mobs are allowed to dictate the boundaries of permissible thought, then our claims to democratic values become hollow slogans. Democracy is noisy, messy, argumentative and uncomfortable. It thrives when citizens feel free to disagree loudly and think independently. It dies when fear of backlash coerces the public into quiet obedience.
The antidote to mobocracy is simple but difficult. Defend the right of others to hold and voice opinions you strongly disagree with. Uphold nuance over mass hysteria. Insist on debate over denouncement. Celebrate dissent, even when it irritates you.
When dissent is destroyed, democracy becomes an empty ritual. And when democracy collapses into mob rule, the mob eventually comes for everyone.
Olaitan Adesina is a poet and the author of “Agidigbo – Soliloquy in Verse”. He writes from Akure, Ondo State
