CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the study
Transparency and accountability are critical for the efficient functioning of a modern democracy and for fostering social well-being. In most societies, many powers are delegated to public authorities. Some assurance must then be provided to the delegators, that is, society at large, that this transfer of power is not only effective, but also not abused. Transparency ensures that information is available that can be used to measure the authorities' performance and to guard against any possible misuse of powers. In that sense, transparency serves to achieve accountability, which means that authorities can be held responsible for their actions. Without transparency and accountability, trust will be lacking between a government and those whom it governs. The result would be social instability and an environment that is less than conducive to economic growth.
Transparency can be understood as a composite construct involving multiple components, such as external accessibility and active disclosure. It has been defined in different ways, but most of the definitions see visibility as fundamental. A good working definition of transparency can be expanded to include completeness, understanding, or inferability of information, but it essentially begins with "the availability of information about an actor that allows the other actors to monitor the workings or performance of the first actor."Governments can promote transparency by actively disclosing information about their activities and decisions and then enabling citizens to access, monitor, and evaluate it. From the citizen’s point of view, government transparency is perceived when government information is publicly available. However, even if information is available, citizens will not perceive government transparency until they are effectively informed of government activities and decisions (Zavattaro, S. M., & Sementelli, A. J. 2015).
Nigeria's government is one of those that uses social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and other social networking sites to inform citizens about their policies and programs. There has recently been a lot of uncertainty in their citizens' minds regarding the ban on one of the popular social networking sites, Twitter.Twitter is an American microblogging and social networking service on which users post and interact with messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and re-tweet tweets, but unregistered users can only read them. Users access Twitter through its website interface or its mobile-device application software. Thus, in the absence of timely information, such as shared on these social networking sites, citizens may be pushed to lose faith in the transparency of the government and this invariably sends a message that the government is not accountable to the citizens, which is derogatory to true democratic principles.