CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Humanitarian aid is material and logistic assistance to people who need help. It is usually short-term help until the long-term help by the government and other institutions replaces it. Among the people in need are the homeless, refugees, and victims of natural disasters, wars, and famines. Humanitarian relief efforts are provided for humanitarian purposes and include natural disasters and man-made disasters. The primary objective of humanitarian aid is to save lives, alleviate suffering, and maintain human dignity.
Humanitarian aid is seen as "a fundamental expression of the universal value of solidarity between people and a moral imperative". Humanitarian aid can come from either local or international communities. In reaching out to international communities, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) of the United Nations (UN) is responsible for coordination responses to emergencies. It taps to the various members of Inter-Agency Standing Committee, whose members are responsible for providing emergency relief. The four UN entities that have primary roles in delivering humanitarian aid are United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the World Food Programme (WFP).(wikipedia.org)
However, The social media explosion of the last decade has had remarkable effects on many aspects of everyday life especially by hastening the way crisis displaced person recieves humanitaria aid and social support. Just as humanitarian crises became “closer to home” with the advent of hashtags and trends on social networking sites, social media has once again cut down the space between crisis victims and humanitarian organizations thus facilitating potential help and immediate humanitarian response to those who are affected by crisis.
Like other social networking site, twitter is not left aside in providing quick information during crisis. According to Sid Johann (2018) , Twitter is the third most popular social networking site in the world and has over 175 million registered users. The information network connects users to a vast amount of information and allows individuals to connect with other users, organizations and the media through 140 character ‘tweets’ or by uploading photos and other media (Twitter, 2011).Thus considering the effectiveness of twitter, researchers are proned to worry on the recent twitter ban in Nigeria as declared by the federal government on 5th June, 2021.