Nnamdi Kanu, TB Joshua, June 12 and other most-searched topics online in June

Hey there! Happy new month. June has to be one of the most eventful months in 2021. There were so many interesting happenings like Twitter being suspended in Nigeria days after deleting President Buhari’s tweet, TB Joshua’s death, June 12 protests, Nnamdi Kanu’s arrest and extradition and others.

Nigerians may be lacking in one or two areas but passion is certainly not one of them, as our most-searched topics in June reveal. If you have popcorn or some puff puff around, grab them and enjoy this piece about which topics got the most attention in June.

TB Joshua (1M+ searches)

1 million searches for 1 topic is no small feat and this shows how popular Prophet Temitope Joshua, the founder of Synagogue Church Of All Nations (SCOAN) was before his passing on June 5. Joshua, more popularly known as TB Joshua, was 7 days away from celebrating his 58th birthday when death knocked on his door.

Since his death, his church says they have received tributes from 195 countries and the church social media following has increased by over 600,000. The ministry stated this on June 29 in a media briefing to officially announce the burial arrangement for the deceased cleric.

In all, the news of his death aroused the curiosity and sympathy of many and led to over 1 million searches on Google for TB Joshua.

Father’s Day 2021 (500k+ searches)

On Sunday, June 20, Nigerians joined everyone else around the world to cheer and celebrate their fathers. While there are many days set aside for celebrating women including various Mother’s Days, International Women’s Day and others, there is only 1 popular day set aside for giving fathers worldwide acclamation.

Therefore, people had questions about Father’s Day 2021 and took to Google so as not to miss this single important occasion. Over half a million searches on Google in June were dedicated to this topic, showing how important family is to most Nigerians.

Nnamdi Kanu (200k+ searches)

When news broke about the arrest of the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu, it came as a shock to many. Kanu fled Nigeria in 2017 after he was arrested and charged for treasonable felony. While there were rumours that he was arrested and extradited from the United Kingdom, the UK authorities have denied them.

The Head of Communications for the British High Commission in Nigeria, Dean Hurlock said, “We are aware of reports that Nnamdi Kanu has been detained in Nigeria by the Federal Government. We can confirm that Kanu was not arrested in the UK for extradition purposes.”

Other reports have emerged saying that the IPOB leader was arrested in Kenya and Nigeria’s Information and Culture Minister, Lai Mohammed, confirmed that security agencies tailed Kanu for 2 years before eventually arresting him. Searches for Nnamdi Kanu culminated in 200,000+ searches.

Twitter (100k+ searches)

In what turned out to be an unpleasant surprise for many people and their businesses, telco companies made Twitter inaccessible in June. This was after the microblogging platform deleted a tweet by President Muhammadu Buhari. The FG went on to ban the platform with the Minister for Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, announcing that Twitter and its services will no longer be able to operate in the country.

At first, Nigerians didn’t take it seriously. But reality quickly dawned on them less than 24 hours later when Airtel, MTN and other telcos restricted access to Twitter. Determined Nigerians, however, resorted to using Virtual Private Networks to access the micro-blogging platform.

After claiming that the Twitter ban was from the presidency but not the president, the president ordered Lai Mohammed and other select ministers to negotiate with Twitter towards lifting the ban. News of the ban led to more than 100,000 searches on Google.

June 12 protest (50K+ searches)

June 12 is Nigeria’s Democracy Day. This year, however, many Nigerians felt that there was little to celebrate in the name of democracy in the country. The Twitter Ban as well as Lai Mohammed’s directive that social media firms get a license to operate in the country did not sit well. Tweets and posts on other social media touted the directives as backdoor tactics to stifle the media and repress free speech in the country.

All of these, coupled with the previous agitations that led to the #EndSARS protests last October, resulted in a number of protests in Lagos, Abuja, Oyo and other states in the country on June 12.

On Google, people also searched for the topic at least 50,000 times.

Football news (50k+ searches)

What is Nigeria without football? Incomplete! Despite the many ups and downs that people encounter daily, there is nothing more enjoyable than a good game of football for a huge volume of Nigerian men and some women. People searched for football news more than 50,000 times while they searched for individual matches a lot more.

England vs Germany had 100,000 searches, France vs Switzerland had another 100,000 searches, Portugal vs Germany had yet another 100,000 searches and these are just 3 of the many games that got huge search figures.

There are more topics that were searched for in June, like the dispute between Tope Alabi and the “Oniduro mi” crooner, Adeyinka Alaseyori which got about 20,000 searches. However, the other topics did not generate as much interest as the 6 listed above. This shows that, more than anything, family, democracy, religion and football are very important to Nigerians.