Countering Polarisation. Rebuilding Civic Cohesion.
Beneath Nigeria's hundreds of communities, languages and cultures are millions of everyday connections that rarely become headlines.
ActiveCitizen is a civic storytelling platform challenging polarisation and amplifying the people and communities proving that Nigerians share more than we are told.
One country. Many experiences. One shared future.
Polarisation does not begin only with conflict. It can begin with a stereotype. A forwarded message. An assumption about someone we have never met. A narrative repeated until it begins to feel like truth.
ActiveCitizen exists to introduce another possibility.
Through human stories, public conversations, research, community engagement, media literacy and creative storytelling, we are creating opportunities for Nigerians to encounter one another beyond the labels that too often define public discourse.
Because meaningful contact builds understanding. And when physical contact is impossible, credible storytelling can bring people closer.
Campaign feature
Across regions, ethnicity and religion, Nigerians share more than they are told they do. We Are One Story is the storytelling heartbeat of ActiveCitizen.
The campaign documents extraordinary and ordinary examples of Nigerians living, working, building, creating and solving problems together across ethnic, religious and regional lines.
These are not stories pretending that Nigeria has no disagreements. They look directly at our differences while asking a more important question: What else connects us?
From markets and classrooms to football pitches, businesses, creative spaces and communities rebuilding after conflict, we search for the human texture often missing from conversations about Nigeria.
Our stories
Behind every national argument are millions of individual lives that do not fit neatly into stereotypes. ActiveCitizen tells those stories.
Stories of friendships and relationships formed before ethnicity, religion or regional identity became the headline. Neighbours. Classmates. Colleagues. Teammates. Traders. People whose everyday lives remind us that proximity often reveals what prejudice hides.
Read Friendship Stories →
Communities affected by conflict carry stories of loss, displacement and difficult memory. But some also carry stories of return, reconciliation, rebuilding and courage. These stories do not erase what happened. They explore what becomes possible afterwards.
Explore Stories of Rebuilding →
Not every peacebuilder has a title. Community organisers, interfaith leaders, women mediators, traditional institutions and ordinary citizens quietly prevent disagreements from becoming divisions. ActiveCitizen brings their work into view.
Meet Community Builders →
Young Nigerians are creating relationships that cross old boundaries every day — in technology, music, agriculture, fashion, business, sports, film and communities. Their collaborations offer a glimpse of what a different Nigerian future can look like.
Discover Youth Stories →
Community Spotlight
Some communities enter national conversations only when something goes wrong. Others barely enter the conversation at all. The ActiveCitizen Community Spotlight Series, in partnership with OAP and motorbike enthusiast Mazino Appeal, travels into lesser-seen communities to document the beauty, complexity and humanity of everyday Nigerian life.
Through photographs, interviews and community profiles, the series brings audiences closer to the people behind place names, ethnic labels and assumptions.
Because distance can make stereotypes easy. Stories make distance smaller.
Community Spotlight: Niger State
Community Spotlight: Nasarawa State
Community Spotlight: Benue State
ActiveCitizen brings its message to Nigerians through multiple storytelling and engagement formats.
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Short documentary storytelling about Nigerians achieving, building and solving problems across difference.
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Community profile stories revealing the humanity and everyday beauty of lesser-seen Nigerian communities.
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A visual essay celebrating the extraordinary diversity of Nigerian identities through portraits and visual storytelling.
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Conversations led by young Nigerians examining politics, culture, music, food and the Nigerian future through a new generation's eyes.
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Community conversations designed to listen, understand and create opportunities for meaningful engagement across difference.
We hear the word often. But what does polarisation actually mean — and what happens when political, religious, ethnic or social differences stop being disagreements and become reasons to distrust other citizens?
Survey Insights
Good civic engagement begins by listening. We work with researchers to better understand how Nigerians experience questions of identity, trust, polarisation and coexistence, then translate analysed findings into accessible visual explainers.
ActiveCitizen publishes analysed findings and visual explainers rather than respondents' raw survey data.
South East Insights
Short interpretation explaining what the finding means and why it matters for civic cohesion.
North Central Insights
Research findings will be published following analysis of the North Central engagement.
Narrative Watch
Not every viral claim is harmless. Misleading narratives about ethnicity, religion, region and identity can reinforce distrust long after the original post disappears. Narrative Watch provides a high-level snapshot of polarising and disinformation narratives identified through the campaign's internal monitoring process.
Ethnicity
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Tracked narratives
Religion
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Tracked narratives
Regional Identity
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Tracked narratives
Other Civic Narratives
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Tracked narratives
Only aggregate information is displayed publicly. Narrative Watch is designed to help the public understand broad patterns without reproducing harmful content or releasing sensitive underlying monitoring data.
Media literacy
The digital information environment moves quickly. A misleading headline can travel across thousands of phones before anyone asks where it came from. A stereotype can become a meme. A rumour can become a narrative. And a narrative repeated often enough can begin to shape how entire communities see one another.
ActiveCitizen provides practical tools to help citizens pause, question, verify and communicate more responsibly.
A practical guide for citizens, community organisers, educators and groups who want to begin constructive conversations about identity, difference and belonging.
A simple media-literacy guide to identifying suspicious claims, inflammatory framing and manipulative content before sharing them.
Useful principles for having difficult conversations without turning disagreement into hostility.
Follow the conversations, dialogues, performances and public activities taking the campaign from digital platforms into communities.
One Nigeria, Many Faces
Impact tracker
ActiveCitizen is designed not simply to publish content, but to create participation and document change. Only verified campaign analytics populate these figures.
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Stories Published
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Communities Featured
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Dialogue Participants
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Resources Downloaded
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Citizen Stories Submitted
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Campaign Reach
Get involved
Active citizenship begins when spectators become participants. Whether you have a story to tell, want to bring the campaign into your community, contribute your skills or explore a partnership, there is a place for you here.
ActiveCitizen is delivered through collaboration between organisations committed to strengthening public participation, civic resilience and peaceful coexistence.
Lead institution. JRI leads the ActiveCitizen initiative and its work around countering polarisation and rebuilding civic cohesion.
Funding partner
Campaign partner
A more connected country begins with better conversations. Receive new stories, research insights, campaign resources and opportunities to participate.
Every day, millions of Nigerians cross boundaries that public conversations sometimes make seem impossible. They trade. Create. Learn. Compete. Collaborate. Raise families. Solve problems. Build friendships. And depend on one another.
ActiveCitizen exists to make more of those connections visible.
Because the story we repeat about ourselves matters.