I got a phone call one bright Wednesday morning sometime in 2013 from my good friend and TV personality, the straight talking Kadariyya Ahmed (STWK), to participate as a discussant on social media in Nigeria organized by a Danish foundation. I obliged.The discussion went viral that same day and one particular comment of mine about Nigeria not going up in smoke despite the rude posts by its citizens was vigorously topical.
I am still concerned that I might somewhere in the future get my day in court. Nigerians have imbibed the culture of hiding behind the cloaks of the social media, ubiquitous yet anonymous, to rain abuses on one another or even flood curses on people old enough to be their parent. It all boils down to the poor etiquette that is now the norm, rather than the exception, in our society. One clear example of such social breaches was when, after a media chat with President Jonathan, three of the four journalists on the panel rose to their feet before the president. He remained seated until protocol aided the journalists back on their seats. It was live on TV and it depicted how low Nigeria has descended in etiquette in recent time. We have become gutter, uncouth people.
While some people are concerned about the fairness of the election that is ahead of us, I have been evaluating comments in the social media and assessing the conduct of those who claim to be speaking for the two candidates of the main parties that have emerged. It is a given, whether we like it or not, that the presidential contest is a two horse race, between Goodluck and Buhari’s luck. If there are any other presidential aspirants in the remaining fifty or so registered political parties, they may have to vote for either of the two or risk ending up with ten votes.
In my opinion, those who claim to be speaking for a contestant must do their homework well to be able to canvass positions that can win support. But what I see most of the time is an appeal to ethnic and sectarian sentiments as if the nation needs a pope or sheikh as its next president. When a northerner and a Muslim endorses Jonathan he is described as an infidel just as the southern Christian who prefers Buhari is called “a big fool”. This is even by people who are on paid employment in government. This culminated in Doyen Okupe, a presidential adviser on public affairs, likening the Jonathan to Jesus. Well, I know a lot of Latinos who bear the name Jesus and I hoped that Okupe was referring to the footballer Jesus Zamora in whose Real Sociedad team of 1974 was also another, Jesus Maria Satrutegul.
What bothers me is not that I expect much from the campaigns. They probably may not even influence the ballot in any ways. Government will spend, Nigerians will be entertained by the emotional twists and turns, lawyers will get jobs, but fundamentally, Nigeria will not change for the vast majority of people who are like me. My main concern is that spokespersons of various aspirants are riding a horse and buggy on the internet super-highway. They have turned it into an anti social medium. The infractions get to a point where some supporters of certain candidates, who reside overseas, accuse the ones in Nigeria of jealousy and poverty because the latter couldn’t afford to keep their families overseas or send their children to schools abroad. That mindset beats me to a pulp.
I have lived and worked in Europe and America and I have never seen or heard any of the citizens of those countries feeling proud that they lived overseas. Only Nigerians do. Yet they say government is doing well. It does not make sense to support a government from which you and your family are running away, does it? And the fact that you live abroad does not mean you are rich. You may have just found a society with better social infrastructure and social safety valves that your government is unable to provide; after all, north, east, south or west, home is best.
The fact is, Nigerians are poor in spite of the abundant resources under their feet, due to inept leadership. This brings me to an article I read involving Governor Fashola of Lagos state who, met at dining, with an Arab in Dubai. Fashola boasted that Nigeria was a democracy and Dubai was not but in a quick take back, the man retorted that “but you come to my country for wellness”. Words on marble. People run from Nigeria because to be poor in Nigeria puts you at risk for abuse and even death. The reality is whenever poor people have confrontations with the state the outcome is brutal and barbaric. We live in worse conditions than what led to the Arab Spring. It’s not a new theme. Since independence, poor people have been carrying the burden of building the nation and feeling the pain of its transgressions. When taxes are raised they feel it most, when education systems fail their children suffer the most, when the healthcare system is comatose they are the ones who die on hospital floors, and when natural disasters occur, it is their children and their belongings that are washed away. I will not be unfair to say things are as bad as they used to be, but they are still at an intolerable level, for since 2009 more than 800,000 people have died for no reason.
What bothers me most about my beloved country is the lack of accountability. The military keeps running from Boko Haram and yet keeps getting promoted. Police protect VIPs but they can’t protect the people. This is after 50 years of independence. Girls can be abducted from school and government does nothing. The fabrics of our society have crumbled and unless we deal with issues of fundamental human rights and accountability, people will continue to be victims. We can pass all the laws we want, but if our attitudes do not change, people will continue to die. Where to start is to make this antisocial media civil on the note..
