Unwittingly, President Buhari exposed a
fortnight ago the dingy side of the digital
divide he inhabits on the eve of the
nation’s Independence Day anniversary.
The occasion was the presentation of a
picture book in Abuja. Responding to
perspectives offered by a youthful panel
of arts entrepreneurs on how to
maximise the potential of the creative
industry in a digital age, PMB’s prognosis
was, at best, analogue.
The Federal Ministry of Information, he
argued, should devote more resources to
expand existing radio infrastructure
because, according to him, they offer a
broader platform to reach more
Nigerians.
Before you begin to wonder the
theoretical basis of that presidential
conclusion, here was his simple thesis:
“Today, those who have television may
not have light. As for newspapers,
anything above N100, most people
cannot buy because that means a lot
from the salary they may be earning. But
people will always listen to radio to get
information because it is free.” With a
president unabashedly revealing such
bias, I bet all any smart Information
Minister needs to do to have his budget
for 2017 doubled is simply pad (that
treacherous word again!) his draft with
all manner of proposals relating to radio,
radio and radio.
Ha!
But I dare say PMB could not possibly be
speaking of contemporary Nigeria,
documented to boast a greater young
population who are not only quite
restless in the social media but are at
home with all the accoutrements of the
new info tech age. While the nation’s
population is put at over 180 million as
at 2016, those under-15 account for 45
percent of that figure. Those between
the age bracket of 15 and 24
approximate 19.3 percent. Roughly put,
Nigerians under 30 account for close to
70 percent of our national population.
As against the Mungo Park-bequeathed
transistor radio Buhari seems to be
romanticising, the young Nigerian
netizens are addicted to Facebook,
WhatsApp, Face Time, Twitter,
Instagram, Snapchat etc in their
everyday conversation. (In fact, the
president’s daughter, Zara, is a popular
figure on Twitter and Instagram.) Really,
the new buzz word of the day is the
revolutionary 4G LTE (long term
evolution) technology currently being
aggressively launched across the country
by Glo.
By the way, Glo, a wholly indigenous
telco led by Dr. Mike Adenuga Jnr. ,
accounts for a substantial chunk of the
active 150 million phone lines in the
bourgeoning telecom market and has so
carved a niche for itself that it is now
commonly addressed as the
“Grandmaster of Data”. (Alongside the
likes of Dangote, Glo is also flying the
Nigerian flag proudly across the African
continent, regardless of the stifling
climate at home.) So robust, the ICT
sub-sector, of which the GSM telephony
is biggest player, accounts for a colossal
eight percent of the country’s Gross
Domestic Product in 2014.
So, in this light, to be most charitable,
PMB’s radio postulation can be
entertained as perhaps only true of
Nigeria of the early 60s with a population
of 45.2 million. He must be speaking
nostalgically of the disappearing
traditional society where town-criers beat
the gong about to draw communal
attention. Today, anyone still clinging to
that memory will be classified outdated.
For such reading is now representative
of the lifestyle of only a small sample of
the populace. And the curators of this
fading culture would be found largely in
Buhari’s own section of the country.
In their own youthful days, PMB’s
generation doubtless made an art of
writing and exchanging rose-scented mail
by post. But texting and pinging are the
new forms of expression among young
Nigerians of today.
The concept of dictionary and research
are also changing. Those days, people
literally wrestled with the “big words”
and crammed them up from the hard
copy. Today, the average young Nigerian
would rather take the short-cut by simply
consulting google on the go. And with
more giga bite now coming for less
sums, the electronic channel becomes
even more convenient and affordable for
researchers.
Gone also are the days the state could
monopolise the airwaves. Thanks to
YouTube, non-state actors have turned
the cyber space to no man’s land.
This point needs be stressed with a view
to not only liberating PMB from the iron
captivity of an archaic understanding of
trend but also assisting him to better
appreciate the demographics of the
nation he is supposed to be leading. That
should, in turn, help in framing clearer
messages, as well as devising better
communication strategies to effectively
engage various segments of the
population. Without appreciating this nitty
gritty, policy-makers will continue to act
in vain. Without understanding the
language of the dominant segment of
the population, how then can a leader
possibly hope to inspire such folks to
action?
If in doubt, PMB is humbly advised to
upgrade to the Glo 4G tech and will
surely find countless solutions to
everyday challenges through a surfeit of
Apps on offer. By simply deploying an
appropriate App, for instance, the
president would not have to re-enact the
hilarious antiquity witnessed pictorially by
the nation at large sometime last year as
he meticulously undertook a count of his
vast herd in his Daura ranch before
manually keeping the records in an
exercise book with a BIC pen.
Henceforth, a software will seamlessly
keep such and update electronically on
his cell-phone. And when hopefully the
government-built grazing reserve (cattle
ranch?) comes on stream, with a giant
screen enabled by 4G tech, PMB can
conveniently monitor the progress of his
prized cows from the privacy of his
bedroom in Aso Rock, real time.
Henceforth, whichever corner of the
universe the president finds himself in
hot pursuit of either FDI (foreign direct
investment) or loot hidden by past
political leaders, the real-life effect 4G
tech brings will enable him have a video-
conference via a multi-media screen with
the Federal Executive Council and
engage each minister more intimately as
though he were physically occupying the
iconic leather swivel chair overlooking
the main chamber inside Aso Rock.
In medicine, 4G means our local
surgeons are better placed to create a
virtual theatre by simply co-opting other
experts on the other side of the Atlantic
and share critical knowledge and
experience via a giant screen.
Read more at 360nobs
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