By Mohammed Ahmed Yabagi
The real definition of wokeness is Nigerians on the social media. They are part of the reasons our suicide rate is this low. This is a country with some of the most innovative youth demographic and laziest of them too especially in terms of what to do with their time and internet data. Don’t worry about the seeming antithesis, I will explain later.
See ba, in this Naija, plenty things trend on the social media that many of us are just looking forward to the next thing rather than what currently is. Some are just nothing but vague, imaginary, outright bunkum and without finesse while others are products of someone’s giddiness from overdose social influence. I will get to this too in details later.
I have the video is the latest cliche that has hit the social media and the trend – ish blatherskite started shortly after it emerged that a certain member of the National Assembly had had a rollick with an outre lady. What emerged from the social media was a picture which showed the Senator emerging from the washroom with a towel to his face trying to dry up while his protruding stomach lead him back to the bedroom where the fling allegedly took place. That seems like a forgotten issue already because Nigerians are quick to move on for lack of value for important historical occurrences, save for few.
So, hardly had the news filtered completely in than the trending trite phrase began to gain hold on many timelines within the social media space. Someone even contacted yours sincerely inbox for “the full video” but I immediately cleared the person’s tangle by making it clear no such video existed. Why would anyone even think if a video of that nature still exists that I wouldn’t be among the first persons to have it?
Twitter was swift at removing the Senator Uba Sani’s alleged sex video and the current one trending is Maryam Booth whose ‘private video’ was also said to have been leaked. The alleged videos have caused raucous and raised some moral issues that I am in no mood to comment; but I must say it is sad to see the level of hypocrisy in which we function in Nigeria. Many contradictions and manipulative use of religion to further personal causes, though that is not the theme of this short piece.
Technological growth has no doubt been enabled by the continued advancement in awareness. Thanks to the aid of the internet and Nigeria’s access to it. (Remember there are countries whose population, the governments have refused access to the internet. Yes, there are countries without access to this internet on which you and I do a lot of stuff and advance ourselves and others). Vietnam, Uzbekistan, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, China, Egypt among others, are among the countries without access to the internet. What this means is there is a limited ability to get information from the internet as may parts of these countries are denied access outright, while in other parts, access to the internet are limited as some websites and social media platforms are blocked and citizens cannot access them.
With these growth, many Nigerian youths are making headway and have used their knowledge to innovate in many areas of human endeavour while others have used it to hone their crafts. Be it sciences, arts, technology, research and many other areas have witnessed touches of raw Nigerian talents. That feat continues ad infinitum.
In the same manner, the witticism of the youth of this country is on a different level. As much as the accomplishments of the youth in the paragraph before this one, our level of folly is high up there on its own. The irony of this is that others in the creative industry are waiting for such banal trends to come up to make sellable productions. Don’t be surprised some comedic skits are already in the pipeline or out cashing in on the present social media direction.
Know where and how to use the expression though because grapevine has it that someone used it on a post about murder and he is now cooling off his heels in company of law enforcers.
So, the contradiction is in the way people ideate and employ trends for others to latch on for either their own progress or dim-wittedness just as others utilise necessary knowledge for human headway. It is the way “I have the video” originated.
