Tolu Ogunlesi: Combating the Heat of Social Media

by Deji Yesufu

The social media exploded this evening with varied opinions on how Tolu Ogunlesi, one of President Buhari’s social media assistants, responded to attacks on President Buhari picture with Naomi Campbell. Some Nigerian Twitter users had insinuated that the President was in some amorous relationship Ms. Campbell. In reaction Mr. Ogunlesi responds in anger. Vanguard online reports it thus:

@toluogunlesi said: “Naomi Campbell met Nelson Mandela more than once. He hugged her, called her his “honorary granddaughter”. She visits Nigeria for a fashion festival and meets President @MBuhari, and some of you animals are slandering her.

“YOU’RE RAVING MAD WITH NOBODY TO TELL YOU.”

He also further clarified his tweet with:

“I’d like to clarify. I would NEVER describe/think of Nigerians, or those who disagree with me, as ‘animals’. My comment is specific to those who thought it appropriate to denigrate/“slander” Naomi Campbell. Tweet should have been worded clearer & less provocatively. Lesson learnt “

Thankfully, Mr. Ogunlesi has since apologized for his calling Nigerians “animals” and has in the process better qualified what he meant.

The fact of the matter is that the social media has changed our world completely. In the past, the print media used to be a dreaded entity. Politicians and other persons will pay anything and do anything to be portrayed right in the eyes of the media. Today, the print media has divided up into a million pieces with the advent of the social media.

Along with this comes the heat and not a few prominent personalities have experienced this heat. It was the heat of social media that drove Goodluck Jonathan and his wife out of Aso Rock, even though they contested 2015 elections as incumbent. When Buhari ventured into Aso Rock and social media pundits reached him, his senior media assistant, Femi Adesina, described them as “collective children of anger.”

Even the world wide revered Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka, also came under social media attack when he decided to leave the USA in protest of Trump’s presidency. Very few things shake Wole Soyinka; but from his responses to the social media attack, it was obvious that even Soyinka was not left out of the heat.

So when Tolu Ogunlesi described social media users as animals, for some of us it is completely understandable.

Someone asked me how I handle literary attacks on my person. I made him to understand that my articles that generate the most reactions are normally attacks on particular persons or institutions. So if in reaction I am attacked, I just take it in its stride.

But I also have my limits. In fact, one day I will publish the list of the people I have blocked off my Facebook list and declare amnesty to them as long as they promise to behave themselves. The fact is this: these people are not a few.

My dealing at social media did not start with Facebook. It started on Nairaland. On that forum, it is deadly. People hide under an anonymous names and attack you, shred you into pieces and you cannot delete or block them. You just keep quiet.

It was there I learnt to take my hurts to God in prayers and find healing. It was there I learnt not to respond when I am angry. And it was there I learnt to apologize when I also make gaffes of attacks on people.

With social media our world has changed. Those who do not make any comment or post anything here are the safest. But where there is little giving, you get little back. Those of us who pour out views here on social media have seen our views reformed over and over again, so that today when we write, we write with a finesse. This is the product of years of heat: debates, enduring insults and thinking through thesis to make valid responses.

We have been the better off in the process. Tolu Ogunlesi will get better at his job.

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1583899811686223&id=1505609702848568

Seun, Lalasticlala

FTC where is my money

In fact, one day I will publish the list of the people I have blocked off my Facebook list and declare amnesty to them as long as they promise to behave themselves.

..

Bomb dey your head... spongebob

when Mazi Nnamdi Kanu called Nigeria a zoo,most called him all sort of names,now this dumbass Ogunlesi has confirmed it ,it is animals that live in.a zoo.Kudos to him

ogunlesi referred to all Nigerians as animals.


his phrase was "... some of you animals...'. it means all Nigerians are animals but he was referring to 'some of those animals'. maybe a specie or breed.


APC & this 'regime' are highly intolerant of views that contradict their own. even when clear jest is made at pmb, they react like angry volcanoes, obliterating everything in the path of their misdirected fury & blanketing the atmosphere with their toxic bile.



when GEJ was first referred to as a drunk, Nigerians just laughed it off because it was seen as 'normal yabbis' on the president. even GEJ's own supporters joined in the joke of yabbing him. this was despite the fact that there was no evidence to show the man is a drunk.


now, just a light jab of how pmb likes 'better thing' by smiling with Naomi Campbell, his supporters & media aides are calling people animals, mad people & all what not.



they blame the social media for sustaining the bile they themselves brought to the fore. when pmb as president is criticised, they insult tribes, families & question your sanity, just because you dared point out a failing of pmb.



at the end of the day, one is forced to ask, what exactly do pmb's supporters want? a better Nigeria or just to have pmb in power to so that they can brag that the man they supported won & even though he has failed woefully, we will rub that failure in your face...

In essence, we are only humans. The moral line between our sense of right and wrong is determined by our life experiences.
Justification for being on either side does not change the core guiding principles of right or wrong.
There isn’t any assurance that the next President after our dear President (Buhari) leaves office will be any better.
We are all rotten in ethnic bigotry, religious & regional bias as well as party affiliations with no ideology.
Accordingly, I believe we don’t have a clear definition of what being a Nigerian means.