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.
lalasticlala,mynd44