It is an irreversible destruction when a nation refuses to tell herself the home truth, and it is equally a calculated damage when we try so hard to convince ourselves that a mirage is a reality. One of the powers of the media is to beam to the consumers a constructed and acted script of advertisement as a reality. This is a life-saving vitamin that regimented doses of it for one week will transform your life to that of people living in a promise land, some adverts may claim; and many believe. When falsehood is repeated many times, it appears to be true, to those who have not got the esoteric knowledge of critical media literacy. We see these types of media constructs everyday in our lives. But, what we forget is that the core concepts of media literacy are:
1. All media messages are “constructed”. 2. Media messages are constructed using a creative language with its own rules. 3. Different people experience the same media message differently. 4. Media have embedded values and points of view. 5. Media are organized to gain profit and/or power and I am grateful to my professor, Dr. Jeff Share for all these knowledge.
If you are not privileged to have been exposed to critical media literacy, you will accept things the way they come out the media. What has Nigeria got to do with these? Nigeria has been packaged by her enemies in a bad way, to their own selfish profit that Nigeria is a lame prostrate child that has no hope of survival and they really work hard on this to convince all of us to run away from the country. They are succeeding and folks are leaving towns in droves, only to die in China, Libya, South Africa, Morocco and even in Afghanistan. Those who did not die are sent packing by the various immigration units of those countries. In this case, USA and other European countries come into the equations.
Imagine a man who has spent his useful life in a foreign country only to be repatriated back home to accelerate his quick death. The last incident in China after police raid, many Nigerians who had expired papers jumped from 15th floor of a building, his options were either to escape being captured by the Chinese anti-illegal immigration force or to die instead of being bundled back to Nigeria. If you take statistics, the Igbos are in this majority followed by the old Mid West and the Yorubas.
The enemies of the state, the privileged ruling class frolics in advertising Nigeria in a bad light at their own benefits. They have sworn not to give Nigerians good leadership, so as to preclude so many from survival. Among their many strategies is to make Nigeria insecure by instituting policies that breed armed robbery and kidnapping. They are aware of the ills of bungled elections, knowing fully well that free and fair elections will produce stability in the polity. When will the children of Umaru be kidnapped or his wife Turai on a hot pursuit by armed robbers? Ok, when will Umaru be kidnapped or any of the governors. They are immune from kidnapping because they use the state security services to protect themselves and their families. When will their houses be ransacked by armed robbers, never, because, they have rock sold armed protection and the common man in the street is open to kidnapping and bandit assaults. After causing chaos, they resort to rebranding, a deceit many buy.
The children of the privileged are the future CBN governors, state governors, permanent secretaries, NNPC managing director, chief executive of banks and people’s representatives in the federal houses and state assemblies. Believe me, they are fighting, planning, scheming and robbing to maintain the status quo. They deliberately don’t want to fix the roads because; they want population reduction through many road accidents. They refused to fix the power supply because they want unemployment as a natural selection to decimate some less privileged folks, and others can also die through heat exhaustion, fumes and kerosene explosion. How many Nigerians have we lost through fuel inferno? All these are deliberate design, to weed out the unwanted elements in our midst. Have any of the children of state governors both past and present died scooping kerosene or premium motor spirit (PMS) from the NNPC pipelines.
The question you can ask yourself is whether Nigeria is not capable of running interrupted school calendar? The chaos in educational sector is a pruning system. The only way a poor man’s son can equalize the son of a super secretary is through education, so this is a big affront to them, these recalcitrant children of the poor have to be stopped before they start measuring up with the children of Onosodes, Egwus, Akunyilis, Muktars, Yugudus, Goodlucks and Umarus. While ASUU is on strike, their children are sailing smoothly in the foreign universities. When Shell publishes vacancies, the advert will read those above 25 years need not to apply and you must make first class. Despite the fact that children of the poor make first class but majority wallow in academic deficiencies because of poor feeding and other financial challenges. The children of the privileged class graduate may be at 22 years while the children of the poor, many of them at 27 or even more due to obstacles on their way including well designed ASUU strikes. How can a nation allow her universities to be under lock and key for more than 2 months?
I couldn’t have been a graduate today if not for the late Murtala Mohammed. I was to be a roadside mechanic and my father has already taken me to a local mechanical workshop for apprenticeship. I was not a dummy in elementary school; as a matter of fact, I held first position till I finished elementary school, but I was on road side mechanical apprenticeship bound for the simple fact that my daddy could not afford my school fees along with my elder brother at the same time, who was already in secondary school.
The evening news that night changed everything for me: Murtala Mohammed had slashed school fees and that was how I was able to experience high school. I worked with National Insurance Company (NICON), Lagos, saved some money and in 1984, I heads to Rivers State University of Science & Technology, Port Harcourt to study Engineering. In few months, I will be a proud owner of two master’s degrees. The youths of today don’t have that kind of opportunities, and that was from 1981 to 1984.
When Murtala was killed, I cried my eyes red. He was my uncle, daddy, friend and head of state. This vignette, a short story of my life shows how one person can make a difference in the life of a nation, in the private lives of people. Today, the youths of Nigeria have had their hopes and future deferred for the sake of few holding the rest of us to thralldom. Nigeria: so few hold so many hostages, and the beat goes on without any eye brows raised. It is the advertisement they beam to us, to accept it without questioning. They have their own powerful media, not the peoples’ media like Vanguard, Guardian, Leadership or the online news sites.
The greatest summit that is yet to hold in Nigeria is what is holding the nation from development? This will be the state of the nation conference, convened by the stakeholders, not corruption government engineered summit, but the peoples’ summit in which these cabals will be beckoned to answer our questions. It is a summit, I will like people like Wole Soyinka, Okey Ndibe, Sam Nda- Isaiah, Emmanuel Asiwe, Jackson Ude, Omoleye Sowore, Reuben Abati, Ugochukwu Ejinkonye, Anthony Enahoro, Levi Obijiofor, Luke Onyekakeyah, Banji Adisa, Nuhu Ribadu, Nasir El Rufai, Ochereome Nnanna, Obi Nwakanma, Gani Fawehinmi, Femi Falana, yours sincerely and other patriotic Nigerians to attend.
When you look at the health sector, even a casual observer will see the replay of the satiric George Orwell’s 1984. The various segmental ministries of health of the nation are superintending the demise of the health institutions across the nation. When last did David Mark visit Oturkpo general hospital for treatment? Umaru is either going to Saudi Arabia or Germany for health care services while the rest privileged ones avail themselves with the health centers in Ghana and South Africa, the shame of a nation; Nigeria, whither you!!. All is a deliberate machination to deny many, health care services, so that they will not see the land of their birth as early and unfortunate death call on to them. By this singular act, they are getting more spaces to live. In 1976, when I was in year two at Aquinas Secondary School Mbano, I was still receiving free medical attention at Okigwe general hospital.
Today, that institution is covered with weeds. Surely, Nigeria was better during the colonial days.
While Harvard is opening its door to the children of the poor for free education in USA, Nigeria is shutting its door to her youths and we will realize the 2020 vision!!! The Nigerian youths are unwanted species, so let them die in the incidences of armed robberies, kidnapping and freedom fighting. Everything was well crafted to stultify the efforts of the parents who deny themselves food to see whether their wards can improve the lives Nigerian elites denied them. Children are the insurance covers of the senior citizens in Nigeria, but the ruling class swore not to live and sees the actualization of the dreams of those famished Nigerians. At worst still, they have asked them to pray and many did answer their calls, so check the hopeless ones in the churches and the preying pastors make meat out of them all.
We need our nation back. I am waiting when Umaru will close down his media outfit, the new Dora, who is beside herself right now.
Chukwuma Iwuanyanwu, Harcourt Foundation’s Executive Director, writes from Los Angeles.
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