...Sometime in 2008, I was invited to speak to a group of young people in a youth camp in an outskirt of Lagos. I was to speak to them about assertiveness and self esteem.
As the talk progressed, we got to a point where I made a reference to a beauty pageant that took place in Lagos in 1987, expecting my audience to flow with me. And when I say ‘audience’, I am referring to a group of young people who from the profile given to me before I went for the programme included undergraduates and some graduates. So I was taken aback, when I noticed that they kind of were not flowing with me, as I repeatedly said ‘Omasan Buwa, 1987 Most Beautiful Girl in Nigeria’.
Luckily, one of them raised a hand (and in my mind, I thought ‘relief’), and said ‘… sir, I was not yet born then...’
Those were her exact words. Then the thought of ‘relief’ disappeared!
Alarmed, I said to myself, ‘…you mean these young people do not know about an event that happened in 1987, and it is even a show business event!?’ So how would they know about civic issues or events that happened in the sixties and seventies…?
I looked and felt stupid. Because, I had assumed that they would know about what I was referring to, considering their physique, environment and educational backgrounds. How wrong I was, how wrong we are!
The ruling class assumes that the populace (at least those that can and do have the means to, which is usually a very small percentage of that populace) ought to know what is happening with governance by listening to, watching or reading the ‘news’ as presented by a largely compromised media.
You probably must have heard this before, am sure it would not hurt to repeat it here; communication has no life of its own, outside of what people in a communication relationship put into communication. In other words, if people are not informed about issues, they do not get to know about those issues. Or put differently, it is what we talk about that becomes known. On the flip side of that is an infamous word known as ‘rumour’.
Little wonder then, that our young people and indeed foreigners erroneously ‘know’ so much about Nigeria being a nation of ritualists and fetish beliefs, courtesy of Nollywood, and knowing very little or nothing at all about our national history and true ways of life!
As if the jolt from the young people at the youth camp was not enough, last month, my eleven year old son Didie, walked into my study and went like ‘…dad…?’, I knew something was coming up! So, I said ‘yep’. He continued. ‘…I’ve been meaning to ask…’ I said ‘…go on…’, ‘…eh, what made this (touching a scar on my forehead) hole on your head…?’
I said well, it is something that happened a long time ago, and that it is a long story. He asked me how long? And without thinking much about it, I said during the civil war…
----BIAFRA:LEST WE FORGET!
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