Bloggers without boundaries: The dark side of Nigerian social media By Dr. Prince Wumi Akintide

Bloggers without boundaries: The dark side of Nigerian social media

It’s now time for the government to start regulating Nigerian bloggers, talk show hosts, Ewi exponents, televangelists, and prophets who play God or mistake liberty for license by being very rude and abusive on their shows.

Some of them don’t even realise the absurdity and offensive nature of what they do, and they deny it, ready to swear on oath that they have never, ever been abusive.

It is true that they can be sued for defamation by their victims, but how many of their victims in Nigeria can afford to take them to court and go through the long, tedious, and very expensive process of getting justice through the Nigerian judiciary or court system?

We cannot fault those who argue that justice delayed is justice denied.

I had a land case waiting for adjudication in a Nigerian Appeal Court for seven or more years, so I know what I am talking about.

The mere fact that you can file a defamation suit against Nigerian bloggers, talk show hosts, or Ewi exponents like Esabod, Ologundudu, or Akandaoro Awikonko who regularly defame people on their programmes and get away with it is no consolation to most of their victims.

Awikonko once openly insinuated that the new Alaafin of Oyo was guilty of murdering the Baba Oba of Oyotunji Village without any evidence, and yet the same Awikonko had challenged anyone to produce any evidence showing him to be abusive or disrespectful to the Alaafin.
When I came out to provide the evidence, he became very abusive towards me, accusing me of being jealous of him, which is insane.

The same rule should apply to the proliferation of Nigerian prophets who now regularly appear on shows moderated by bloggers. I am talking about bloggers like Asabe, who brought Prophet Dr. Marcus Tibetan to the limelight, calling him the Nostradamus of our time because he has made some predictions that came true.

If Asabe actually knew Nostradamus, he would know that Prophet Marcus is a counterfeit. Prophet Marcus now specialises in predicting who is going to live or die, and his audience now takes his prophecies as gospel truth, even when they turn out to be totally false.

A lot of these individuals use YouTube blogging to make money for themselves by selling total falsehood and lies because nobody holds them accountable.

I don’t fault them for that in a country not strictly governed by the rule of law, but I suggest that the time has now come for all of them to be regulated in the best interest of law and order.

All of these bloggers should learn something from the professional ethics and discipline of the analysts of the Yoruba World Centre based at the great University of Ibadan, who don’t use their programmes to abuse, insult, or defame people.

They don’t use their platform to play God but to educate Nigerians in general.

They don’t run their programmes to show that they know more than their audience and therefore reserve the right to insult them or play on their intelligence.

I am now going to prove this with one or two examples I have watched on YouTube with a lot of discomfort and embarrassment, which have compelled me to write this article.

I am not writing just for criticism’s sake. I am writing because it is the right thing to do. If you see something wrong, say something, as we say in New York. Don’t just dismiss what you saw or observed with the wave of the hand.

Esabod, a Nigerian blogger based in Dublin, got a little taste of her own poison when Kunle Ologundudu released his new Oju Ole Re disc, calling Esabod unprintable names, showing her half-naked on YouTube, and getting away with it.

I could not believe my ears that YouTube management or authorities would allow or tolerate such defamatory activities from bloggers, all in the name of freedom of expression.

Ologundudu was clearly abusing his privilege to use YouTube to reach a larger audience worldwide for his own self-promotion and aggrandisement.

Such bloggers ought to be banned from doing that on YouTube or be financially sanctioned or disciplined for such conduct on social media.

I recall Akandaoro Awikonko using his platform to insult and defame people who are in no position to defend themselves or to debunk some of the fake news being peddled by Awikonko in the name of publicity and cheap popularity for his platform.

Yes, Awikonko is a very gifted and talented artist, as I have always acknowledged in all my writings about him, but he has become so arrogant and full of himself that someone has to call his bluff.

The latest spectacle I watched on Arise TV Talk Show moderated by Ojy Okpe was the interview and exchange between Oseni Rufai and Lere Olayinka, the Senior Special Assistant to Nyesom Wike, the FCT Minister.

Lere Olayinka valiantly defended himself and his boss when he reminded the eloquent and intelligent but sometimes rude and arrogant Oseni Rufai of certain facts.

It was through Lere that the whole world got to know that Oseni’s first degree was in Zoology and Animal Science.

Mr. Olayinka had cautioned Oseni not to call himself a journalist, and Oseni responded that Lere got a phony certificate and was once a defendant in a fraud case. Lere replied that Oseni was also found guilty of a traffic violation, and so on and so forth. The encounter did not reflect positively on their very popular channel.

The exchange was so unprofessional and so ugly that it should not have been aired live at all.

I think the time has come for all of these bloggers, talk show hosts, Ewi exponents, and televangelists to be told what they can and cannot do on their platforms.

Awikonko’s statement that he is the typical “Asoro loju Oloro, ti Oloro ba gbo, kini Baba Oloro yo se” is a case in point.

The gadfly is telling Nigerians he has become an outlaw who can do anything he likes. He has, in fact, renamed himself “Apadabo Oranmiyan,” meaning the reincarnation of Oranmiyan, by defending his right to make a crown for himself and to wear it anytime and anywhere he likes and not even the Oonirisa, the Alaafin of Oyo, or any of the royal fathers in the Yoruba Southwest can question or challenge his audacity or authority to do that.

He sees himself as the Are Opitan of Yorubaland who lectures all Yoruba traditional rulers on Yoruba history. He claims to be a journalist and an actor even though he has never studied History, Journalism, or Theatre Arts in any accredited university other than his own Ego University based in Ipetu Modu, his hometown.

Bloggers, talk show hosts, Ewi exponents, and televangelist prophets who are now two a penny in Nigeria, are turning the whole world upside down by playing God and doing whatever they like. One Almaroof based in the United States is among them.

The rift between the Oonirisa and the Alaafin of Oyo was blown out of proportion by some of the irresponsible statements coming from the mouth of Almaroof.

I see a compelling reason to regulate all of these bloggers, and the time is now.

I rest my case.
Prince Dr. Wumi Akintide, a public affairs commentator, writes from Oyemekun Terrace, New York City.