What ails us so much?

I’ve written many times on the tenor of our discourse as Nigerians that one might begin to sound like a broken record. But the problem persists that one is forced to ask again, “What ails us so much?” It’s as if we are wired differently that our public debate, if we can still call it that, is filled with abuse, falsehood, and derogatory comments. The emergence of social media wherein every silly person with a smartphone and data can just post nonsense and otherwise respectable individuals will follow suit without pausing a little to question or query such has also not helped at all. Granted that societies evolve, serious Nigerians must be wondering when we are going to have more rigour in our public discourse.

On Saturday night while trying to catch up with local and international football games, especially the goals scored earlier in the day, two people contacted me asking for information about our president’s health. These are serious folks who are not flippant at all, senior colleagues who have paid their dues in journalism and who have no reason whatsoever to wish the president dead at all. Both actually supplied a link of an evening newspaper in London where news of President Buhari’s death was allegedly published. Even in our terrible partisanship, I do not think of the PDP as presently constituted, being capable of sending out such piece of news. The party clearly lacks serious ideas not to talk of propaganda.

My first call was to a colleague and friend of 20 years who is a news junkie and a light sleeper. Surprised that he was asleep, I worked the phone more speaking to colleagues on duty across newsrooms nationwide, all were in the same state of digging out more information. Not satisfied, I checked the website said to have broken the story, nothing of such on the site just as a click on its archives similarly showed that there was no story like that. I made contacts with colleagues working for international media organisations in and out of Nigeria; none of them could say categorically that our president was dead. After reporting back to the seniors who asked me, they both reported the same findings and later Aso Rock came out with a statement denying it.

Unfortunately, the denial too was not a tidy one as one of Buhari’s spokespersons, Garba Shehu, could not resist taking an unnecessary jibe at former President Goodluck Jonathan. Totally insensitive and crude, one wonders how an ordinarily temperate Shehu could stoop so low to throw mud instead of clearly telling Nigerians the whereabouts of the president. Sometime ago, a former minister had called out Shehu on twitter warning him about the lack of decorum in his choice of words, apparently the advice was not taken. Probably there must be something about the water or air at Aso Rock that makes otherwise respectable individuals lose their cool and get dirty. It follows the point I’m making that the air is so fouled up that decorum has taken flight.

Simon Kolawole wrote so passionately about the epidemic of darkness that has enveloped Nigeria yesterday that you wonder why it is not generating much attention. We are all going deaf as more and more generators take over our environment that one is amazed how Nigerians could spent a large percentage of their time dissecting the inauguration speech of the new American president on devices most likely powered by generators. The fact that under Babatunde Fashola, the power minister, we have had more darkness than light is of no concern to Nigerians but a wicked rumour of Buhari’s death gets more traction. Painfully too, such critical issues will not attract the debate needed to shed further light on them. Just as only few Nigerians will talk about a pastor asking his security guards to kill herdsmen who come near his church building or a university that says only the Muslim Students Society is the religious organisation for students, a university for that matter.

Good enough that the plethora of presidential spokespersons have stepped up their game to show that our president is alive. Events of the last three days just confirmed that the president’s health like in any democracy is a matter of public concern, there can only be greater interest. And to those who tweet, share and download without battling an eye, pause a little bit before sharing that piece of information. Just don’t write, “copied as received” on a post or link that can set the country on fire. Further, what sort of people wish another person dead for the fun of it? This is hoping our president have a restful vacation and come back with zest to face the great task of leading Nigeria out of the economic abyss we are in presently.