The internet is so vast that it circles the world from east to
west and from north to south. Many people do not know how big the internet is.
It is beyond “all human understanding.”
Apart from its vastness, the internet provides the users and
abusers with cover and anonymity, which partly accounts for why users say
things that they may not say in other mediums and in other physical places.
There are no geographical boundaries or political spheres which make
regulations almost impossible to implement or even to legislate. But the world
is gradually coming to terms with an unregulated and uncontrolled cyber space.
Eventually there would be at least internet protocols for users.
But meanwhile I see that the profiles of Nigerian users of
internet fall under several categories and reflect the ethnic, religious
rivalries and political beliefs etc., of each group. When Nigerians gather in
this World Wide Web they bring to the table the attitudes one would expect in
such a gathering with the exception that these attributes are exaggerated by
the anonymity that the internet provides even when writers use their real
names.
Category 1. These are users who love Nigeria and who want to use
the internet to bring for discussion, issues they consider important to
Nigeria. They want to educate; to convince; to influence, other users to their
point of view. They welcome intellectual debate without being condescending,
cavalier, haughty, or disdainful to the views of others even when they
disagree. This group is approachable and humble but firm in stating their
positions. But defend the points of view with vigor and with verifiable facts.
They are usually well educated and to a large extent objective and not overly
ethnocentric. Most often they write under their real names.
Category 2. This group of users sees the internet as a place to
spend some time to relax just as one would do after a hard day at the office.
To this group this is an after work bar. They spend a good amount in this bar
for joking. They make fun of other users and have even spread a few rumors,
believing that every other user can tell a joke from the truth. They make
caricatures of one ethnic group over another. Like most comediennes they
sometimes speak the truth which is like a grain of wheat in a bushel of chaff
which one would search for a long time before one finds it.
Category 3. This group is hard to define. My best effort would be
to say that this group represents resentful people who use the internet to
bring out the venom in their hearts. They spew hatred and abuse in their
writings. They blame the society for every short coming in their life or blame
other ethnic groups for whatever they conceive is wrong with Nigeria. This
group is the least educated among the warriors. Please note that by education I
do not mean paper qualifications for I believe that among Nigerian internet
users have at least a reading and writing skill.
Educated here means:
The main ingredients
include "the capacity for independent thought, a sense of relationship
between different questions, a sense of history, respect for evidence and a
sense of how to define and approach important questions." .(Hanna
H Gray President University of Chicago)
Category 4. These are cheerleaders or what Fella Ransom Kuti
called follow-follow people. They echo any words from the paymaster dead or
alive. This group is not capable of discerning truth from fiction and has no
principles whatsoever. They think they are serving their master well by
allowing him to parade himself naked in the public square.
Category 5. These men and women are the job seekers. They are very
close to profile 4 people except that when they come to accept that there is no
job for them from the administration they turn against the administration. They
become the strongest critics of government in power often in contradiction to
the positions they once took. There is not much strong desire to serve the
motherland but to get their share of the “national cake.” Those lucky to be
hired will usually adopt the same chop-chop ideology they
vigorously opposed from their ivy desks
Do you know anyone who qualifies in any of these categories? Where
are you?
Being aware of these “types” is supposed to make you enjoy what
you read. I enjoy the entertainers because they help me laugh which is their
motivation. I read the writings of those who bring issues to the table for
discussion. For reading them maketh me a full man; conferencing and debating
with them makes you a ready man; and writing and challenging them an exact man
(Sir Francis Bacon, amplified).
It takes all of us to be a country.
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