RADIO PLAGUE

One of the most agonizing jobs in Lagos right now must be hosting radio shows on national issues which involve significant audience participation via routine phone calls and the diverse social media platforms.

I get to listen to the radio every weekday, particularly in the mornings so I am quite familiar with certain shows aired on certain stations that dedicate sufficient time for discussing sports, politics and current affairs. I must commend the efforts of some On-air personalities in preparing sufficiently for their shows and such need to be encouraged. Some shows are however shallow, prejudiced and downright destructive. I still remember my Twitter exchanges with a certain radio host on Wazobia FM. Individuals like that are reasons why clamping down on free speech be deemed acceptable measures; they are no different from Nnamdi Kanu of the Radio Biafra infamy.

The discussions on Nigerian matters are usually interesting due to the many amazing things happening; these range from legislative budget padding to comical judicial declarations to the suspected slowness or perceived ineffectiveness of the executive. It is apparent that the emergence of a Northern Muslim septuagenarian in March 2015 as president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria remains a chief cause of migraine and heartache to many who bitterly opposed his candidacy in 2015 due to reasons best known to them. Many of these unhappy individuals have since resorted to regularly calling into these programs on radio perhaps to continue spewing their bile or simply to console themselves; who knows?

The radio hosts usually start out by declaring the topic up for discussion and then follow up by an introduction or background summary of the subject matter. The good hosts may offer facts and figures, references and other relevant information to aid the potential callers in contributing appropriately and coherently. For example, the story of the day may be: "FG agrees multimillion dollar deal with Japan to connect 36 State capitals and the FCT with high speed trains." This example will normally initiate a lot of feedback with many expressing opinions for or against depending on the nature of the struck deal. Unfortunately, I have observed that there are those serial callers who have become accustomed to digression and diversion. These individuals go from radio station to radio station regurgitating the same lyrics and taking every opportunity to weigh into the President even when the topic being discussed has nothing to do with the elderly man.

On one occasion, the topic discussed was the allegation of budget padding in the Federal House of assembly by Mr Jibrin. Some highly cerebral individuals managed to downplay the parts played by the key actors in the plot; they however cast the President as the villain and the source of the budget diapers. These great fellows have proven to be highly effective corruption detectors. They are not hoodwinked by the characteristic corrupt practices of President and his crew and they are certain of his 'cluelessness'. Interestingly, these corruption detectors never found anything wrong with the Hero of the last administration; most will never admit that president Jonathan and his cohort were perpetually on a corruption diet.

I listened in today to two separate shows on the same topic which was reported in some daily newspapers. The President based on counsel from his economic team headed by the vice president was prepared to send a bill to the National Assembly for emergency powers to issue executive orders to expedite measures aimed at quickening the pace of economic recovery by navigating through unnecessary bureaucracy. 

On one show, the regular bashers of Mr President were on hand to condemn the proposed bill. As far as they were concerned, the president of Nigeria is one of the most powerful in the world and already with enough powers to do whatever was necessary to get the nation back on track. It is not clear exactly what "whatever it takes" refers to but many have constantly harped on true federalism, restructuring the country or the implementation of the report of the sovereign nation conference. They took this further by accusing the president of seeking executive powers for the sole purpose of fulfilling a 'tyrannical' tendency carried over from his years in the army. 

"The National Assembly must trash this bill" they said and they went further to blame Mr President for failing to revive the economy within one year and three months, sufficient time in their optic chiasma to take Nigeria from third world to first world. I do not want to go into the subject of apology peddlers; I am afraid I do not take them seriously. Back to the radio callers; I was delighted when the host of another morning show discussing the same topic cut off one caller for going off on a tangent and suggesting to the host that she did not clearly understand his 'majestic' point. He was actually talking two truckloads of cow dung without sticking to the topic for five seconds. 

I truly wonder how these radio hosts cope with the plenty thrash talk bursting their headsets on a regular basis. I am not certain I have the temperament to stay quiet and listen to more than a few incredibly shallow individuals who take pride in what they assume is superior wisdom and knowledge of how a nation works. They are like one of their mentors who wrote an article recently where he highlighted his prediction that Donald Trump would win the Republican party primaries and ultimately the White House. This same man interestingly was unable to see the future of his former boss when the latter ran for presidential reelection in 2015. 

I believe radio show hosts expect robust discussions and debates from their callers. I can only imagine the amount of restraint they deploy to stay silent and unconfrontational in the face of pseudo intellectualism and outright bigotry. There is always freedom of speech and even the foul mouthed and 'never see good' folks must not be denied their moment of fame and rage. One fellow on an afternoon call in show must have spoken for almost five minutes on the state of the nation with so much anger but he made absolutely no sense. The post host tried in vain to reason with him without success; he must have felt like someone saved from drowning when the call eventually got terminated.  

Many of our Nigerian brothers do not cover themselves in any glory. They claim objectivity but deep in their hearts harbour  ethnic and religious skeletons. They are committed to antagonising the current administration and hope Nigeria fails so that they can crown a certain individual as  the greatest hero of all time. Like the radio hosts, this is the unfortunate post election plague we have to patiently deal with. I'm optimistic that there is a cure and the inevitable good performance of the incumbent administration to resuscitate and rehabilitate the economy is hopefully that cure if the antibodies of our dear friends do not fight back.

This government is condemned to succeed; there is no other option but success. We should properly criticise those in charge but still trust and support them. If they succeed, we all succeed and not one particular ethnic group or political party. I hope this scars some brain tissue.