WITH NIGERIA'S CYBER MATADORS

By

Mike Ikhariale

Thank God for the Internet. It has given voice to the hitherto voiceless and some identity to the weak, hopeless and forgotten; it has also demolished all the old spatial barriers as virtually uncensorable communication and "chat" between individuals or groups located in many diverse locations across the globe can now take place simultaneously, irrespective of distances and the time zones in between the conferees. Like any piece of technology, for every positive application, there is mirage of possible misapplication, directly or indirectly. For example, when the TV first came into our living rooms, the desire to use it to reach a mass audience complete with instant sound and picture was too much for a world that has been stuck with the aged transistor radio for a very long time. The euphoria that greeted the immense utility of the TV, for example, was to give way to universal apprehension when society started to notice its unlimited capacity to propagate evil as the tube suddenly became a major outlet for the promotion of criminal cultures, lewd and pervasive pornography. These developments have since become a huge dent on the earlier positive image of television.

On a general note, however, mankind has benefited so immensely from the tube that whatever evils it has brought could be tolerated because, over the years, it has equally become an integral part of the modern life, in the key areas of mass information, education, politics and entertainment. So it is now a philosophical question as to whether the evil accompanying it could ever offset the enormous benefits it confers. For Nigeria, but for the foresight of the Western regional government under the late Obafemi Awolowo, she was not to experience the magic of television until the very late fifties. It is however something of pride that over the years, the TV phenomenon has spread all over the length and breath of Nigeria.

The real focus of this essay is on the Internet, the so-called Information Highway which has fundamentally revolutionized the information dissemination system, so much, that nothing like it has ever existed before or even contemplated in the weirdest science fiction. In spite of the current hardship now confronting the IT industry in the industrialized world, the computer has already changed the way they do almost everything. It is a part of the understandable anger that some of us continue to have against the defunct military governments in Nigeria, that, for their own selfish reasons, they willfully obstructed the capacity of Nigeria to join the information highway as early as possible by denying Internet connectivity to the nation. Of course, the Internet system depends on the telephone and since Nigeria at that time reserved telephony to the military oligarchy and their civilian elite, the possibility of widespread usage of the Internet in the country was unduly curtailed. The other side is that, to the extent that its usage was then more widespread in the realm of cloak and dagger operations by ubiquitous human rights and other anti-military regime propagandists, the larger Nigerian society was denied the services of the Web in the vain bid to shield the evil military regimes from global appraisal.

While neighboring countries like Ghana were making strides in that direction, the world of Internet remained largely out of the reach of the people of Nigeria. Things have however since changed for the better. A positive dividend of democracy? Maybe. Today nearly every hamlet in Nigeria now host its own web site usually through their indigenes who are economically refugeeing abroad, and this development, good as it is, is however a practical derivation from the freedom of expression which has remained a permanent feature of our republican constitutional process. Ordinarily, Nigerians like to talk, even noisily. Every coach of a Nigeria soccer team has a lesson in that regard as every Dick and Harry that manages a ticket for the "popular side" thinks he is a better coach even if he is actually dumb enough not to be able to tell when the ball has moved off side. It must however be explained that despite the apparent common place nature of the Internet in most of the technologically developed world, many of our citizens still do not get to cheaply surf in the Web while inside the country. There are still some elements of class boundary, the so-called digital divide, separating the Web from the majority of the people of Nigeria and to that extent, messages floating therein hardly reach the mainstream of the target population. This, itself, is a monumental irony, as the Internet, properly understood, remains basically the medium of the weak, the under-class, the anonymous and even the terrorists! Besides those who genuinely used it for positive goals, criminals and fraudsters have invaded the Internet mindlessly spreading heresies, mischief and other havoc along the way. Is it the case of bad money driving away good money; the bad guy chasing away the good guy; good triumphing over evil? Time will tell.

Meanwhile, with the Internet, everyone is both a philosopher and an accomplished writer all in one package. Witness the millions of chats simultaneously buzzing multi-dimensionally within the cyber system with accompanying ferocity and the (mis) information bombardment, worldwide. Even though we are obviously newcomers to the Web culture, Nigeria, as represented by her citizens who are abroad, has more or less caught the bug. This development is inevitable giving our propensity to want to outdo everybody in anything we are eventually introduced to even when we are not really up to it. I surely like that kind of spirit even if it necessarily smacks of misguided arrogance and undue temerity. Isn’t that the Nigerian way? I take good time every day to visit some of the Nigerian sites and also try to participate in some of the discussion groups. Unlike in the print media where contributors are conscious of their readership, Internet publication is more or less like speaking to everybody and nobody at the same time and this relative anonymity has also tempted a whole lot of people into unpardonable extremities.

In a federation as diverse and variegated as ours, one does not expect unanimity in perception in many national discourses, as peculiar issue will be handled peculiarly by those most concerned. But what first struck me was the unabashed ethnic and myopic orientation of the Nigerian Internet fraternities or E-groups as they are also called. Most of the contributors seem to have lost touch with the reality back home as many of the literature and debates they feature on Nigeria continue to hold on to wholly out-dated and unpardonably otiose ideas about the antagonistic ethnic intercourse back home. They manifest the palpable illusion that Nigeria actually stood still while they sojourn the world. No. Nigeria may be down, it is certainly not out yet. A few are still doing pretty well. The whole cacophony reminds me of an experience a few years ago when a US based friend of ours came into my office in Lagos and was trying to show off with an obsolete laptop until he saw my then sleek (now obsolete!) Sony notebook. "How did you get this?" He asked rather surprisingly. I told him that I bought it at the Alaba market in Lagos. My parrot secretary then interjected that no one she knows around was still using that generation of laptop he was about bragging with it. I promptly rebuked her that she should never talk to my American friend like that again. The plain truth however is that some, perhaps a few though, back home, have better access to the goings-on in the US than some residents here whose only preoccupation is the endless but slavish search for the green backs. CNN International and other cable systems, that we view in Nigeria when NEPA allows is probably more analytical than the soap-opera version that is beamed to the home audience who prefer the Jerry Springer type of talk shows to serious issues such as is the meat of any high school student in Niajaland.

So when you log on to some of these sites, what you read easily reveals the ignorance and morbid disillusionment of some of our compatriots. Because it is difficult to moderate the flow and contents of most of the chat subjects, they have become veritable sources of laughter because many of those who contribute to these fora do not care a hoot about the demands of intellectual ethics and literary decorum. Like the road to hell, the Internet is wide, non-discriminatory and accommodates the good, the bad and the ugly without tolls or any gate keeping. Indeed, both the high and the low, wise and stupid, weak and strong, use it. Our President, Olusegun Obasanjo, for example, also boasts of a site on the web just as yours sincerely had one created for him by his associates. On the down side, there are hackers and viral marksmen as well as modern day Robin Hoods all on the prowl on the Web. This is not peculiar to Nigeria; it is a global phenomenon of which ours is more or less quite negligible. There are very credible Nigerian sites and they are doing a very good job of keeping those of our people in the Diaspora perpetually informed, from mundane virus warning to breaking the news that WTC has been hit by terrorists. It is a part of the "have you heard?" mentality, a specie of digital gossiping. I do concede however that for some, that may be the only source of information, available to them. And herein lie the danger of misinformation, if not indoctrination.

Along with the credible sites are equally several others with doubtful credibility both in terms of authorship as well as in readership. Generally, they have their regular close discussion groups; a handful of faithful contributors are typically involved in a rather incestuous orgy of intellectual backslapping even with the most cavalier thought process. They dabble into any subject under the sun with Aristotelian confidence. There is a balanced mixture of mutual eulogizing and bitter recriminations, a canny sense of comradeship, depending on the subject on the agenda. I noticed that there is apparently no discipline too arcane or too complex for these cyber ‘wise men’; each contributor is a master and the result has been riotous, to say the least. In a way, this could be said to be the golden age of information and popular discourse without censorship, a truly free market of ideas even if there are no keen buyers. It is obvious that these fora, apart from being avenues for empire building by faceless folks who dare not perform in the larger and open world, it is also a psychological escape route for some who would have otherwise been in social or political Siberia but for the Internet.

Not too long ago I stumbled on a debate following a pathetic story posted in one of the E-groups. In a nutshell, they were talking about a Nigerian who had been allegedly denied his degree for the ostensible reason that he has been convicted and subsequently jailed for a fraud and was then forced to abandon his studies to do his time in jail. Upon discharge, the fellow went back to the University to complete a course in Economics (no information on the disclosure that he made to the institution) but his university has now refused to award him his degree. As a Nigerian university worker, I took interest in the story and read the series of commentaries by people who, from what they were saying, apparently could not have obtained university education in Nigeria. They were utterly disgusted that a Nigerian university could deny a citizen who had worked so hard, and had fully "paid" the fees, his degree. Clearly oblivious of the reality of the Nigerian University system, and perhaps of any one for that matter, they were pouring all possible invectives on the university, which they described as "primitive" and "oppressive". They were even alleging human rights violations on the part of the University management. So sure they were in their views that no one should be surprised if the next wave of asylum seekers from Nigeria would be those running from the "oppressive Nigerian professors" and those "callous Senates members" and "ye ye professors" as these cyber warriors variously dubbed them. If words had physical force, beyond being mere medium of communication, these guys would have easily w-t-ced this campus as they actually thought that they would achieve their objective by searching out the dictionaries for maximum epithets against their perceived target. Unfortunately, things do not work that way. Hiding behind the typewriter to inflict defamatory missiles may be tempting but I doubt its ultimate utility especially if uttered by not-too-articulate authors.

It was at this stage that I decided to chip in and inform these Internet arbitrators that degrees in Nigeria are not awarded on the basis of monetary payment or cash and carry, and that under the philosophy of our university system, they are actually awarded on the bases of character and learning and that Nigerian students do not really ‘pay’ so much fees as they do in the US especially by aliens students without scholarships. It did not occur to me that I was surfing in sharks-infested waters. These e-warriors were so surprised that I could suggest that, in spite of the general failing back home, university degrees are still rigidly awarded only on the basis of the combined near-sacred criteria of merit and character. As they say, old women are never comfortable when we discuss dry bones. It did not occur to me that some of our "Yankee acadas", could not really have been appropriate university materials when they ‘Andrewed’ out of our shores and on arrival in ‘God’s own country’ had had to work their ass out to gather their diplomas, in the spirit of the ‘American Dream’. As a result, the strong philosophical relationship between ‘honour’ and ‘degrees’ in our system is alien to them. That was my mistake, a serious one at that, as I must have unwittingly touched raw nerves in the process because, in a moment, this particular e-groups was jammed with hardly intelligible tirades by those who were evidently offended by my explanation. I was called names, "oppressor", "illiterate", "arrogant", "dictator", etc. At a point one of my CVs was circulated as if I was still looking for a job or even seeking recognition!

But if they thought that they were about to scare me out of the topic, they mistook their target as I clearly took them on about what the rules for the award of degrees and the roles of university Senate therein are. Hell was let lose as my computer mailbox was jammed with repetitive caustic scribbles by my Americanised brothers trying to convince me in essays, some of whose verbal quality have not progressed beyond the old GCE ordinary level, that university degrees in Nigeria could be earned on the basis of sentiments or Gaza Strip type of poster wielding protestations. Honestly, I enjoyed every bit of it as it gave me some insight into the intellectual depth and psychological disposition of some of my compatriots. Rather than address the issue of how to help the man allegedly in distress, they turned the debates into whether we should blame people who could not afford quality education due to the combined factors of personal failure and material or environmental circumstances. I managed to tell them that I have come to know that not every graduate of a university is truly educated and that, indeed, there are universities and there universities. Too bad if the individual could not afford the good ones. Even in this democratic America, there are degrees and there degrees and the most affordable ones are usually not the best among them here. Yet, we all know that some American institutions are among the best in the world but because of the evils of capitalism, not every child gets to go there, unlike in Nigeria where access to higher education was for a very long time more or less democratised, resulting in a fairly nationally evenly spread opportunities and standards. And for that reason, it was possible for a poor village boy like me to be educated virtually free of charge. So, I know fairly well what I am talking about. I have served on some accreditation committees of the Nigerian Universities Commission (NUC) and the primary goal there is to ensure that ALL state-funded universities conform to certain minimum standards. We all know that in the US standards vary according to the size of your pocket, your race and national origins, and to some extent, your brain. I have heard Bush saying that henceforth, "no child will be left behind". What I don’t know is if he extended the good news to my compatriots in his country, irrespective of their status.

Strangely enough, the discussants seemed to agree amongst themselves that whatever is Nigerian must be primitive, inferior and conservative! These Cyber keyboard spinners were incensed when I told them that universities degree by tradition were not meant for everyone, especially those with moral liability on their neck. They tightly plugged their ears to my explanations. No matter what these guys may say, it became obvious that they are not stakeholders in the nation’s higher education system, as they do not possess degrees awarded therefrom. So, I do understand their predicament. I only hope they understood mine. As a ‘home boy’, I have been able to compare and consequently come to the understanding of what I am talking about and only an irascible fool would contend this with me. I was only worried about the unsuspecting people these Internet ‘analysts’ could be misleading with their biased and warped ideas about education in Nigeria, no matter how few. My position is that if the Nigerian government could just rehabilitate our university system and restore the lost glory of our campuses, there is still a lot good in our universities. Nigerian degrees are not inferior to anyone’s, even today. It is just that right now, they are in some bad shape structurally. In spite of that, the intellectual orientation is till very much the same: character and learning, no more, no less.

Back to the all-powerful Internet. It is the epitome of freedom aplenty as the only license you need to cruise on this direction-less cyber highway, spreading booboos and mischief, as well as dolling out Solomonic dulcet, depending on the motive and the audience available, is the dutiful computer. The real story is that with it, almost everyone is a literary genius and there are no restraints as to what should be professed. More importantly, the right to equality, which even the most sophisticated democracy could not provide, is the first law on the Web. It is really quite interesting. I have come to the conclusion that, the ‘intelligent’ computer does not serve any god and it also does not discriminate about those who come to its altar, believers and unbelievers alike. That really is freedom of speech and liberty par excellence. And that also is the real danger because it is from the abundance of a man’s heart that he speaks and as we all know, some minds are dirty, really dirty. Let’s hope that the evil of the web is not made our national portion.

All the same, to Mr. Bill Gates, I say: na you biko o (I salute you)!