Social media no doubt is a big market, quite massive with shops and warehouses that provide adequate services for buyers and sellers.
Millions of dollars get exchanged daily, hitting in six and twelve zeroes into individual accounts. Get a smartphone , buy data, do something, anything, once it has some revealing sights and nastily humorous content and one gets it posted like a bang, it goes viral, with likes and views in their thousands, ones account becomes a haven for money alerts.
To those who have found vocation and calling in these areas, good luck to them and more creative contents that would at all times sustain the hitting of their account with alerts in many zeroes.
However, it becomes very worrisome when one begins to analyse the very contents that dominate this large market space of infinite cash out.
If one desires to know the very stuff we are made as Nigerians, our psyche, likes, desires and mood, a peep into the Social media corridor would help.
From Facebook to tiktok to Instagram, etc the many skits that adorn such spaces are either sex related pranks or other comedy stuffs of hilarious punches.
Though there are others, like preaching, motivational talks, good drama and game contents, etc, of course such are in their minority comparatively.
There is this very content that dawned recently in the social media. It is everywhere and many young people have taken to it,with zeal and passion never seen before.
They call it Prank! Some are hilarious with a strong content values, why many of such are naughty talks, debase expressions, childish expositions and expensively life threatening.
Interestingly, many youths have toed that path and of course cashing out big time.
If human beings are what they eat, if what one watches defines one, if what one produces creatively or otherwise reflects to a large extent the very composition of the beingness of one, then it would be safe to conclude without fear of contradiction that Nigeria is to an extent a reflection of what we put out there, either as a skit or otherwise?
From my own independent critical analysis, pranks and sex relationship talks appear dominant, more patronised and viewed by a larger percentage of our population mostly young minds.
Would it then be out of place to say that Nigeria is a prank, driven largely by sensual emotions and infantile skits?
Is Nigeria not a Prank? Raped and balcanized by those whose greed and kleptomenic tendencies have led them to rape this nation into a state and condition of thick flowing hemorrhage.
What is more of a Prank than the experience of 2015? When the unsuspecting, helpless and harmless masses were handed over a truck load of deceit, deception, lies, incompetence etc in disguised cloack of promises for a better Nigeria?
What is more of a rape than the carnage, the deprivation, the hardship, the lack etc Nigerians are passing through after the Eldarado of a nation they promised in 2015.
What is more of a prank than the statements of ” I am for everybody i am for nobody” any government that fails to fix insecurity within six months of its tenure has failed, vote for us and within one year insecurity will be a thing of the past etc
The pranks they played and continue to play on Nigerians are too numerous to be chronicled, sadly such pranks and lies are still unabated, churned out daily without scruple.
Our country is soaked in tension. Hardship and stress are burgeoning by day. Each person tries to find a haven where for some minutes one can forget the many challenges and “wahala” that come in quick succession without breathing space. We are stucked already, gasping for air in an enclosed room of a stuffy nation called Nigeria.
Many go nude and flounce zones that ordinarily should be hidden from public glare,to garner followers, which translate into money,hitting their accounts in large digits at every turn.
Check the number of great influencers and the number of fellowership they have, shockingly, they are not bloggers that post religious things, academic stuffs, innovations , serious brain tasking matters etc they are people whose posts on pranks, comedies, revealing fashions, talk shows, tiktok etc have an appeal to the sensual senses of people.
The horrible situations of difficult times in this Nation have made us to unconsciously gravitate towards things that would rather thickle our fancies, make us laugh, than task our brain on serious bussines.
Isn’t Nigeria a joke? A comedy? A prank? Where snake swallows money and rats consume currencies. A country where leaders have no certificate, yet the rule and lead minds and brains of exceeding intelligence.
What better joke than these? What better comedy than that? Take a look at Nigeria, her leaders and the way and manner they go about issues on governance, one certainly would be at lose, differentiating what goes on social media space from what we witness as governance. Two sides of a coin if you ask me, full of pranks, comedies, naughty talks and sights.
2023 is close by, changing the narratives and stepping up our likes, desires and preferences from the vainess of humour, pranks, sensual flouncing/ exposure etc as leadership principles and strategies, as if one were in a social media market, to a more serious, enterprising, visionary and scientifically revolutionary leadership skits would do us a lot of good as a nation.
Sieve off comedians, humorists and sensual skit content creators in leadership clothings. Their time is up! As we resolve not to watch, follow and like them anymore. We will unfollow and unsubcribe whatever contents they have been presenting us with.
I talk in parable, if you read me literally you miss the point. You gerrit!
Jarlath Uche Opara
