Nigeria Content Online

If you want me I’ll let you film me on your
videophone, sings Beyonce and the message is at once public and
intimate. Make a cameo she goes on, “I can handle you” she croons; “if
you want me you can watch me… its gonna be you and me.” Fast rewind
to 1997 when the PalmPilot was first launched, its 4.7 x 3.1 x .7
dimensions measured in inches makes it a dinosaur compared to today’s
sleeker models that give you the whole world in your palm and a hundred
different ways to interact with it too, including conducting a virtual
relationship with any version of a Beyonce that tickles your fancy.

Twenty years ago the idea that you could be multi
tasking, including performing bodily functions and speaking on the
phone at the same time seemed positively infra dig; now I am not sure
anybody gives it a second thought especially with the difficulty these
days of “getting through”! Come to think of it that old joke about the
man who will instinctively dobale even when speaking to his Kabiyesi on
the phone is not redundant. He can actually film himself performing the
obeisance with his smart mobile device and “instant message” it to Baba
as he speaks. Sometimes you don’t know which world is catching up to
the other.

The phone has had an up and down history in
Nigeria. In the early sixties it was taken for granted in the
relatively few homes that did have one. It was a status symbol all
right because of its exclusivity, but it did work. Then came the late
seventies, early eighties when virtually only ‘big’ men and women had
them.

The service was erratic. It was easier to get onto
a Nitel operator to book an international call than it was to get your
neighbour on the phone. It often took many hands to get through to a
number. When the fingers were tired of redialing (there was no instant
button technology then) someone else would be asked to take over. If
you lived in a place like Festac in Lagos and needed to make an
international call you made the long drive down to the Island office of
Nitel or if you had friends who were senior civil servants and had
phones at home you could invite yourself by to book a call. The Nitel
operator would call back when the number was ‘through’.

Outside Lagos, it just did not happen.

The handset became a decorative item, there to be
seen but rarely heard. Then Nigeria skipped a whole process when mobile
phones came into being, Olusegun Obasanjo added to his many-coloured
legacy, and the rest is history.

No self-respecting roadside vulcanizer can be seen
without a cell phone. The access to conversation with loved ones near
and far is ubiquitous, the only currency you need is airtime and that
too has become a new device with which to lure Beyonce wannabes. ‘Baby
come ride my Volkswagen’ has given way to, ‘let me give you some
airtime’, to go by a recent South African public awareness message
warning against multiple sex partners.

So yes, there is a lot of communicating going on
but is there really much being said? The Nigerian factor has made many
of those conversations a fractured and irritating exercise. Relying on
one network has proved inadequate so many people sign on to three or
four. Text messaging has become far less stressful than straining to
hear a voice over a crackly line or in noisy surroundings, so what used
to be seen as poor syntax and bad grammar passes fr gd txt wen de lyn
is bd.

But there are unmistakable advantages. It is a
boon to be able to speak to old parents on a regular basis and have
them communicate with grandchildren; to keep track of recalcitrant
teenagers whether they want you to or not, and otherwise make sure out
of sight is not out of mind; or even to ensure that unavailable is
virtually enjoyable as Beyonce promises.” So take my picture on your
video phone, you can pick your own song you can be the only one.” The
course of business has been made smoother and faster. Access to
information has made planning and forecasting easier. It has widened
our horizons and opened people’s eyes up to possibilities they never
dreamed about.

News alerts such as the one this media
organization is starting up will keep you up to date with what is going
on in your world; the GPS will take you where you need to go; you can
get your email, keep up with your friends and run your office from the
palm of your hand. Good bye to the fly by night ‘armpitcos’ of yester
years, but welcome too to the sinister stalkers on the look out for
easy ransom money.

That is the rub: we can match them feature for
feature when it comes to keeping up with the latest gadgets but the
basic underpinnings that will enable us reach those heights
collectively as a society are still mired in the seventies.

Water, light, mass transit, roads, health care, security, education…

Are the politicians listening?