POOR OSINBAJO, YOU’RE SO RIGHT
The Vice President of Nigeria is right on both points he makes in the Punch article below.
Social media, in a society with diminished virtue and high level of ignorance, could become a devastating weapon of mass destruction.
In Nigeria, both the government and individuals have abused social media. No one knows this better than Emeka Ugwuonye, our Founder. The Nigerian police, via a criminal Deputy Police Commissioner, convicted Emeka on social media. A corrupt official of the Nigeria Supreme Court took bribe and disbarred Emeka Ugwonye on social media. And some ignorant people also disbarred him in America through social media. They use social media to peddle lies. People who didn’t finish WAEC all of s sudden became experts on how to disbar a lawyer, even overseas.
The blackmailer-in-chief, Sowore and Sahara Reporters, used social media to convince the gullible that Emeka was disbarred. How can you disbar a lawyer without any court order signed by a judge of the highest court in the relevant jurisdiction?
Wife beaters and scammers and Internet fraudsters ganged up to use social media to attack DPA.
The Vice President is crying out now because he just received a little bit of what Emeka has suffered since the invention of social media. They already used social media to scare the Vice President from ever trying to run for Presidency. If Emeka were not a very tough person, they would have used social media to kill DPA.
Yes, we know how potently destructive the social media has been in less developed societies with high level of malcontent and ignorance, such as Nigeria. Yet, we believe that the best form of policing for social media is self policing. Each person has to regulate himself or herself.
The funny irony about the social media is that when a person embraces it the first time, he or she thinks she has become strong, powerful and influential. She becomes a tigress in her mind. She begins to bully people. If you don’t return her calls or acknowledge her presence, she uses her new power to slam you.
But then the process comes a full circle. In 5 years time, she sees that her life has diminished rather than improved. The reason is that access to the social media does not automatically change what you are. If you are not solidly educated and you do not have good virtues to give out, you will all be giving out the emptiness and negativity in you. Those don’t last. In a few years, you are burnt out and you return to where you are – empty, poor and without friends.
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