Before Satellite TV came, we all had only one or at most two TV stations to watch. NTA and State broadcasting corporations. The multiple options we have today did not exist. In fact, the state-owned media stations open by 12 noon and close broadcasts by 12midnight.
The radio waves weren’t different either. It was the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria, FRCN, Voice of Nigeria, and the various state-owned radio stations. Even the print was in the same quagmire. It was the government-controlled Daily Times Newspaper and state-owned print media.
That meant clearly that the entire machinery of information dissemination was all in the hands of the State. Information could only come from the supply side. Feedback from the demand side was strictly controlled. It is what the State wanted published or aired that will be published or aired.
The advent of privately owned media organizations in the 1990s disrupted this stronghold of government in the information sector. It meant that opinions that the government did not want to hear or to be publish or aired could now be aired. But there were incessant attempts to use military decrees, the Nigerian Broadcasting Code, and many other instruments of law and coercion to suffocate alternative information.
Most of these privately owned media grew their reputation and listenership over the decades. Plenty were established by people who are politicians or those who later went into politics, or those who want to use their platforms to promote the political interests of their chums. Consequently, even the burgeoning privately owned media space was hijacked and purchased by the highest bidders, from both government and corporate players.
At this level, both the government and the owners of the privately owned media became some of the most powerful forces controlling what the generality of the population consumes as news and entertainment. And people who are in a position of power and control over other people’s minds will seldom give up that privilege. Anything that threatens their hold is considered a heinous threat and nipped.
The coming of social media shattered all these boundaries and democratized the dissemination of information. Everyone who has a smart device has become a TV and Radio Station. There are some individuals today who have more followers and listeners than many TV and Radio Stations. They are bigger and more influential than several established mainstream media. They can influence public opinion more than even elected officials without going to any media house to talk.
This development is giving our leaders at all levels serious headaches. They can’t imagine that power is slipping out of their hands into the hands of individuals who have the capacity to peddle their influence to millions who hero-worship them. That’s why they created the Cybercrime Act to add to the many other instruments they have been using from the outset, to prevent citizens from expressing themselves.
Our leaders, at all levels, don’t want to share that privilege to control us. They want to monopolize that privilege. Anything that appears challenging is that their monopoly of control over us is a threat that must be exterminated. That’s why they want to kill social media. It has empowered citizens with a voice and tools to organize themselves, and made NTA and state-owned media corporations very useless and unappealing.
They are angry. They are not happy. There are some individuals today whom the citizens are now listening to more than them. We can now fact-check them and publish outside their control. We can now argue with them. Can now shout at them. We can now report them, both discretely and openly. Things we couldn’t do when they were controlling mass media exclusively. Their fight against social media is not because some people are using it wrongly (our leaders have never been interested in righting any wrong anyway), but rather it is because citizens are using it to challenge and curtail their control over our lives.
Don’t let them shut us down. The Cybercrime Act must go!
Citizen Agba Jalingo is the Publisher of CrossRiverWatch and a rights activist, a Cross Riverian, and writes from Lagos.
NB: Opinions expressed in this article are strictly attributable to the author, Agba Jalingo, and do not represent the opinion of CrossRiverWatch or any other organization the author works for/with.
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