When
Shem Obafaiye appeared on Channels television for his most famed moment in
life, Nigerians did not realize that there were more issues behind the man’s
goof than they acknowledge. A simple ‘Je ne sais pa’ (I don’t know) would have
been enough but he made an attempt to impress his interviewers and listeners at
home. In the attempt he made a big joke that Nigerians cannot stop laughing
about.
An
audio version of the video was played on popular radio station and yours truly
happened to be in a commercial bus and listened to the average Nigerian enjoy
the humour. Passengers aboard the bus were reeling with laughter when someone
eventually asked, “but what is the website of the NSCDC?” No one knew and they
did not hide it. “If my oga at the
top does not know it, how do you expect me to know it?” It was an answer that
repeated the joke and asked pertinent questions. The jokes continued everywhere
for many days as though the website of the NSCDC were mentioned in the very
first stanza of our national anthem and Mr. Shem had failed it.
Obviously,
Nigerians do not know the website of the NSCDC just as Mr. Shem who works there
and had a responsibility of knowing the website did not know it. Ignorance on
the use of a thing is bound to lead to its misuse soon. There are many websites
in Nigeria today and the average Nigerian who is internet savvy struggles to
memorize them. But really, do we actually visit Nigerian websites? Did Mr. Shem
really have any need to visit his organisation’s website? People are quick to
join a bandwagon of chorus singers humming to the chorus even without knowing
the correct lyrics or meaning just because the melody is good.
A
recruitment racket was being perpetrated by some criminals. The recruitment
racket was allegedly connected with a website of the NSCDC. Victims must have
cried out one way or the other resulting in the interview of Mr. Shem. However,
the issues from the scenario are not the man’s ignorance and his refusal to
acknowledge same, but the fact that the average Nigerian is equally plagued by
this same clueless disposition on nearly all things computer related.
The
website of the NSCDC should not become the cause of a joke nor should anyone
fall victim other than for their failure to be diligent if Nigeria as a country
makes correct use of computers. That is the real issue and real cause of my oga at the top episode; ignorance and
improper use of computers.
No
doubt, Nigerians are fascinated by computers. There lots of them everywhere. Offices,
homes, schools, and even places of worship have various sizes and shapes of the
most used tool of the millennium. Laptops are in large supply, the statistics
on Nigeria’s computer access is arguably inaccurate in Lagos at least. Yet computers
are under-utilized and are hardly anything other than glorified typewriters and
at most social media checking machines.
Computers
are very useful is an understatement. There is hardly a task in the 21st
century that is not one way aided by computers or made better by computers. In Nigeria
though, the machines continue to serve the individual but not the community. Police
stations, public schools and health care centres are usually proof of
government presence in a society. How many of these buildings have working
computers? How many of them are used for services other than typing office
correspondence? How many of the staff at these buildings has ever heard the
term database or know its relevance?
There
are no directory services provided by a Nigerian government on government’s
websites. The ones out there are skeletal. Wikipedia has a better listing of
Nigerian governmental agencies and their functions. Is it not awkward that
there is no website in Nigeria where Nigerians can visit to find information
about Nigeria, its government and their activities, agencies and the like? There
is none. You are left to your wits and luck. Government websites are awarded to
web design professionals to design and manage. The administrators of the organizations
where these contracts are awarded do not visit these sites beyond their date of
launch. If there are problems on the website, they do not know and do not care.
When problems occur, the professionals
are contacted and are asked to correct them.
It
is a horrible scenario really. It is this lack of information that some
Nigerians hard hit by the economy take advantage of in a negative way. They set
up online recruitment rackets with a government agency. Unemployed Nigerians
desirous of quitting the sit at home jobs visit these sites and fall victims. They
visited the wrong website because they had no correct way of determining the
right website.
Should
there be another website of the NSCDC other than what it actually is? Should my
oga at the top be responsible for
telling unemployed Nigerians who would like a career with the Civil Defense
Corps what the website of the NSCDC is? Should there have been a racket of
employment with the NSCDC website if there had been a correct way for one to
find out websites out Nigerian governments or agencies? You may argue that one
may just google it but that is hardly
sufficient.
Visit
a Nigerian university today to check for a student and make general enquiries
about him or his performance, you will be amazed at the number of times you
will be turned back or the number of offices you will have to be referred to
get just a piece of information. It is that bad.
The
general hospital is fully burdened with files of patients than it is with
patients. Court houses have computers that perform the exalted task of printing
letters. Sunday Mba’s transfer saga is proof that there are no computers in the
Nigeria Football Federation or perhaps the League’s official secretariat. National ID cards, drivers’ licenses and
international passports cannot be verified immediately by anyone. We must
blindly conclude that the fake one presented is original. Taribo West and many
other footballers’ real ages remain mysteries only their parents can answer. That
is how wonderful Nigeria is. Nothing can be checked.
Company
and business name registration in Nigeria takes such a short time to process
these days because the computers search for availability in days and eventually
produce companies with similar names. Nigerian police stations are Monkey Park
of paper work. Ghost workers, voter registration errors and electoral fraud,
tax evasion and related offences are all products of our poor and inadequate
use of computers in Nigeria. This is the information age. It is the age in
which access to correct information should be a click away anytime in real time
or at least within reasonable time.
It
is an issue bigger than we care to realize but we have chosen to trivialize it
and laugh over our joint insistence on passing the buck to our oga at the top who will categorically
tell us what our website is. We hope that when he eventually does, that the
website will be a fully functional one not the “ww.nscdc that’s all” one. Really,
how does one expect progress to be made when the official website of Nigeria
www.nigeria.gov.ng remains static with no updates in as many days?
For
any society to expand and improve, it must consistently improve on its ability
to correctly use the tool of its era. The tool of this age is no doubt the
computer. There are so many of them serving individuals in Nigeria today but
are performing far too little in serving us as a people. Governments must begin
to create directories of its agencies and departments, databases of its people
as well as see that these services are accessible all the time to Nigerians who
need them. Access to information is at the core of the Freedom of Information Bill. This is the time really to computerize Nigeria.
Had
Shem Obafaiye been used to the right way of getting information in the 21st
century, there would not have been any my oga
at the top joke. Perhaps he did not so that we must begin to take a critical look
at these tools we flaunt around but make little use of as a people.
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