By BIMBOLA AMAO
I want to thank the brother that added me to Female in Africa on Facebook. You are a sister brother indeed. I’m concerned that you are a member though; is there something you want to tell us, are you in transit to being a sister or you are snitching on us? Snitchers get shot, bro! (okay, not always but most of the times)
You receive notification from Facebook groups that you can’t remember joining. Someone randomly sat with his phone and thought you should suffer the thoughtlessness with him/her. For every ‘vibrant’ Facebook page I have been added to, there is the original then about 3 clone of it. As if that is not enough, they circulate the same posts, everyone acting up like their witty self wrote the piece or came up with the joke.
There is nothing unique about these groups anymore. But every Anike has to start a group. Then members come to write “Dear Aunty Anike, thank you for the work you are doing here, please post my post oo..”
I have concluded that these groups aren’t all together useless, one can use them for research purposes. If you need to find out how an average Nigerian Youth thinks about anything, craft your research topic into a beautiful love/sex/romance story and put it up on one of these groups, people who would not fill your Google forms or answer your questionnaires will come with tons of advice for you. You will relax and collate data till your back aches.
These groups have helped put my Nigeria dreams into perspective and the result is worrisome. These are groups filled with supposedly enlightened and agile youths but their reasoning will make you desire to stretch your hand into zuckerville and smack sense into them. Their country is a functional abnormality at the edge of an implosion but it doesn’t register with the youths in Nigeria. The future is so bleak but we can’t be bothered about fixing it. We are given more to our frivolities and domestic power sharing.
Your future leader: Dear House, please help, should a good wife eat before her husband comes?
Another: How long should somebody date a boy before marrying him?
Another: Is it okay for my friend’s girlfriend to be visiting me?
And another: Hello Mummies, please help me, my boyfriend said I will have to break my SIM card on the night of our wedding, should I still marry him?
I have headache already from reading these questions, but wait till you read the answers, then you want to puke. Then go and check their profiles, they are CEOs, adults, next generation leaders. Per chance someone in the group thinks to post anything mind-engaging, his post will manage to attract little engagement before it degenerates into a tribal/ethnic cyber-fight. And the business groups? 50% are trying to sell you a Ponzi scheme.
Nigerian youths are not ready for any other thing than ranting and venting. We say it is a survival mechanism, I think we are basically collectively aiding retrogression. That’s why Obasanjo is still forming coalition party at 80, and Fela Durotoye isn’t good enough at 46, and Kingsley Moghalu doesn’t have the clout to be president and Donald Duke is simply overhyped.
Dear people of Facebook, add me to only great groups where there are stimulating conversations, as you can see from my tiny eyes, I squint to read from screens, make it worth the while, biko.
Follow me on twitter @bimbolababs
Photo Credit: The Trent Internet Newspaper