The Nation Newspaper

Tag: intellectualism

  • Ignorance: social media and intellectualism

    Sir: The social media has come to stay. Its use, misuse and abuse are what writers will continue to address. Countless are the benefits of social media. The different platforms have become the oil with which the yam of friendship, relationship and companionship is eaten. They have become succour out of boredom and they are to the 21st century what the television was to the 19th and 20th centuries.

    As relevant as the social media is, it has its many disadvantages in different realms of life. One of such challenges is that social media has shrunk real life bonds among people as complaints such as “S/he spends all day chatting” is now on the lips of many people across the globe.

    Fredrick Douglass once said “Once you learn to read, you will be forever free”. But he said this when reading was an intellectually engaging exercise. And I mean before the advent of social media. The reverse is pathetically the case as reading seems in this age to shrink people’s ability to think. People share nonsensical information and fabrications and when they tell you they have read it somewhere, you are immediately forced to ask: Even if you’ve read this, don’t you think about the things you read and then take your stance?

    In the past, that which is written used to be taken as authentic and reliable. Sadly, gone is that age. The poor intellectual state of many readers and the lack of depth in many posts make one ask: what do people read on social media? This question reveals the preponderance of fake news and other logically unfounded posts.

    Writing used to be the business of the noble and the informed. Now, the social media has become a space for thoughtless and illogical writings available for lazy and myopic readers.

    In an informal survey of three National Diploma classes in one of Nigerian polytechnics, I discovered recently that 70% of the students who use Android phones did not know how to get on Google on their gadgets. Aside their call logs, contact list and gallery, they can only navigate through their many social media. In an age when lecturers have stopped reckoning with Wikipedia, there are still many students who can’t even handle Google search. Many do not know that gone are the days you necessarily have to buy a newspaper, all of them have their online versions now. But unfortunately, an average Nigerian relies on the information on social media and would rather become an unpaid distributor of such news than to get the news verified.

    This is an appeal and a reminder to people that reading is an intellectual engagement which demands questioning whatever you read and subjecting same to logical validation. A generation of literates who have no depth are not different from illiterates who cannot pronounce words. People are advised to also get on other media such as educational media(academia, LinkedIn) and to utilise Google search to broaden their knowledge. Google is such a big gift to the world. It has something to say on everything. It presents you with different perspectives to any issue which can help you arrive at a logical conclusion on any topic. As the social media presents us with more and more platforms to lavish our days (Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat), it is our responsibility to put these platforms to positive use and to also visit other media that can help us deepen our reasoning.

     

    • GaniuAbisoyeBamgbose (GAB) University of Ibadan.

  • NCC, Danbatta and public intellectualism

    Distinct commonalities often stand out in bold relief about most academics and intellectual heavyweights who find themselves in public service. They are usually transformational, out-of-box thinkers who swiftly roll out comprehensive blueprints, which encapsulate their vision and mission for new challenges.  Exuding supreme confidence is another trait they share, which perhaps explains why they could be daring in decision-making. Nonetheless, they won’t shy away from chipping in quality contribution to public discourse – which their intellectual cutting-edge enables them to do rather effortlessly.

    Prof Charles Chukuma Soludo probably shocked the nation’s banking industry with his audacious consolidation policy. Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi’s out-of-box strategy provided the shield we badly needed as a nation during the 2007 global financial meltdown. Akinwumi Adesina boldly attempted to revolutionise our agricultural sector with his business model. And, Malam Nasir el Rufai was fearless both as the Director-General of Bureau of Public Enterprise (BPE) and as the Minister the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

    However, while Soludo as the number one banker in the country chose to consolidate, el  Rufai as the man spearheading the privatisation of the nation’s public utilities was busy unbundling the behemoth energy corporation that was supplying meagre amount of megawatts of electricity to the giant of Africa. He also midwifed the telecom sector reform we currently enjoy.

    Yet, we now have Prof Umar Garba Danbatta, the Executive Vice-Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), who announced his entry into the telecom industry with yet another big-bang decision.  No sooner had President Muhammadu Buhari appointed him than he wielded the big regulatory stick in the nation’s telecom sector. He would follow that with his 8-Point Agenda, a roadmap of aligned strategic management policy of NCC.

    Interestingly – like Soludo or other intellectual giants mentioned above – that Danbatta has managed to mix his time-consuming assignment at the NCC with public intellectualism is something worth underlining. Indeed, it is not only the nation’s broadband that is witnessing a quantum leap in terms of expansion under Danbatta’s leadership of the NCC – growing from 10% to close to 21% as revealed by ITU-ENESCO Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development, but  his contribution to public discourse cannot go unnoticed.

    Danbatta received a standing ovation of respected colleagues last year when he presented a lecture titled, “The National Broadband Plan as a Catalyst for Social and Economic Transformation: The NCC Mandate”, at the Nigerian Academy of Engineering.

    It wasn’t the first time though that he would receive this kind of appreciation.  It is on record that the professor of telecommunications engineering was the first NCC boss to address the executive course of National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS). Just last week, Danbatta wowed the academic community of University of Nigeria Nsukka after joining the league of eminent Nigerians like former President Olusegun Obasanjo to deliver the convocation symposium of the revered varsity. He spoke on the Role of ICT Infrastructure in Tertiary Education in Nigeria: NCC Intervention.

    However, it was much more than what the title suggests.  Danbatta referenced the works of renowned economists and social scientists to buttress points. He would intermittently quote from Joseph Eugene Stiglitz, Rodrick or Joseph Schumpeter.  Indeed, while the presentation was generously spiced intellectually, in terms of statistics and academic citations, Danbatta chose to draw the curtain on it with a clarion call for all and sundry to begin to see the role of digital transformation beyond the realm of statistical figures churned out by the industry.

    “We talk about the benefits of ICT and we normally do this by dishing out e-readiness indicators. We say broadband penetration is 21%, internet penetration 97%. All these are ICT-readiness indicators that do not tell the entire story,” he observed.

    He went on, “We can go beyond that and explain how ICTs have impacted to provide shared and sustainable prosperity; how ICTs have succeeded in reducing poverty; how they improve learning and make the society more open, more mobile and cohesive. And, above all, how they encourage the economy to be more competitive and innovative. These are the ends of digital transformation and not the input-output figures we normally reel out.”

    For Professor Danbatta, “It is in Nigeria’s national interest to harness potentials that exist in the information-driven age through the deployment and exploitation of ICT to facilitate socio-economic development and improvement of the human condition.”

    He said the Less Developed Countries (LDCs) are now grappling with a broadband divide in addition to infrastructure, knowledge and information divides. “Of the world’s over five billion broadband subscriptions, North America and European Union control over 50% while South America and Sub-Saharan Africa, where Nigeria belongs,  account for only 3% of this global share,” he lamented.

    Yet, as Danbatta continues to use the platforms of different public forums to spray us generously with his intellectual perfume, we must not lose sight of the fact that the industry he superintends over has also shown remarkable performance during his tenure.

    Figures from the National Bureau of Statistics (BPE) shows that in spite of the challenging waters of economic downturn the nation is waddling through, the telecom sector was, last year, contributing between N 1.4 trillion to N1.5 trillion to the GDP, the highest it has recorded in its history.  The industry is hoping that the trend will be sustained for a very long time. And it has Danbatta who is not short both the passion and the blueprint to ensure that.

     

    • Musa, Special Adviser (Media) to the EVC-NCC wrote in from Abuja.

  • ‘How to make Africa’s intellectualism count’

    Africa has remained under-developed because of lack of belief in the ideas of its people, speakers at a book presentation and foundation inauguration said yesterday in Lagos.

    This lack of belief, they said, is born out of poverty and unwillingness to discard an inferior mentality.

    To reverse this trend, there is the need to accord greater value to African indigenous system and depend less on Western ideas in solving the continent’s development problems.

    In a bid to promote Africa’s effective participation in the world of ideas and ensure that its development is spearheaded and sustained by the ideas of its people, the Okali Seminal Ideas Foundation for Africa (OSIFA), was inaugurated.

    The Founder/Chairman of the foundation, Dr Agwu Ukiwe Okali, regretted that Africans do not receive corresponding respect for their intellectual competence and abilities, despite the fact that they can hold their own in any task anywhere.

    The consequence, he said, is that the developed world does not consider Africa as a good ideas source.

    Also launched at the event was a book by Okali, entitled: Of Black Servitude without Slavery: the Unspoken Politics of Language. It is the first volume of OSIFA’s Africa Seminal Ideas Series.

    The author holds a Bachelor of Laws degree from the London School of Economics and Political Science, as well as a Master of Laws and Doctor of Juridical Science degrees from Harvard Law School.

    Okali had a distinguished career at the United Nations (UN), last serving as Registrar of the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, with the rank of United Nations Assistant Secretary General.

    He said: “We (Africans) are not providing intellectual input to thing. We don’t see African input. Every society has its ideas by which it resolves its survival issues. The only difference is articulation.

    “We need to have a system for collecting and articulating the various ideas concerning everything. This is one of the things we want OSIFA to do,” he said.

    Immediate past Chairperson of the African Union Commission, Dr jean Ping, who was the keynote speaker, said “the outside world” has foisted on Africa a persistently negative assessment of its intellectualism.

    This, he said, has led to a loss of self-confidence by Africans and an apparent inability to break out of a state of “ideas-dependency”; worsened by the myth that “no good thing has, or can, come from Africa.”

    Ping said despite effort by many scholars to re-evaluate and re-direct attention to African cultures, African intellectualism continues to find itself “acquiescing in, and often, indeed accepting, and living this dangerous myth about the continent.”

    The consequence, according to him, is that approaches that evolved from African environments and cultures are hardly put into consideration when addressing developmental problems.

    “Instead, the instinct is automatically to reach for the foreign-scripted manual or blueprint for solution,” he said.

    Further compounding the problem, Ping said, are poverty and “the pressures of the stomach.”

    He said due to poverty and their generally-deprives circumstances, the primary pre-occupation of majority of Africans is with meeting daily survival needs.

    “The work of re-focusing African minds to accord greater value to African indigenous systems, will, therefore, be greatly lightened by visible improvement in the way African states manage their affairs…

    “A political dispensation that sets a high store on the value of good leadership is, therefore, needed to elevate the image of Africa and bolster the effort of re-launching African intellectualism into the world of ideas, and re-directing it towards fostering African development.”

    Reviewing the publication, writer/critic Prof Kole Omotoso called it “a book to crow about.”

    He said European languages as well as a few other non-European ones harbour in their systems, blatant concepts, ideas, expressions and words which are anti-black and so racist against Africans and people of African descent.

    The book, he said, deals specifically with English, highlighting the fact that it is simply unacceptable that such a world-wide means of communication should be the carrier of racist sentiments, consciously and unconsciously, on a daily basis, around the globe.

    “That an African should take on the crusade of ridding the English language, as well as the other European and non-European languages, of this blemish is something to crow about,” Omotoso said.

  • Jaji… a town famous for military intellectualism

    Jaji… a town famous for military intellectualism

    It used to be known as the home of military intellectualism. Jaji, where suicide bombers struck yesterday, had been in the news for long. Many know it as the home of the Command and Staff College, where the Armed Forces, including the army, air force and navy train their officers. It is near the village of Jaji, about 35 km northeast of Kaduna in the Igabi Local Government Area (LGA) of Kaduna State.

    Twin explosions rocked the St. Andrew Military Protestant Church, Jaji, Kaduna State, killing 11 people and injuring 30 others, the army said.

    The Director, Army Public Relations, Brig.-Gen. Bolaji Koleosho, said the first explosion occurred at about 12:05 p.m while the second went off 10 minutes later.

    He said the injured had been taken to the 44 Reference Hospital and the NAF Hospital, both in Kaduna.

    Koleosho said that investigations had begun into the incident.

    The army has restricted movement into the Jaji facility.

    The bombers have tried to change the story of the community, but Jaji will remain known for its contribution to military intellectualism.

    The college opened in May 1976 with two senior officers’ courses based on a curriculum derived from that of British Army Staff College, Camberley. It also boasts of a Demonstration Battalion, the Army School of Artillery, and armor support from a composite armored battalion.

    In 1978, with the opening of the air faculty, Jaji was redesignated the Command and Staff College. The navy faculty was established in September 1981, assembling all senior military divisions in one campus.

    When the college opened, it was giving two senior officers’ courses. In April 1978, the College was expanded when the Army Junior Division was established to conduct courses for Captains in the Army.

    By 1986, 1,172 officers had graduated from Jaji’s senior divisions, and 1,320 from the junior divisions.

    The original senior officers’ courses were based on a curriculum derived from that of the British Army Staff College, Camberley, and the college establishment was assisted by an advisory team from the British Army. The successor to the advisory team, the Joint Warfare Advisory Team, remained until October 1988.

    In September 2005, United Kingdom Armed Forces Minister Adam Ingram visited Jaji and announced that an extra 200,000 UK pounds would be allocated to assist training of over 17,000 Nigerian troops as peacekeepers in Africa. In November 2006, the Prince of Wales of the United Kingdom visited Nigeria and inspected soldiers at Jaji.

    Some of its old students are: former military President Ibrahim Babangida, Emmanuel Ukaegbu, former military Administrator of Anambra State, Jonah Wuyep, former chief of the Air Staff, Femi John Femi, also a former chief of Air Staff, Olagunsoye Oyinlola, former governor of Osun State, Paul Obi, former administrator of Bayelsa State, Abubakar Tanko Ayuba, former governor of Kaduna State and Dominic Oneya, former administrator of Kano State and Benue State, Amadi Ikwechegh, former military governor of Imo State, Tunji Olurin, former administrator of Ekiti State and Lawan Gwadabe, former military governor of Niger State.

    Although Boko Haram had not claimed responsibility for the attacks on Jaji, they bore its marks.

     

    It remains to be seen if the attacks have anything to do with the military’s announcement offering large rewards for information leading to the capture of leaders of the militant Islamist group Boko Haram.

    Military officials said 50m naira ($317,000; £197,709) was offered for help in tracking down the group’s suspected leader Abubakar Shekau.

    Other alleged commanders have around 10m naira on their head.

    Boko Haram has been waging an insurgency since 2009 to impose strict Sharia law across Nigeria.

    The group has claimed responsibility for a number of attacks against churches and other establishments since 2009. More than 640 people have died so far this year in attacks blamed on the group.

    “They are wanted in connection with terrorist activities particularly in the north-east zone of Nigeria that led to the killings, bombings and assassination of some civilians, religious leaders, traditional rulers, businessmen, politicians, civil servants and security personnel amongst others,” a military statement said.

    “They are also wanted for arson and destruction of properties worth millions of naira.”

    Abubakar Shekau was one of three Boko Haram leaders designated terrorists by the United States in June. The other is Khalid al-Barnawi, thought to have ties with a branch of al-Qaeda.