We are not terrorists, we are…

Every day we hear and see the television message that seeks to stamp the mettlesome spirit of all of us as Nigerians: resolute, civilized; good people, great nation. It is clearly a message with the objective to establish our confidence as a people with a future through a collective resolve and a collective will to frontally deal with those things that threaten our unity, peace, our pride and our very existence.

A few days ago, the importance of stamping the pride of a nation was rather underscored by the motion at the on-going National Conference to change the name “Nigeria” to “Naijiria”. The sponsors of this motion, though cited the need to clearly differentiate “Nigerian” from “Nigerien”,  were quick to point out that there is no African content in the word “Nigeria” as against “Naijiria”. And the claim to “Africanness” in the word Naijirian is simply based of the pattern of use of letters in spelling which is purely from the Africa alphabet.

The main point in the parallel between the above two scenarios is the centrality of national pride in building a collective will and resolve among the people of a nation toward effectively tackling the problems that may confront them. It is in this light that we can view the “massage” content of the message: “we are not terrorists, we are Nigerians” which, though reminding us that we are all Nigerians, is not being delivered by a Nigerian. The voice-over in that message was certainly not done by a Nigerian. If it was by a Nigerian, then it is not being spoken as a Nigerian would. It is not Nigerian.

There is indeed no need for any scholarly understanding that such a format of delivery rather offends the sensibilities of the very people it is meant to inform, persuade and galvanize into positive action. This is more so when there is an obvious similarity in the voice of the deliverer of that message and some other messages, still on television, that are supposed to come from other organizations not related to the one in question which is a national security agency. In my opinion there should be a conscious effort to separate messages that emanate from official agencies such as security agencies from non-official bodies such as nongovernmental organizations that listeners are made to believe are the authors of these other messages. This way we all reach a wider audience in terms of mileage in the sense that two different and “mutually exclusive” bodies are harping on the same thing. A message or messages that appear orchestrated do not quite make a desired impact.

In addition, television commercials generally are like films. They are supposed to be make-believes. They must be designed and delivered in ways to impact on the subconscious of the target audience such that would condition the listening mind toward expected response. When a man or a woman says to you: “you and I are Nigerians…” the first thing you want to see is a black man or a black woman. When you are only hearing, what you want to hear is a Nigerian accent or a Nigerian diction. It would be best when it is a plain Nigerian accent, diction, or at worst that of any of the ethnic groups. Whichever it may be, is far better than that of a foreigner. Although a white man, Indian or Chinese could be a Nigerian by birth or by naturalization and with full rights, any of such extractions would not normally be the model Nigerian which the personality behind that voice-over should be.

That said, we must however not throw away the baby with the bath water. One value I see in the entire scenario is a challenge on Nigerians to squarely take our destiny in our own hands. Let it be that our sensibilities will be challenged rather than be offended by the mode of delivery of the very important message. We must retreat to ponder over the philosophy that informed the choice of such mode of delivery over and above the very numerous voice-over personalities we have in Nigeria. It may even be that the assignment to communicate such message was given to a foreign firm, and even if that is not the case it has been handled by a firm with a foreign orientation.

Besides the issue of our corporate sensibilities, it is important to remind that information and communication in themselves border on national security and there is an extent to which foreigners can be trusted with them. A top government official once rationalized the invitation of foreign military and intelligence to tackle terror in Nigeria by arguing that terrorism had never been anticipated by successive Nigerian governments and as such our security agencies have not been trained in this light. In all fairness, this is absolutely correct. But why we are being helped out with the intelligence and muscle to tackle terror, we as Nigerians should be able to talk to ourselves about it. We should be able to explain all issues about terror to ourselves and say words that will persuade us to unite among ourselves, to ourselves. When we begin to ask foreigners to do these little bits, then we begin to totally lose it.

Chuba Keshi