Are overseas-based columnists small-minded?





Are overseas-based columnists small-minded?

By Levi Obijiofor

Friday, 7 October 2011

One of the commonest criticisms directed most frequently against Nigerian newspaper columnists and posters who write from their overseas locations is the notion that they lack comprehensive knowledge and understanding of national issues to facilitate authoritative and critical analysis of such matters. I am one of those overseas-based columnists. I must admit also that, as a columnist, I have been the butt of public criticisms based on the idea that commentators who reside in foreign places have superficial knowledge of national issues. These uncultivated assumptions about the narrow-minded perspectives of overseas-based Nigerian newspaper columnists deserve to be interrogated.

In this age of new technologies, knowledge of local and international affairs cannot be restricted to a writer’s geographic location. This clarification is important because of the grand illusion held by some people that Nigerians in the Diaspora cannot engage in insightful and meaningful analysis of national events. The new media environment that has spawned multiple channels of news and entertainment, as well as 24-hour news cycle, has indeed encouraged and empowered ordinary citizens and socio-political organisations across the globe to participate in news reporting and analysis and to influence how the public perceives social reality.

The idea that only people who reside in Nigeria are equipped with acceptable knowledge to comment on national events must be challenged because it is misleading. Knowledge is open and cannot be appropriated by anyone. We live not in the authoritarian age in which knowledge is presumed to be difficult and therefore available to a few privileged people. In the new electronic environment in which news and information travel faster than they used to do, geographical distance no longer constitutes a barrier to knowledge acquisition. Overseas-based columnists who comment regularly on issues relating to Nigeria should not be regarded as dunderheads who lack basic information about what is happening in the country.

The plethora of online discussion groups and web sites set up by Nigerians in the Diaspora is surely evidence of the profundity of interest shown by Nigerians (whether they are resident overseas or at home) on matters that relate to their homeland. Consider also those who engage in the production of personal blogs not necessarily of events that occur in their places of residence but well documented accounts of developments in Nigeria.



Can anyone argue persuasively that overseas-based Nigerian newspaper columnists, as well as online discussion groups, websites and personal blogs are not contributing significantly to the process of national development or that they do not play a role in the democratisation of our society through critical appraisal of national events and the people entrusted with the task of governing the country?

While technology has reduced our world to a small village, it has not reduced our ability to scrutinise our national leaders and the institutions that serve our society. The use of new communication technologies for participatory communication in the public sphere contributes also to the development of deliberative democracy in developing and developed countries. Indeed, Jane B. Singer, a renowned journalism academic at the University of Iowa in the United States, once wrote that “In a world as tightly interconnected and interdependent as ours has become, we are poorly served by a myopic view of the place in which we live.” One significant outcome of technological changes in the new media scene is increasing participatory communication and civic deliberation by citizens through wider use of technologies.

Rather than mock the contributions that Nigerians in the Diaspora make to the development of our nation through public sphere discussions in traditional and online media, we should be exploring how a greater number of ordinary citizens can use the platform of traditional media (such as independent newspapers and magazines) and digital media (like mobile phones, e-mail and social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr) to participate in the public sphere and to communicate news of national and international events to a global audience.

The impressive ability of Nigerians in the Diaspora to report or comment on news events that occur at home shows that technological changes have not limited their capacity to record, report and analyse news. In our world of new media, maintaining a newspaper column is no longer restricted to people who reside in the country. If an event is not reported by home-based journalists and columnists, it does not mean the event never happened. Nigerians in the Diaspora are now fully equipped and are contributing to online and traditional media contents, including setting the agenda of public policy and media debate.

The relationship between traditional or new media and greater citizen participation in the democratic process in both western and non-western cultures has been underscored. Traditional media and new media serve as engines that galvanize public interest and participation in modern democracies. In a developing country such as Nigeria, popular participation in media discourse must be viewed as a veritable condition for civic engagement and socioeconomic development. Through discussion in newspaper spaces, for example, columnists and other contributors promote a healthy democracy (e.g. freedom of expression and respect for human rights), and facilitate critical public assessment of the performance of political leaders.

If everyone must participate in the democratic process, the media must furnish everyone with essential information. Information is vital to how we make judgments about our political leaders, about our own welfare and about the state of the nation. Newspaper columnists and other public commentators on national affairs, regardless of where they reside, represent official and unofficial watchdogs of national political leaders. In performing this role, they provide valuable service to the nation because, in true democratic spirit, political leaders must be scrutinised to ensure they remain accountable to the society they claim to serve. Unfortunately, we live in a society in which critical comments in the media are perceived as instruments designed to destroy the careers of politicians and public office holders.

It seems to me that our national leaders have not yet learnt how to absorb critical comments which are, in general, intended to compel the leaders to change their errant ways in order that they can lead the nation in a productive direction.

In the introduction to their edited book entitled Deliberation, Democracy, and the Media, Simone Chambers and Anne Costain argued: “Healthy democracies need a healthy public sphere where citizens (and elite) can exchange ideas, acquire knowledge and information, confront public problems, exercise public accountability, discuss policy options, challenge the powerful without fear of reprisals, and defend principles.”

Although newspaper columnists serve as overseers of government officials, one of the problems with public reliance on traditional media as sources of information is poor performance by the media. Public cynicism and distrust of the media as the pipelines of credible and reliable information has continued to grow in Nigeria and elsewhere.

General scepticism over media performance has developed partly because the mainstream media are seen to serve the interests of the elite more than the interests of the common people. Karin Barber made the point forcefully in her review of popular arts in Africa 24 years ago. In that article which was published in African Studies Review journal (1987), she wrote: “In Africa ordinary people tend to be invisible and inaudible… Newspapers, radio and television offer a magnified image of the class that controls them. Not only does the ruling elite make the news, it is the news – as endless verbatim reports of politicians’ speeches, accounts of elite weddings and birthday parties, and the pages and pages of expensive obituaries testify.” This view captures vividly the media situation in Nigeria.

While I cannot defend any overseas-based writer’s one-dimensional examination of national issues driven by self-serving objectives, it would be improper to accept the argument that columnists who do not reside in Nigeria are ill equipped to comment on home-based events. Newspaper columnists who are sincerely driven by the desire to change society for the good of humanity cannot engage in deliberate dissemination of falsehood or uncritical acceptance of the performance of national leaders. Regardless of their place of residence, columnists cannot analyse authoritatively events that occur in their society without possessing credible knowledge and understanding of their country’s historical background and cultural practices. To write without well informed knowledge of a country is a disservice to a society.

Yeah, I think they all are annoying as hell and small minded!

what about your woetooam4j moniker. That was a classic. Did OAM4J ban you?

they are all dumb,foolish and annoying ,they need to start minding their fucking buisness

htajz:

they are all dumb,foolish and annoying ,they need to start minding their bleeping buisness

Senseless Post

Very st[i]u[/i]pid thread.

What happened to fstranger's crush on kobojunkie.

Thought he was chasing kobojunkie for s.ex before.

The guy opened a number of threads to that effect.

tpia@:

What happened to fstranger's crush on kobojunkie.

Thought he was chasing kobojunkie for s.ex before.

The guy opened a number of threads to that effect.

I found out from those who know Kobo, that Kobo is indeed a man, a grown arse man for that matter. And I dont do men

Eventhough it might sound like i'm shooting myself in the foot, i must agree with OP, many Nigerian newspaper columnists based overseas have lost sight of reality. 

They'll rather spend most of the time blabbing on about music awards or showbiz; journalists abroad are supposed to be our eyes in the country they are based, if they can break into the white house to find a meaningful story then so be it; thats what we want to hear about are all the skeleton in the closets of the countries they are in. How our country people can gain from it e.t.c Thats what modern day journalism's all about

Haven't we been through this road already: Nigerians in Diaspora vs Nigerians in Nigeria

Small-minded?

Err.

Heh.

BTW, are you not based overseas yourself?

Amujale:

Eventhough it might sound like i'm shooting myself in the foot, i must agree with OP, many Nigerian newspaper columnists based overseas have lost sight of reality. 

They'll rather spend most of the time blabbing on about music awards or showbiz; journalists abroad are supposed to be our eyes in the country they are based, if they can break into the white house to find a meaningful story then so be it; thats what we want to hear about are all the skeleton in the closets of the countries they are in. How our country people can gain from it e.t.c Thats what modern day journalism's all about

This is very true.

@ poster you are suffering from ABRODAPHOBIA and YANKEELOESIS