KENYAN AMENDED COMMUNICATION ACT: VENDETTA, FRAUD OR BOTH?

I was in Nairobi, Kenya from January 14 to 18, 2009. This was about the time the furore generated by the amended communication act in Kenya was peaking. The government of Mr Mwai Kibaki had amended the Kenyan Media Law and included a draconian section 88 which empowers the Minister of Internal Security to “raid media houses” and seize and confiscate whatever is found incriminating before, during or after publication or broadcasting. The response has been that of condemnation and outcry. Some Kenyan papers reported an appeal by Media Owners for a revision of the amendment; Mr Kibaki’s intention to revise it; Prime Minister Odinga’s displeasure with it as well as parliamentarians opposition to the revision. In fact, parliamentarians promised to reject any attempt by the president to commence a review process (See for instance, Daily Nation Jan 14, 2009). This was surprising to me who expected that parliamentarians would be more pro-freedom and pro-people. I chatted with a few Kenyans over this and got some interesting insight.
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The parliamentarians were glad to pass the amendment which Mr Kibaki later signed into law because they (the parliamentarians) saw it as a way of getting even with the media. The media, in the words of Chris (one of those I chatted with), “had been harassing the parliamentarians” over taxes. Only the basic pay of the lawmakers was taxed; their buxom allowances, which quadrupled their basic, are not taxed. The media felt this was unfair privilege for the lawmakers. Secondly, several lawmakers were aggrieved by the role the media played during the last bloody elections. Some media houses gave reports that made it clear that Mr Kibaki and his allies cheated their way into victory. Passing an act that severely limits the freedom of the media is thus a way of hitting back at the ‘obstinate’ watchdog.
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But it may be more than that. Clement and Milton, with whom I also chatted, felt the parliamentarians want to pocket the media in order to make cheating their way into re-election smoother in four years when elections come up again in Kenya. A thoroughly intimidated and pocketed media would be unable to announce unfavourable election results or to report election rigging. The Act is thus a preparation for large scale, seamless electoral fraud.
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It appears that a mixture of vendetta and fraud undergirds the communication law amendment. Whatever the case is, the story of this infamous law illustrates the important place of the media in the democratic equation, and the threat a good media system continues to pose to fraudulent leadership.
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Now more than before, Kenya needs a strong and independent media to fight the growing large-scale corruption in the country. The papers in the week I was in Nairobi reported cases of the incredible levels and acts of corruption in agriculture, petroleum and tourism sectors of the country. Kenyans have spoken against the Act. The media should be poised and allowed to fight such evils.
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Opinion polls continue to show that close 90% of Kenyans oppose the amendment. But Kenyans may have to do more than just express displeasure. They may need the kind of protest, uproar, threat of litigation, widespread lobby that greeted the closure last year of Channels TV in Nigeria. That reaction immediately brought the Yar’Adua government to his knees.

ACCE Conference: Ghana 2009

The African Council for Communication Education (ACCE) is the only continent-wide academic body for African researchers in media and communication--that is if you consider Trans-African Council for Communication Education (TRACCE) as the diaporic version of ACCE. ACCE, publishers of the famed African Media Review, has been in coma for several years but is poised to come round with a Conference. Under the theme Communication education and practice in Africa: a social contract for the 21st Century, the Conference will hold in the School of Communication Studies, University of Ghana, from 4-8 August 2009.

Conference subthemes (quite a list) include:
Communication, Language and Culture
Communication and Gender
Communication and Democracy
Communication and Globalization
Communication and Cross-cutting Development Challenges, including health communication; communication and the environment etc.
(This list of subthemes is not exhaustive)

Abstracts are to be submitted as mail attachments to:
Mrs. Alexina Arthur, aarthur@ug.edu.gh; alexinaarthur@yahoo.com
Dr Audrey Gadzekpo, agadzekpo@ug.edu.gh; audreygadzekpo@gmail.com

Deadline for receipt of abstracts : 31 January 2009
Notice of acceptance of abstracts : 28 February 2009
Deadline for receipt of full papers : 31 May 2009

Indigenous communication: Pamela Wilson versus Des Wilson

Des Wilson took a PhD in African indigenous communication from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria in 1988. Des’s thesis was on the indigenous communication media and channels of the Ibibio people in South-South Nigeria. Des defined indigenous media as those media of communication that had been in use before the modern mass media and are still in use today. Adopting some of his terms from music, he categorised these media into several groups including membranophones, ideophones, aerophones, symbolographic displays, extramundane communication and music. Examples of such media included talking drums, wooden drums, rattles, folk tales, tattoos, symbolic writing and codes. A little unwieldy, you might think. Yet, to many of us, Wilson’s work was not only an important improvement on the complicated work of Doob (1960) but also a take-off point and launch-pad for enquiry into African indigenous communication media and systems. And this has led to a number of graduate theses. Years after, Mundy and Compton (1991); Mundy and Lloyd-Laney (1992); Millar and Aniah (2005) and several others continue to map the territory of indigenous media a la Des, that is, as that which was there pre-colonially and is still being used today. With the probable exception of the chapter by Louise Bourgault, this line of thought runs through the book edited by Ghana’s Ansu-Kyeremeh, Indigenous communication in Africa (2005). Newspapers, radio and television are described as exogenous or foreign media; the exact opposite of indigenous media. Points of intersection and interaction between these exogenous and indigenous media are explored but as points of distinctly intersecting entities.

But the recent very brilliant book edited by Pamela Wilson and Michelle Stewart, Global indigenous media, defines indigenous media completely differently. Acknowledging the internal tension in the phrase “global indigenous”, the editors and contributors consider indigenous media as any media used by the indigenous peoples, defined by Manuel and Posluns as “people who have special nontechnical, nonmodern, exploitative relations to the land in which they still inhabit and who are disenfranchised by the nations they live”. Among such media are radio, television, cinema, and even the internet. "The stone rejected by the builders..." you might think. (“Interestingly”, Pamela Wilson’s book, which has fifteen chapters focusing on different peoples, has nothing to say about any of the peoples of Africa. Never mind that the title reads “Global...”. Contributors were drawn from across the globe: that is, from America and Europe!).

Whereas Des Wilson and others focus on the origin of a medium in classifying it as indigenous, Pamela Wilson and Michelle Stewart and others focus on the users of the media (the indigenous people). Does that say something about the difference between a media scholar and an anthropologist? This difference can take fundamental dimensions especially when mapping out research focus is the issue. And the difference will certainly persist especially since there is little or no interaction among the two groups of scholars symbolised by these two Wilsons. Maybe there should be a journal of indigenous communication studies to engender such interaction.

Students who don't do assignments get A's

USA Today published an article which summarizes a nationwide survey of college students in the US. The study involved nearly 380,000 students from 722 four-year colleges. The study showed that about 20% of seniors and 25% of freshmen reported frequently going to class without completing the required readings or assignments. Yet, of these students who did not do their assignments, 29% of freshmen and 36% of seniors got mostly A's. Of what use, then, is going through the professor's readings? Read the article here.

Einstein, the Nigerian press & the 'witch' kids of Akwa Ibom

Last week, Reuben Abati did an indicting opinion in his column in the Nigerian Guardian on the gruesome treatment meted out on 'witch' children in Akwa Ibom, Nigeria. These kids were declared 'witches' by their parents' "pastors". They were driven out of their homes by the parents; some were bathed with hot soda; others had nails driven into their skulls; yet others were quickly murdered by their parents and the community. All these went on for years and no one seemed to notice until Channel 4, UK, did a report on them in November this year. The report brought the Nigerian government into ridicule.

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Many people have commented on this and have roundly condemned the government, the parents, the cultural milleu that permitted such evil and the religious liars that brainwash(ed) the parents. But none has said a thing about the press. When all these were going on for years, where was the Nigerian press? Akwa Ibom hosts a number of newspapers, television and radio stations. What did these do about these indescribably evil practice? Albert Einstein says:

the world is a dangerous place to live;

not because of the people who are evil,

but because of the people who don't do anything about it.

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As soon as Channel 4 released its documentary in November and local press picked up the matter, the government of Akwa Ibom began the review of the Child Rights Act. Today, the Act has been sharpened well enough to be used to prosecute these heartless groups, parents and pastors. Imagine if the Nigerian press did their job of surveillance of the environment well enough, and raised this issue to public consciousness two to three years ago. Quite a number of kids would have escaped this crude inquisition and trial by ordeal. One of the perptrators, a self-styled bishop confessed to having killed 110 witch children. But then he said he 'killed' the witches in them, not (just?) the kids. He is explaining this to the police. Einstein's words haunt me:

The world is a dangerous place to live;

not because of the people who are evil,

but because of the people who don't do anything about it.

A black Black Friday

Thursday, November 27, being the fourth Thursday of November, was Thanksgiving Day in the United States. It is a federal public holiday set aside to commemorate the safe arrival of migrating Europeans in what is now the United States. The first recorded Thanksgiving was held by 600 safe arrivals in Florida in 1565. The purpose was to give thanks to God for protecting the migrants from the perils of the sea and the poisoned darts of Native Indians. Today, Thanksgiving is a big holiday—probably bigger than Christmas or New Year. It’s one time of the year that the family reunites. But not many people remember that it is supposed to be a day for thanking God. I am afraid the day is associated more with eating traditional Thanksgiving food—roasted turkey, mashed potatoes and veggies, than with God and His providence. Worse still, like Christmas, Thanksgiving has received a bad dent from the gush of commercialization.

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The day following Thanksgiving is known as Black Friday. It is so called because that day, all retail outlets whose accounts may have been in the red lower prices and get more buyers thus moving the account from red to black. In ‘Black Friday’ is one rare use of the word ‘black’ that actually means something good! This commercial appendage to Thanksgiving is gradually overshadowing the main event. In the days leading to Thanksgiving, I heard more talk about Black Friday than about a people giving thanks or a God receiving thanks.

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I witnessed this year’s Black Friday in State College, Pennsylvania. My friend and I went to a store to shop for computers. We were warned to arrive early as the period of grace (sales) would be short and the people would be many. We got to the first store about 4.15 am. What we saw was incredible: there were over 120 people lined up in the frozen weather—it was 0oC or 32oF. We learnt that some people had been there since 10.00 pm of Thursday: they had spent over six hours in that chill! No wonder a lot of smoking had to go on! We moved to another less known store and within minutes even the queue there began to challenge a medium-size train. In some stores, there was real pandemonium. In fact, a news outlet reported that shoppers broke down the doors of a store when it was time to get in. Americans are an interesting people: they’d go through anything to save a few dollars when it comes to buying; but they’d blow all of that on what, to the Nigerian in me, is trivial—such as paying $100 to watch a game of football.
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But the Black Friday did actually turn black. In search of my daily dose of Nigerian news, I turned to the Nigerian Tribune online. Of the four news items on its front page, three were records of the needless deaths of scores of people in Nigeria: armed robbers killed several in Ibadan; three more children died from lethal teething drugs; a truck lost control and ran into a full market in Kogi State killing tens of people in the market. In frustration, I turned to the Nigerian Guardian, and Rueben Abati was there describing and lamenting the heartless torture and murder of scores of Akwa Ibom kids who were declared witches (winches) by some rabid pastors and senseless parents. My frustration welled to the brim so I turned to MSNBC online. ‘Enough of Nigeria!’ I screamed. But what did MSNBC offer me: “Wal-Mart worker dies after crowd rushes store” What? American shoppers trampled a sales clerk to death just to save a few bucks? I am done with the news. "Well. Let's see BBC online", I mustered some hope. But I got another stab: Poll riots erupt in Nigerian city BBC declared. Riots in Jos over elections claimed the lives of at least 20 people gruesomely matcheted or burnt to death. "No more!" I resolved. It was indeed a black Black Friday.

The Nigerian Higher Education Foundation symposium at New York

On Thursday, 13 November 2008, my colleague and I attended a symposium organised by the Nigeria Higher Education Foundation (NHEF) at Columbia University, New York. In attendance were several distinguished US-based Nigerians in academia holding down important positions in their fields and publishing cutting-edge research. Participants also included people from business and representatives of some higher institutions in Nigeria, including the University of Ibadan. In attendance was the Obi of Onitsha, an alumnus of Columbia University for forty years. (I stand with the Obi in the photo above)

The symposium was on the role of partnerships in African sustainable development. Participating organisations included the Earth Institute, Columbia University. Among the speakers at the symposium--and there were very many of them--were the distinguished Professor of Development Economics, Jeffrey Sachs; the Obi of Onitsha, Igwe Achebe; Anthony Olorunnisola (Penn State University); Ibrahim Gambari (United Nations); Wole Soboyejo (Princeton University); Bola Omoniyi (the Earth Institute); Funmi Olopade (University of Chicago); G.O.S Ekhaguere (University of Ibadan, Nigeria), and Sam Ofodile (UNIPORT, Nigeria). Some presenters shared their research breakthroughs (Prof Ofodile and his team had perfected a method of injecting a substantial quantity of protein into garri!) while others presented the activities of their organisations (Bola Omoniyi talked about the Millennium Villages Project in countries including Nigeria). Everyone stressed how their research or organisations could help, or had been helping, Nigeria especially with regard to attaining the Millennium Development Goals (MDG). Presenters however shared their frustrations with the situation in Nigeria: the difficulty in collaborating with Nigerian universities caused by lack of follow up; the daunting problem of bureaucracy in Nigerian universities; and cold reception or even outright opposition from colleagues back home! The problem of infrastructure and

corruption in the nation as a whole also received substantial coverage. (To your left is a discussion panel at the symposium. I stand with Dr Olorunnisola in the photograph below)

This symposium was my first real encounter with brain drain at work. The presenters were first-rate academics, distinguished in every sense of the word, who had left Nigeria years ago out of sheer frustration--unemployment, militarism, poverty, insecurity, corruption--or in search of education. Nigeria's loss is America's gain. It also exposed me to the reality of media bias and stereotypes: in the media we hardly hear of this category of Nigerians in the US; but all the time we hear of a different kind of Nigerians in America: those who defraud others. The symposium also exposed me to a different kind of patriotism. These people left Nigeria years ago but their hearts never left Nigeria. Everyone was driven by one question: "how can we help Nigeria?" In fact, that was the question that led to the birth of NHEF in 2004.

It appears to me that Nigeria has immense resources and an inexhaustible reservoir of goodwill from Nigerians in diaspora--resources which our leaders and administrators have ignored. Will Nigerian academic adminstrators and political leaders respond to the NHEF and diasporic beckon? I am frightened by the obvious answer to this question.

PS: Jeffrey Sachs's wisecrack at the symposium: Each time people complain about corruption in developing countries, I ask, 'Really? You mean there are corrupt people outside of Washington?'