I have tried to find a word to describe the attitude of some Nigerians to news reportage, especially as it concerns the social media. The only word that comes to my mind is being gullible. The Oxford dictionary describes ‘gullibility’ as the tendency to be easily persuaded that something is real or true. From the above definition, gullible people are easily deceived or tricked, and are too willing to believe everything that other people say. The most surprising thing is that even some educated people fall prey to this destructive state of our mind, belief and conviction. The truth is that the social media is making waves today because of the attitude of some Nigerians to believe anything read on the different social platforms.
Apart from the news emanating from the social media, gullible people succumb to rumour mongering, emanating from people who are societal misfits. The irony and agony of this attitude is that it is gradually destroying individuals and societies. What this means is that your reputation and even that of a particular society can easily be destroyed by mere false statement by a dubious individual.
Recently, a friend came to me to tell me something about a particular individual that they said did something grievous. This friend, as educated as he is has started cursing and hurling abuses on that particular individual. I was surprised to discover that he was acting based on what he heard from the rumour industry. Funny enough, when we investigated, the whole story turned out to be false. Imagine if I was gullible, I would have taken the story perhaps too far. I do not know how the society will go about it but we needa serious re-orientation concerning this gullibility of most individuals in the society.
We can take a cue from the United States of America, U.S.A. presidential election that has just ended. Everyone knew that if it were to be in Africa, President Donald Trump would be in jail by now because of the media attack on him, especially, the CNN. But real Americans work with facts and not rumour from the social media or from people who do not share his ideology. In Africa, especially Nigeria, who are you to challenge the power of incumbency, especially when you are involved in many controversial court cases. In fact, on the orders of the Senior Special Assistant to the President, our judges will throw you into prison, or they will use the EFCC on you. In fact, Nigerians have not bothered to ask why almost all the past chairmen of EFCC have one corruption case or the other. Have we bothered to ask how far the different administrations at the centre at various times concluded investigations and prosecution of the immediate past EFCC chairman. But when those chairmen were pouncing on people, they were cheering and clapping for them. We borrowed the democracy we are practicing, and we copied the American Presidential system, but we are yet to get it right. I like and love the Americans and their understanding of true democracy and their reliance on facts, and not rumour for decision taking.
It is a fact that before the American Presidential election, many gullible Nigerians concluded that Trump was going to lose the election woefully. If you ask them why, their reply was usually, ‘didn’t you hear what he did?’ That is Nigerians for you. Not all, but the gullible ones.
The moment one is invited by the police for even an undisclosed offence, whether you are guilty or not, you are already condemned by some gullible Nigerians. What a problem? Recently, I read on some social media platforms stories about EFCC and their arrests here and there. In some of the stories, you can see distortion of facts, reporting events that will interest political rivals and antagonists. The irony of it all is that the moment it enters into the ears of gullible people, they dance to the streets with it.
A story was told of one school principal who was accused by the Parent Teachers’ Association of the school of embezzling school fees paid by the students of the institution. On the day that the probe panel sat, the principal held a piece of paper and asked them to help him to do subtraction. First, he reminded the PTA chairman of the amount he gave him for medical trips and asked them to minus the sum. At the end when everything was summed up, they discovered that he did not spend what they were accusing him of. They found out that some of the money was used to assist the chairman of the PTA, who was sick at a time, while others went for the development of the school. But rumour had taken the man to the trash bin, and gullible people went to the market place to sell the rumour.
