Generally, Nigerians are known to be friendly to one another despite what divides us as a people. The massive population, ethnicity, and religion are factors that keep many people apart because of their different values, beliefs and cultures. At times, recreational activities such as football bring people together, most especially when the country is slugging it out with other teams across the globe. In that sense, we are always united.
In the times past, whenever a fellow country man or woman is in dire need, people offer help at all cost. At this point, nobody cares whether you are a Moslem, Christian or traditional adherent. We also see unity in diversity. You get the assistance you need during child-birth, road accident, inferno, flood or robbery attack. Irrespective of the severity of the calamity, once your neighbours get to know of your plight, they put forward all manners of help, from the little ones to life-saving interventions. The sense of belonging was massive.
Today, what comes the way of people in times of serious need is nothing but amusement and pity. Why? Thanks to technology and electronic devices like mobile telephones, i-pads, video camera and tablets. It is sad that many people are terribly addicted to these technological media that makes one to wonder whether we have enslaved ourselves to modernity. From home, to places of worships, offices and even on the roads, people are addicted to electronic devices that life appears not to matter much unlike what it used to be in the past when people lived their natural lives.
When road accidents happen, fire razes or building collapses, people rush down to such scenes in a jiffy. Is it to render assistance? Far from it. While few persons desire to provide the necessary succour by reducing the occasioned calamity and rescue victims, majority of the sympathisers are onlookers that are just there to take photographs and videos for posting on the social media. That is what we see nowadays in compounding the plight of victims at critical moments.
All manners of atrocities are committed using electronic devices, especially among youths and sadly, some elderly persons. Girls and ladies are sexually molested and abused such that the victims are recorded and posted onto the internet. At times, such illegality is used to blackmail innocent people. Perpetrators use nude pictures taken to blackmail victims in a bid to exploit them. Kidnappers are also known to engage the use of mobile handsets to trace and attack innocent people, who are held captive for ransom. A correct assessment of how the social media is being used nowadays can best be described as abused. Therefore, there is urgent need to pay a closer attention and tame this monster that is getting bigger by the day and constituting social menace.
For instance, nothing much is really done to take accident victims for urgent medical attention thus complicating their woes. Secondly, violators intrude into their victims’ privacy by illegally transmitting their sad experience with other people. Thirdly, such unauthorised posting of people’s predicament causes psychological depression and trauma that may be extremely difficult to overcome when it happens. It is for these reasons that people should not be permitted to worsen the plight of others, using the social media.
To stem the tide, there is need for attitudinal change by those concerned. They should ask themselves this question: how would they feel, if another person uses one’s calamity in entertaining others that are possibly watching such from another state, country or continent, going by the high penetrative power of the social media? Without delay, our legislators at both the state and national assembly should put in place the necessary legislation that would outlaw such practices with the corresponding punishment to discourage this criminality. Trials should be summary such that an ex parte motion can be filed while instituting legal action, to avoid time wasting.
Indiscriminate posting on the social media should be given more global attention than ever before. No doubt, the advent of the New Media has contributed immensely to technological advancement of man. However, security breaches have become a major setback in addition to the abuses associated with the use of social media. Criminally-minded persons use the social media to commit crimes and get away with them without much ado, as tracking of culprits have not been easy either. Nations need to collaborate with a view to controlling abuses in the social media use without losing its importance, as a veritable tool of communication.
People should realise that rushing to locations of accidents, fire incidents and crime scenes should be to remedy the situation and salvage lives and property. It is not to take photographs and videos of agonising and critically-ill victims. By engaging in such acts is to become an accomplice, either by commission or omission. Lending a helping hand to a brother or sister in need remains a cherished African tradition. Westernisation should never be an excuse to dump our cherished heritage of communal life, care and being our brother’s keepers.
