{"id":11727,"date":"2016-05-03T12:25:47","date_gmt":"2016-05-03T12:25:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nigeriastandardnewspaper.com\/ng\/?p=2663"},"modified":"2016-05-03T12:25:47","modified_gmt":"2016-05-03T12:25:47","slug":"opinion-boko-haram-internet-leftists-lies-against-nigerian-army-tiwa-savage-estranged-husband-teeblizz-analogy-nigerias-online-community-discourse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nigeriastandardnewspaper.com\/a\/opinion-boko-haram-internet-leftists-lies-against-nigerian-army-tiwa-savage-estranged-husband-teeblizz-analogy-nigerias-online-community-discourse\/","title":{"rendered":"OPINION: BOKO HARAM INTERNET LEFTISTS &#038; LIES AGAINST NIGERIAN ARMY *Tiwa Savage &#038; Estranged Husband, TeeBlizz Analogy *Nigeria&#8217;s Online Community Discourse"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\"><b><span style=\"color: #000000;\">OPINION:<\/span><\/b><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;\"><span style=\"font-size: xx-large;\"><b><span style=\"color: #000000;\">BOKO HARAM INTERNET LEFTISTS &amp; LIES AGAINST NIGERIAN ARMY<\/span><\/b><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;\"><span style=\"font-size: x-large;\"><i><b><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Tiwa Savage &amp; Estranged Husband, TeeBlizz Analogy<\/span><\/b><\/i><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;\"><span style=\"font-size: x-large;\"><i><b><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Nigeria&#8217;s Online Community Discourse<\/span><\/b><\/i><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\"><b><a href=\"http:\/\/nigeriastandardnewspaper.com\/ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/BH.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-2664\"><img loading=\"lazy\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-2664\" src=\"http:\/\/nigeriastandardnewspaper.com\/ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/BH-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"BH\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a>BY PHILIP AGBESE, LONDON<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>agbese.phill@gmail.com<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\"><b>ANY <\/b><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><b>right thinking person that followed the unfortunate exchange between music superstar, Tiwa Savage and her estranged husband, TeeBlizz, would likely balk at the glee with which some celebrated the crisis that hit their marriage. The sense one gets is to start querying if the larger population of Nigeria\u2019s online community are sadists or undiagnosed anarchists waiting for the next disaster to roll out the drums in tempo to the depraved kick they get from all that make other people sad.<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">But some will argue that the couple called for it by doing their laundry in the cyberspace and that being entertainers, nothing stop people from getting entertained at their expense.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">However, what perverted joy could one derive from the casualty suffered by the Army of one\u2019s country when almost every citizen of this country is connected to or at least knows one person is serving in the military?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">This query is the product of the manner some section of the nation\u2019s online population become jubilant whenever they read about the military recording injuries or casualties in the anti-terror fight. The new low for this crowd is the picture that was shared out of ignorance and passed off to look like the bodies of soldiers killed in an ambush by insurgents in Gubio, Borno state last week. As would be expected of persons that have relegated their thinking to internet servers, which they cannot even search for proper<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #000000;\">recall, they latch onto the picture with the sole intent of making it go viral.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Unfortunately, an educated search would have easily persuaded them to drop the picture and seek other ways of maligning men who daily risk their life for the safety of all citizens. First, that gory picture was showing the corpses of troops of the Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) who the AlShabab claimed to have killed in Somalia.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Secondly, that sad incident took place in 2011, about five years from when those who didn\u2019t know better are trying to make it go viral. Thirdly, the crowd that was aflutter about announcing the casualties<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #000000;\">suffered by Nigeria\u2019s military does not even know what colours of uniforms their nation\u2019s security agencies use; if they knew they would have realised that the uniforms in the picture do not belong to their country.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">We must as a country however be wary of dismissing the re-surfacing of this five year old picture as the handiwork of misguided and ignorant persons. There is that tiny possibility that those behind the picture have a more sinister motive \u2013 the mental detail of the picture has been cleaned out in what could have been an attempt to obfuscate its origins. It is therefore possible that the cyberwing of Boko Haram is at work to: one, boost the morale of fleeing terrorists while dampening the national morale by<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #000000;\">creating the impression that the military is being decimated by insurgents; two, cause outrage among the troops with a view to provoking mutiny and large scale desertion.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">If those behind this latest picture are Boko Haram sympathizers or they belong to the internet wing of the terror group, then Nigerians should be ready for more of such pranks now that the group\u2019s fighting forces have been disrupted while what is left of them is being mopped up on daily<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #000000;\">basis. In the past, these same people had shared an old picture of combatants killed in the Sudanese crisis and touted them as the casualty suffered by Nigeria\u2019s military in the hands of terrorists. So, it is<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #000000;\">something they will do again in the hope that unwary Nigerians would fall for it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">The other type of people that should learn to exercise restraint on social media are those who ignorantly share pictures on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter as well as on instant messaging platforms like BlackBerry Messenger and Whatsapp. This category of people unwittingly make content go viral<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #000000;\">without malicious intent as they are often victims of their own internet and social media addiction. <\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">They will hit \u201cLike\u201d on a Facebook post announcing the untimely death of young person; will respond with smileys and \u201cLOL\u201d to a Twit reporting a fire disaster; broadcast gory pictures to<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #000000;\">their contact list without verifying the story behind them.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Thankfully, true Nigerians on the internet pointed out the foibles of posting such picture and claiming it depicted Nigeria\u2019s war dead to Boko Haram. These are the people that recognize the true meaning of national interest and national pride. The purveyors of the sickening plot would join other discussions to discuss how the United States is great but where have they seen that country\u2019s citizens even attempting to depict its 4,491 Iraqi war dead in ways that would impact morale?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Whether done with malicious intent, done out the force of habit or just the result of low IQ, the growing diet of horror pictures is, like its fast food equivalent, doing untold damage to all of us. How many of us still cringe at the sight of the pictures of massacre that are now freely shared<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #000000;\">around? Regular doses of sickening pictures have conditioned us to accept it as the new normal, albeit a bad normal. In fact, an unscientific gauge of the damage already done is that it is now usual for people to pose for <\/span><span style=\"color: #000000;\">\u201c<\/span><span style=\"color: #000000;\">selfies\u201d at accident and disaster scenes instead of cringing at the sight confronting them.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">One hopes that Nigerian researchers may be able to tell us one day about the relationship between the growing popularity of horror pictures and the growing incidents of violent attacks that end in the loss<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #000000;\">of life. I believe publicising this kind of picture is therefore a threat to us all.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">The display of this kind of pictures might have become the norm for intellectual collaborators of terrorists to weigh down on the morale of troops and their families but we have the responsibility to make it stop in our collective interest. It is heinous and horrifying to lower our institutions in the eyes of the public and before the international community. I strongly believe and advocate that this should be the last and there should be a way to address anyone who lends his\/her platform to such<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #000000;\">mischievous use.<\/span><br \/>\n<i><b>* <\/b><\/i><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><i><b>Agbese is a public affairs commentator based in the United Kingdom<\/b><\/i><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>OPINION: BOKO HARAM INTERNET LEFTISTS &amp; LIES AGAINST NIGERIAN ARMY Tiwa Savage &amp; Estranged Husband, TeeBlizz Analogy Nigeria&#8217;s Online Community Discourse &nbsp; BY PHILIP AGBESE, LONDON agbese.phill@gmail.com &nbsp; &nbsp; ANY right thinking person that followed the unfortunate exchange between music superstar, Tiwa Savage and her estranged husband, TeeBlizz, would likely balk at the glee with [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2664,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[133],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-11727","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-opinion"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nigeriastandardnewspaper.com\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nigeriastandardnewspaper.com\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nigeriastandardnewspaper.com\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nigeriastandardnewspaper.com\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nigeriastandardnewspaper.com\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11727"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nigeriastandardnewspaper.com\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11727\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nigeriastandardnewspaper.com\/a\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nigeriastandardnewspaper.com\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nigeriastandardnewspaper.com\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nigeriastandardnewspaper.com\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}