PICK OF THE WEEK (2)

It’s another week just yet, and September is edging closer to the finish line. Certainly, most of you will receive your alerts this week, others, next. But however this week goes, we are looking forward to its surprises. And like John Muir admonished, I am eager to climb this mountain’s top, and seize its good tidings. So, last week was a blast, the blog post saw 100+ views – which is uncommon to my blog posts – as the blog isn’t so boosted, and only personally developed content are featured here. However, the reception has been mixed. Views have been encouraging, but the feedback hasn’t been thorough. The comments section have not reflected as much as was expected. But maybe, this is due to the stories that were featured, the presentation or taste. Whatever it is, you can have your say, by sending me your scoops via @KoloKennethK, or better still do a better analytics of the stories.

This week, I review some of the stories that went viral and popular within the last week, on Twitter Nigeria. Well, it can be an exciting and bitchy place – Twitter Nigeria. And it takes guts to keep your head above waters, like @sugarbelly has. Men, that babe has got it all. Wish I could meet her anytime soon. Not that I’m going to suggest any 85 minutes long meeting or anything, but I like to meet strong hearted people, who draw motivation from within them, and Sugarbelly fits the bill. So, from ‘stooges’ to homicide, a war on terror and A pastor’s ordeal, I’ve peered in to Twitter Nigeria, and hope that the stark realities hit home to us, with hopes to better days. Long Live the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

MY PICK

44 Dead in Church Building Collapse

On the 14^th of September, It happened again. The curse on high rise buildings in Lagos has not been broken yet. Another collapsed building, a bout of rancid odour as carcass ooze fills the air. And then, resistance as rescue teams seek to dig out survivors and the dead. But if you ever expected this scene will play out at Prophet Temitope B. Joshua’s Synagogue Church of All Nations, you must be a better Seer than the prophet who is famed for his prophesies coming to pass. Information reaching me, is that though the site was approved for a 4 storey building or so, an additional 2 storey building was being added to it, which subsequently caused a cracking in the foundation and ultimately, collapse.

The concern now, is for those families which have come from all corners of the world seeking for miracles, which are now left bereft – dead or sustaining serious injuries – as authorities continue to mop up the damages incurred. The headline “44 dead in church building collapse”, have seen 250+ retweets via the CNN handle amongst other handles tweeting about it. But hold on… As at the time of the curating of this week’s pick, 1,104 tweets with the headline had reached 16.6m+ accounts, with a staggering 17.1m+ impacts/impressions. Stories with TB Joshua sure does make the rounds, you’ll agree. We can only hope that the death toll doesn’t hit the 100 benchmark. As at last report, it was sat at 86.

Missing Nigerian Fighter Jet

As if the tragedy wasn’t enough, it was reported the same day, that a Dassault/Dornier Alpha fighter jet belonging to the Nigerian Airforce registered NAF 466, had gone missing, apparently plucked from the skies. This brought back memories of the Malaysian airliner over South East Asia, as well as the sister jet, shot down in Ukraine. But this, is a fighter jet, deployed to Adamawa to repel the gains of Boko Haram in Adamawa. While it is still not officially known what caused the disappearance of the jet, some rumors making the rounds say it was shot down by Boko Haram. I have to admit that if they now have the firepower to bring down a stealth – atleast for Nigeria – jet, we are in for a long and protracted war.

The tweet from Associated Press got 125 retweets and 43 favorites to get the “Top Tweet” prize, while analysis show that atleast 17m users of twitter have seen the story on their timeline in the last 7 days. Infact, by the 14th of September, when the reach was first monitored, measured, it had already surpassed the 1,000 tweet per day mark. It was indeed, one of the top news stories on Monday last week.It is my hope that the crew were able to eject to safety, before the jet went down. I also hope that Nigeria wins this war sooner, and bring the troops home to their families.

Whatever goes by the name Ayo Oritsejafor

The Christian Association of Nigeria is a network, a union an agglomeration of churches and their clergies in Nigeria. It seeks to uphold the welfare of all practicing Christians in the land. Since the turn of the decade, CAN has not failed to be in the news spotlight, all thanks to her President, Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor. Take it or leave it, the ‘bling-bling’ Pastor, with his mien, carriage, branding, air and position on issues have drawn many nearer to the CAN brand, Christians and Muslims alike. Oh, that man reeks of bludgeoning atmosphere, that even the Presidency can’t do but acknowledge him. Remember the President going all the way to lay the foundation stone for his soon to be inaugurated university?

Well, last week, Pastor Ayo made the news headlines again, after word filtered in that a private jet carrying two Nigerians, an Israeli and Nigeria-owned $9.3m had been seized by South African authorities after it was said to have been sent on a mission to buy ordinance. While it is easy to point a finger at the war against insurgency, there’s also a rise in the Niger Delta militancy, with oil theft and illegal refinery the new business. There’s also the small word of ‘2015 general elections’; as the reasons why that jet was sent to South Africa to buy arms. However, between Sep. 19, 3:57 pm and Sep. 22, 8:15 am, 3,012 tweets mentioned “Ayo Oritsejafor” for whatever reasons, and they dropped on to the timelines of 17,462,219 tweeps. Of the 3K+ tweets, 1,500 of those were on the 20th, when I suppose it emerged that the jet was owned by Pastor Ayo. The sarcasm was glaring to see, even as the "Top Tweet" was Bar Baric's tweet, which saw 129 retweets amongst others.

#MeetAtiku

On Sunday, the hashtag was number 1 on of Top20 Trends in Nigeria, according to @TrendnaliaNG. Maybe it was because Alh. Atiku Abubakar had said “50% of my cabinet will be made up of young people”, in a bid to outclass the #30PercentOrNothing campaign by youths said to be aligned to the Peoples' Democratic Party who are hoping that President Jonathan can affirm 30% quota of his government to youth. The event was a night out with Atiku, held in Lagos on Saturday, September 20^th, organized by Nigeria News Desk. It drew an array of young people from across the country to one room, and as well, millions across twitter, as the statistics show. He remarked that he had created approximately 50K jobs in Nigeria and other African countries, while he wants the federal government to devolve power over lands to states, as those states control the land, and not government. So much from a man who was the country’s deputy Oga-at-the-Top for a whopping 8 years.

But who knows? Maybe the real Oga-at-the-Top then, didn’t give him any choices to make as far as decisions were concerned. No wonder, he wants to run for President. He reiterated though, that young entrepreneurs need low interest funding and business information to flourish, and will like the President to improve on his action on insurgency. When asked why he switched from PDP to APC, he said “APC is my last busstop”. 10 million tweeps saw the hashtag on their TL, with 3,035 tweets from 1,244 users of which Nigeria News Desk and INA Daily News were the top 2 influential users.

TB Joshua Offers N50,000 on News

On Saturday, while I was roaming my timeline looking for where to place my apoti as a usual LASTMA, I began to see that TB Joshua had poured more petrol on the building collapse fire that was about to be put out, when an audio recording emerged of him offering reporters N50,000 each, to alter the scope, content, theme, antagonists and nature of the accident, caused by a helicopter which had whisked past the building, minutes before the crash. I’m not so sure, but I’m guessing he must have suggested to the reporters to say that the helicopter was hijacked by Boko Haram to crash in to the building a la September 11, but then realized that they could just throw a nuke on the building which they eventually did, and saved the suicide bombers for another operation. But what do I know? And since it’s none of my business, I decided to focus on what was my business… the numbers behind the story. Thus, 277 tweeps took it upon themselves as awon oniranu of the story in just 355 tweets, tweeting and tweeting about it, until 1.m+ twitter handles saw it, retweeted it, and favorited it which started making the rounds from September 19^th. Myne Whitman's tweet was the "Top Tweet" with 21 retweets and 4 favorites of the 277 tweeps who said anything about the offer.

So, that's a wrap for this week's Pick. I hope you agree with the picks. If you think otherwise, don't hesitate to send your scoops from this week for next week's edition to @kolokennethk and I'll ensure it is curated. Stay safe, and keep working for the good of yourselves and of Nigeria.