PICK OF THE WEEK (3)

It’s the penultimate day until September, my dear birth month is over, and we usher in the Halloween month. Well, whatever that is, only those Nigerians who stay glued to their television sets, or live, school and work in the climes where it is a culture will certainly be looking forward to it. But really, what is it they celebrate during Halloween? I keep wondering maybe that’s why there are so many psychopaths and serial killers in the climes where they celebrate horror!

It’s our third week rolling with the PICK OF THE WEEK, and even though the feedback for last week was not as good as the ‘numero uno’, I’ll keep picking and featuring stories from within the last week, which attracted attention and discuss; and publish related statistics which matter at the start of the new week. The good part is that you can decide which stories you think made the pick of the week, by simply sending your scoops to @KoloKennethK. It might seem as if last week was quiet, despite the hushed conversations continuing regards the $9.3m found in Pastor Ayo Oristejafor’s jet, and ofcourse the continued rise in the death toll of the #JoshuaGate collapse. However, if you didn’t hear, Shekau II has left middle earth. His boat wasn’t spotted in Asgard’s waters. I hear he made his way to hell to meet his 76 virgins. Well, the PICK OF THE WEEK tells you the rest of the story.

MY PICK

21 GUN SALUTE: BASHIR MOHAMMED IS DEAD

Seven days ago, Nigeria woke up to the news that renegade Boko Haram Commander and Amir, Abubakar Shekau had been killed by Nigerian Forces in a battle for Konduga. Words filtered in afterwards, that Abubakar Shekau had been the nom de guerre of Bashir Mohammed, the man claimed to have taken over reins of leadership after the ‘original’ Abubakar Shekau was murdered. And yes, you are right. It caused an uproar amongst Nigeria’s netizens, as there was jubilation on twitter. It was so loud, that statistics show that within the last seven days, I had 7, 281,443 chances of seeing the name Bashir Mohammed crop up on my timeline. That’s how many people have been discussing about the insurgency, and the kill by the Nigerian forces. Although the news first hit airwaves on Monday, it was until Wednesday, that the Defence Headquarters Information section on insurgency, with the handle @DefenceInfoNG announced that Shekau II had boarded a boat leaving middle earth.

There were no mention of a sighting of his boat at Asgard, so we know he didn’t end up an Eihenjar, so he must have rowed towards hell to meet his 76 virgins with Cossy Orjiakor breasts and Kim Kardashian hips. Hashtags like #VictoryForNigeria #COINUpdate #BashirMohammed #AbubakarShekau and #BokoHaram soon came upstream through the week. The death soon resulted in multiple deaths and surrender of rank and rags of Boko Haram fighters across various fronts. This is indeed, a huge success for the Nigerian government. However, the Oliver Twist of her citizens are now clamoring for the Chibok Girls to be brought home, now that their tormentor-in-chief has been killed.

FALSE DAWN: LUCKY, NOT ABDUCTED GIRLS

On Tuesday, September 23^rd, Nigeria went in to a frenzy of jubilation, albeit cut short. The Nigerian Times broke the news that two heavily guarded buses had strolled in to the Maiduguri Army barracks with girls alleged to be those, abducted from Chibok. What a masterstroke that was, and my, everyone was in jubilant mood, with even BBC reporting it, until Military Spokesman, General Chris Olukolade popped up with a tweet, denouncing the revelation, and claiming the buses were conveying girls who had escaped abduction at Chibok, to their reallocated schools in Kano and Kaduna States. It caused an uproar, even as rumors emerged that Shekau had also not been killed, as was reported in the media. Whatever is true, we sha hail thee, Nigeria. 13.6m+ people were in frenzied mood though, over the news of the release of the abducted girls.

OWAMBE: ATIKU ABUBAKAR DECLARES

On Wednesday, September 24^th, Abuja went agog. When I decided to visit Metro Plaza, my taxi driver asked not to go through CBD. It turned out, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar (GCON) was declaring his intentions to run for the office of President in the 2015 elections under the main opposition party, the All Peoples Congress. It was however, not the central business district that went agog. Sep. 23, 11:27 pm and Sep. 29, 11:26 am in just 3,086 tweets. Alhaji Atiku must be wishing that as many as 20m Nigerians of the 48m+ currently online, will just cast the Yes vote for him in 2015, that is if he gets the party’s ticket at the primaries.

Twitter did, as apologists, loyalists, attack-dogs, antagonists, haters, mofos, loud-mouths, analysts, enthusiasts and the likes, all borrowed, hired or carried their own apoti and sat on the timeline, flooding ‘Twitter Nigeria’ with all sorts of orishi-rishi on whether the man is the right person to rule Nigeria, or why he should be in jail. Well, no doubt Nigeria’s former No.2 certainly still commands airtime in Nigeria, and he so does with aplomb. So much aplomb that ‘Atiku declares’ showed up on my timeline, a record 20, 071, 832 times between

OYINBO REPETE: TONY TETUILA JOINS THE RACE

While the #30PecentOrNothing debate goes on, some youth have harkened to the call, and are certainly cutting their hair, arranging that photoshoot and designing those party colour themed posters and splashing them online and offline, in anticipation of the politicking season for the 2015 elections to begin. However, a twist, is certainly how much the entertainment industry have taken this call serious. Abolore Akande a.k.a. 9ice, Kate Henshaw-Nuttal, Julius Agwu, Tony Tetuila, Desmond Elliot, Kanayo O. Kanayo, Tony Muonagor a.k.a. Tony One-Week, Jibola Dabo, Daniel Chibuzor  Nnwoka a.k.a Dan D’humorous, Kenneth Okwonkwo, Adefunke Adesiyan, Yemi Solade, Kenny Saint Brown *add your own name to the list*.

By Wednesday when Atiku was declaring his intentions, Anthony Olanrewaju Awotoye a.k.a. Tony Tetuila was basking on the wings of Atiku, and e-posters of him started flooding twiter, with his intentions to run for the Kwara State House of Assembly. Amazingly, since Saturday, when I was able to measure a little above 3K tweets, 27m+ netizens have been talking about Tony Tetuila. Now, this is not over a 7 days period oh… just 3 days, between Sep. 27, 12:29 pm and Sep. 29, 1:36 pm. This is amazing, how much attention the Irepodun born musician has garnered. He must feel lucky, and hope that the same attention earns him votes in to the house. If you think you are better than these young people aspiring for political office, dust your party registration certificate, or go register now, and start the politicking work that needs to be done. The truth is that the youth are not the leaders of tomorrow. Children are. The youth are the leaders of today. The Now!

NO PLEA BARGAIN: THEY DESERVE TO DIE

Finally, on Wednesday, the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Defence, Sen. Thompson Sekibo rang the riot act, and said the committee will not plead for #leMutinyBabes, the 12 soldiers recently found guilty of mutiny in Maiduguri and sentenced to death. While addressing journalists after a meeting with Service Chiefs, where we are not sure what was discussed, and what changed hands, he insisted that discipline must be instilled in the Army, which is backed by a law enacted by the national assembly. Thus, the Military Act, which guides conduct in the army finds #leMutinyBabes guilty, and they must face the brunt of the law. Words brushing my apoti also have it that #LeMutinyBabes have been held in underground cells and have been starving as the Army doesn’t see any need in feeding the bodies they will certainly cast hot iron into soon. There have however, been numerous calls, including that of the Nigerian Labour Congress, pleading with the government and the Army’s top brass not to kill them. Apparently, these men whom everyone have been canvassing support for on twitter in the fight for insurgency, seem to have the sympathy of a lengthy jail term than death at the gallows. Anyways, about 12 million people have had one thing or the other to say about the sentencing of #LeMutinyBabes within the last 9 days, reaching its peak on Wednesday with the announcement by the Chairman of the Senate.  If you ask me, I really do want #LeMutinyBabes given jail terms than the death penalty, considering the circumstances of their near revolt against their commanding officer.

That’s a wrap from my desk for this week on PICK OF THE WEEK. Apologies for the late publication. Power cuts and a full desk of deadlines ensured my hands were too full to publish at the usual time. But hopefully, next week will come with better tidings. Enjoy the Independence celebrations, stay safe, and send your scoops to @KoloKennethK.

PICK OF THE WEEK (1)

It’s a fresh new week, and I can only hope for, and be optimistic about productivity and efficiency; above all, that things turn out positive for everyone. But they never always do, so I will just remain hopeful as all humans are. Pick of the pile is a brand new idea, so I thought to test it today. Should have come fresh from the press, but I have also been lazy at finishing my work. And I am sorry it didn’t come rushing out of the blocks as it should. But even though I hope that the publication can be as weekly as possible, I don’t pray for the laziness to be as frequent as that. So, I hope that you get to enjoy what I am trying to do, and also give me feedback on how ingenuous I can be, to serve you the best.

If you are on social media, you must know this already. Conversations can flood your timeline at breakneck speed. Depending on your degree of connection, a lot will happen and you’ll only get to see but a few. Some will get very popular and go viral, some might just be popular with an audience which you’re not a part of the ‘tribe’. Fret not! My job, is to try and scan the ecosystem, and get you some of the top viral conversations, hoping that I can give you a review of what was said, and what the reactions entailed. I’m lazy, so don’t expect me to do a thorough job. Neither should you expect me to feature your favorite picks of the pile. But if you’re so eager to, you can always send me your scoops. My pick of the week, will focus on conversations curated on twitter between September 8^th and 14th, 2014.

MY PICK

Oil Theft

  Exactly one week ago, at 9:56am, Aljazeera journalist, Rawya Rageh tweeted “About to tweet a series of crazy pictures from the powerful shoot we went on with combined task force fighting oil theft #Nigeria”. What followed, in 45 minutes of 17 twitpics, was a gory, sad story-telling of an oil war, still raging in the creeks of Nigeria’s Oil-rich Niger Delta. Years after the amnesty programme to free those parts, of militants and oil bunkering, it is slowly turning out to be a tough war for the government to win, as depicted in the mosaic below:

In a daring patrol, Rawya and her brave crew bring us gory images of environmental degradation from illegal oil refiners who dump toxic waste without a thought for the environmental impact, thereby destroying vital flora and fauna that help the famed delta thrive, and the measures carried out by federal agencies, which after discovering dangerously refined oil, refineries and bunkered oil, destroy them thereby, releasing more and more carbon to the atmosphere. Environmental activists like Uncle Nnimo will certainly be irked by the actions of both parties. With the Climate “Ban Ki Moon” Summit coming up on the 23^rd of September, climate change activists will certainly be on the lookout for news as these, and try to understand the position of the Nigerian government in the fight against climate change. Her tweets reached an average of 153K+ accounts and made an average impression of 172k+ (accounts that can possibly see the twitpics). Folks like Rosanwo had the most impressions, as they retweeted them to their timelines and many more people were able to see in graphic details, what seemingly happen in the Niger Delta daily, as the federal government wages war against oil bunkering, theft and illegal refinery.

 
Suicide

    On Friday 12^th, @BabajideFajodu drew my attention to a seemingly suicide, when his picture of a said Liberian, Kate, who hanged herself on a peach tree in Magodo district of Lagos went viral.

With 150+ retweets, Babajide's tweet was able to reach 96K+ accounts with an impression of 108K+. There were atleast 50 people who tweeted or quoted Babajide with the pictures with @Gidi_Traffic, @MrsMUFC, @Ayourb and a few others making up the bulk of the impressions even as it went viral for atleast two days. The reactions to his ‘reverse-snap-twitpic-report to Police-drive on’ we as hilarious, disturbing and empathic as Nigerians can be defined. 

The said Kate, had seemingly gone in to depression, after she turned up ill, and residents refused to interact and do busines with her, since she's Liberian, and the dreaded Ebola Virus Disease had made its way in to Nigeria through the Liberian-American, Patrick Sawyer, to whom Nigerians now hold an eternal hate.

Am I Your Father's Mate?

While I was minding my business with apoti on the TL on Saturday, 13^th; something started filtering in with the line, “Am I your Father’s mate?” in it. Before I was done setting the apoti and sitting on it, jokes and memes were flying in from every angle, and when I realized the initial statement was used by Gen. Chris Olukolade, Defense Spokesperson, the stats were already staggering. Apparently, Mallam Jibo who had tweeted at General, must have just been plain honest in his tweet. And while General is still coming to terms with the freedom social media affords, I heard he deleted the said tweet. But not before I was able to screengrab the 'darn' thing! I just hope that General Chris Olukolade will come and subscribe to my short course on ethical use of social media for social good. An hour's session costs an affordable N15,000 only. With all the money making going on in the name of fighting insurgency as Mallam Jibo pointed out, I believe General Olukolade will be able to afford a couple of hours. 

  Goodluck Jonathan
  Early Sunday morning, news started filtering in of the pavilion collapse at the TAN rally in Minna. A public show of support for Mr. President as Nigerians seek to pressure him to run for a second term, the air was dented, when the pavilion came crashing on the dignitaries. There have been rumors of up to 40 persons severely injured including the wife of the ‘Chief-Servant’, and counter statements that no one was injured at all. Whatever the truth was, the story as reported by @Vanguardngrnews reached 415K handles, and had an exposure impression of 467K+ accounts. More and more media houses have reported it since and I expect the numbers to jump… 

Nigeria

I round off with a half-truth and sarcasm, when the handle @NotGoodluck tweeted: 

The Dassault/Dornier Alpha (NAF 466) fighter jet, one of 24 in the Nigerian Airforce fleet, which has been effectively deployed in various wars across the continent, was reported missing, even though some rumors have it that it was actually shot off the Adamawa skies. Official statements say it’s missing, and the there’s a concerted search for the pilots aboard. Amassing 150+ retweets and a couple of favorites, reaching 79K+ accounts, and making an impression of 89K+. The tweet from a parody account, links the missing jet story with that of a famed missing Chibok girls and a recent dismal performance by the nation’s senior football team which in the past, is responsbile for the unity and joy of the country.

   And that is it for this week. I hope it made sense? However, do let me know in the comment section. And if you have scoops for next week, mail them to kenneth.kolo@aiesec.net or tweet them at me - @KoloKennethK