Talk about one broadcasting organization that will not get
tired of helping Nigerians to discuss their problems, BBC must come to mind. This
is because, the organization periodically mirrors the country in their own way.
Today, Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani wrote in the caption above, 'Does Nigeria Have
Image Problem?', the reaction of Nigerians when BBC disclosed that an entire
community of human beings live on mountains of refuse in an exotic city like
Lagos. A reaction they considered as protecting the image of Nigeria, than
questioning the existence of its citizens was what followed the report. Read full details below…
"Some years ago, a British filmmaker discovered an exotic
site in Nigeria: An entire community of human beings subsisting on mountains of
refuse. And not in some remote state, but in Lagos, the country's commercial
nerve centre - a city of fast cars, luxury shops and sleek folk, with women in
Brazilian hair weaves and men in Ferragamo shoes.
"Shortly after the Welcome to Lagos series aired on the BBC
in April 2010, Nigerians around the world went berserk.
"There was this colonialist idea of the noble savage
which motivated the programme," Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka said of the
documentary.
"It was patronising and condescending," he added.
Nigeria's High Commissioner to the UK Dalhatu Tafida
described it as "a calculated attempt to bring Nigeria and its
hard-working people to international odium and scorn".
Online forums also went ablaze. "They are giving us a
bad image," many Nigerians fumed.
Then the Lagos State government submitted a formal complaint
to the BBC, calling on the organisation to commission an alternative series to
"repair the damage we believe this series has caused to our image".
These patriots were not distressed that their compatriots in
the oil giant of Africa were living in such squalor - that development had
somehow eluded those Nigerians.
They did not rally with cries of: "There are people in
our country living like this? What shall we do? How fast can we act?"
No, no, no.
The majority of voices were harmonised in one tune: Anxiety
over their country's image.
1 Comments
Wat if we haf image problem?
ReplyDelete