The Nobel laureate Prof. Wole Soyinka has voiced out his anger over the insidious nature of the social media space, which he claimed is currently infested with barbarians.
Soyinka said the digital media space has fallen into wrong hands – especially charlatans – who lack the ability of discernment and reasoning – dragging high profile individuals to the least levels.
Soyinka bared his mind during the 48th President’s party and his investiture as an honorary member of the prestigious Abeokuta Club, Ogun State, on Saturday, January 20, 2024 – where he expressed his gross disappointment of some charlatan-users of the digital space.
While praising the importance of the digital medium as a platform for healthy interaction and engagement of sound minds, and as a veritable tool to drive growth in other parts of the world, he said, regrettably, the medium means a different thing to users in Nigeria.
He said users of the social media in Nigeria are using it to attack and denigrate people whom they don’t share their views or those high up they simply want to drag down to show how important they are. He also stress on the issue of digital-labelling – where people are tagged as being ethnophobic for the position they took over election matters and on issues of personal conviction.
Given the seriousness of the situation and the threat some users of social media posed to free engagement without being vilified, Soyinka has reached out to wellmeaning Nigerians and community of intellectuals to rise up and help clean the digital space.
He opined that the quicker it is to free the country from the monstrosity of social media the better the space would be for healthy engagement and the pursuit of positive ideas that will enhance growth .
“In a situation where disagreement in an election can lead one being labelled something phobia or whatever.
The social media is awash with accusations of one being a kind of ethnophobic. So strange to me but that is what we have been reduced to. And when that kind of accusation comes, there is no need or value in trying to say you are not. You just say, ‘Thank you very much! The complement of ethnophobia is ethnophilia.
“I’m astonished and flabbergasted that people are so power-besotted that they can’t even accept the possibility that they did not win an election. It does not matter whether you are right or wrong or they are right. It is just a question. Take your facts to the table, let’s examine them carefully, consider the possibility that we may be wrong or you may be wrong but you don’t have to descend into demonisation of the group to which others belong to establish your point.
“I don’t deal in social media. As far as I’m concerned, barbarians have taken over social media and they have swapped the intellectual quotient which used to make and still make social media valid in other societies. Here in this country, social media has been dragged down to the lowest common denominator.
“However, I believe in the community of the intellect of minds and creativity to rescue us from the monstrosity that social media has become (in this country),” Soyinka noted.
The Alake and Paramount ruler of Egbaland, Oba Adedotun Gbadebo and many prominent Egba sons and daughters graced the investiture.
