One of the more popular telecoms adverts currently running on TV these days is the Glo advert featuring Ibidun Allison as Amebo. There are various versions of the ads but all centred around the love Amebo has for talking. Most Nigerians alive today will have no understanding or true appreciation of the concept behind those adverts. I say ‘most’ since over 60% of the population of Nigeria is said to be below 40 years old and would not have been born or would have been too young to remember the NTA Television series, Village Headmaster, which featured the ubiquitous village gossip, Amebo. Amebo, played by the same Ibidun Allison ran the village palm-wine bar where people like Garuba the teacher and his fellow drunkards went to listen to the latest gossip and also drop their own ‘insider information’ from their ‘inside sources’. Anytime Amebo showed up at the tailoring shop of Sisi Clara, or indeed, anywhere in the village, you could be sure she was about to drop something. Always first with the news, and always from her privileged sources, the veracity of Amebo’s news wasn’t always of paramount concern to her. She had a bad case of logorrhea and couldn’t help herself. She had to talk. She knew the whole village considered her a purveyor of junk or ‘fake news’, but she just shrugged it off and moved on to the next scandal.
The portrayal of Amebo by Allison was simply brilliant. She was so good that the name ‘Amebo’ became a synonym for gossip, tell-tale, or tattler in the seventies and eighties. I think she is doing a good job in the adverts and I’m happy she is finally reaping the rewards for the over two decades of hard work she put into the character and the years of smiles and laughter she put on the faces of Nigerians with her antics. Unfortunately, most of those wonderful characters that made Sunday nights a family affair in homes across the country are no longer with us. From the Oloja of Oja, Dejumo Lewis, to his High Chief and second in command, Chief Nichodemus Eleyinmi, who was a real life King in the person of Oba Funso Adeolu, the Alaye of Ode Remo. A man of infinite bombast with robes as wide as his vocabulary, he was the man that introduced the terms “nonsense and ingredients”, “immediate alacrity”, and “konkonbility” into the Nigerian lexicon. Other notable characters included Councillor Balogun (who also went on to become a King as Wole Amele), the nemesis of Eleyinmi, Bassey Okon, brilliantly played by JAB Adu, Sisi Clara, the fashionista and village designer who was in real life Elsie Olusola, wife of the creator of the series and former Ambassador to Ethiopia, Segun Olusola. There were teachers Garuba (Joe Layode) and Obioma, Boniface the shop boy ( Boninose or Bonimouth, depending on Eleyinmi’s mood that day) and several others. All said, a great cast.
Back to Amebo and her tatafo antics that actually inspired this piece. The return of Amebo would have been great if it had been restricted to imaginary long speeches made on her favourite GSM network. The country is however being overrun by Amebos, and a much more dangerous variant at that. The spread of rumours and deliberate falsehoods are having a much more negative consequence on the society than Amebo could ever have dreamed of. People have built business empires on disseminating half-truths, rumours and outright falsehoods with no fear for the consequences of their actions and no concern for the consequences on their victims. Nobody and nothing is off-limits. Everyone is fair game. Two recent instances come to mind, both tied to the travails of the recently suspended Acting Chairman of the EFCC, Ibrahim Magu. An online character who has a long history of making unproven allegations against those in and outside government released a publication (and also made a video) in which he claims that Magu had stolen N39billion and had given the Vice President N4billion. He also made other accusations for which he offered no proof whatsoever nor did he ascribe his information to any credible source, just the usual ‘inside sources’. This is very similar to the style often employed by another lady who claims to be an investigative journalist but whose mental stability is in serious contention. Her need to ‘trend’ often makes her fabricate the most outrageous stories her admittedly fertile imagination can conjure which she then ascribes to her sources in the FBI, CIA or MOSSAD.
While characters like these can be pardoned, even if not appreciated, what then does one say about one of the most senior and most respected newspapermen in the country. Still on the same Magu, he had confidently written in his widely respected column that Magu’s travails were the consequence of harassment of two of the President’s allies, TY Danjuma and former President Abdulsalam Abubakar. The implications of such grave allegations can only be viewed in the context of what it does to the overall fight against corruption by the government. Notwithstanding the fact that the war against corruption in Nigeria is always seen by the people as selective and lopsided, claiming that the Head of the Anti-graft Agency was being detained and suspended because he went after the President’s friends is a great indictment on the President and the government. Coming from a man like Segun Adeniyi and the medium used, there was no reason to doubt the veracity of the allegation. It was thus a great shock to read a rather insipid retraction by the same Segun Adeniyi asserting that both allegations were false.
The danger and obvious tragedy in situations like this, where reputations have been damaged and names tainted is that the rebuttals never have the same effect or reach as the original falsehood. As the Igbo proverb goes, “when a man accuses you of defecating without cleaning yourself, how many people do you want to go exposing your rear to in a bid to show the accusation is false”. When they come back with their clownish apologies, the people who were so quick to share the original falsehood almost never share the denials or apologies. They just move on to the next trending topic. Some even insist that “dem don settle am” and hold on tenaciously to the first narrative. The truth is never as ‘sweet’ as the lie. They would rather stick with the lie. The online ‘journalists’ are without controls and do not hold themselves to any ethics of the profession. It is worrisome that some traditional media houses have joined them. The number of retractions a publication like The Vanguard has made in recent times would make any self-respecting newspaper carry out a thorough house cleaning. It would be a shame if ThisDay goes down the same ignoble path. As for the sharing of falsehood online, the government might have to step in. If people will not be responsible, it might be time for government to begin to apply the provisions of the relevant laws to reckless and clearly malicious publications that serve no public good. We cannot go on like this.