The Ignoramus Complaining About Media Propagation In My State

By Salis Muhammad Moriki


The media has become a major influence in shaping the world. But some introverts on the social media don't know what media management is all about. They think it is just like the N1000 monthly data they buy and write the usual irrelevant jargons on social media. Media consultancy is much more than that. It is highly professional and expensive beyond our faculty of thinking. 5mins in BBC, CNN or Aljazeera is much more than N100milliin if we don't know. Do we know how much Mark Zugerberg is making on daily basis from the data we buy to express our opinion/view on Facebook? He is one of the richest people in the world. Why can't we stop using Facebook and other social networks we use daily after we know the data are too expensive?

N45 million is nothing when it comes to media propaganda. Ask your organisation, as tiny as it is, how much it spends on media activities, not talk of a whole government. We are only exposing our ignorance on the social media.

Ask APC, the party of "saint" President Muhammadu Buhari how much it spent on media propaganda during the 2015 general elections, or ask Lai Muhammad how much his ministry spends in media propaganda, even in Radio Nigeria, NTA or VON that it owns. This is not to talk of PDP that paid one media house more than N2billion just to air a weekly program. Governance MUST go hand in hand with media propaganda and it is too expensive for your information Mr social media activist.

A report submitted by Compliance and Content Monitoring Ltd (CCM) revealed that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Progressives Party (APC) spent a combined N3.23 billion on political campaign advertisements for 2015 general elections.

Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump’s campaigns combined in the run-up to the 2016 U.S. presidential election, spent $81 million on Facebook ads to reach a massive audience, according to Facebook general counsel Colin Stretch, when testifying before the Senate Intelligence Committee
I don't know which government or organisation can go and succeed without media propagation. It is part and parcel of governance anywhere in the modern world to engage in media awareness and propaganda, in order to inform its people on its activities, also propagate and enlighten the populace. The media does play a vital role in our democracy, and that's why if we cannot depend on journalistic ethics, the nation is in trouble.

Sir Ahmadu Bello the Sardauna of Sokoto of blessed memory was once quoted saying on propaganda about his government, "We have to blow our own trumpet. If we don't, nobody would blow it for us, for the simple reason that everybody is busy blowing his own", unquote. This is one of the reasons the North had to establish BCNN later metamorphosed into FRCN and NTA and many other state media corporations in the north. Somebody says about the media, "there are only two forces that can carry light to all the corners of the globe... the sun in the heavens and the media down here." Many wars, not only governance had been won through the media before going to the battle field.

But I can see some pessimist vuvuzelas,, that never see anything good in somebody, busy vuvuzeling that Zamfara state government spent N45 million in media propagation to tell the people what it as done in six years, not knowing that they are only exposing the levels of their ignorance to the world on cyberspace. The world has moved far ahead of spending token on media, as everybody is very much aware of the necessity and importance attached to it.

When distant and unfamiliar and complex things are communicated to great masses of people, just as we always do on social and other medium, the truth suffers a considerable and often a radical distortion. The complex is made over into the simple, the hypothetical into the dogmatic, and the relative into an absolute. Then, tell me if the government doesn't engage the expert media managers, how can it correct the lies and balderdash write about her?

We buy N1000/N2000 monthly data to air our views, castigate and condemn the those we dislike and to convince/indoctrinate or distort and poison the faculty of thinking of the people to hate those we hate, and on the other hand blaming the government for buying airtime to correct and counter what we are doing. What's the rational behind our subjective views?

Propaganda is allowed and a must in governance even in the advance democracies. The Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), the US federal agency responsible for Voice of America and Radio Liberty/Radio Free Europe, among others, requested a substantial budget increase. Seeking a boost of $30 million, the BBG’s budget soared to $751.5 million, about N300 billion.

On 2 October 2016, stories appeared indicating that a new investigation had revealed that the Pentagon paid $540 million (about N200 billion) to a British public relations firm in order to fabricate terrorist propaganda. The stories all source the work of The Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ), a British non-profit news organization and the propaganda included videos produced by the London-based public relations firm.

There's nothing wrong in spending N45 million by a state government to engage the work of media consultants to propagate what it has done in six years, except if we are so subjective and blindfolded by our exuberance and ignorance.

- Salis Muhammad Moriki

Comments

  1. Kai cewa ankayi su Dan Baki commander shi mukason kayi mana bayani

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