I am seriously bored with egotists
A few months ago, I
wrote a piece titled Nigeria:
Let's Do Twitter Sociology For Dummies in reaction to some apparently
sociological piece written by a Noel Ihebuzor about issues with social media
uses and hierarchies formed on Twitter to abuse and castigate the Nigerian
government.
It was my view then
that it was quite poorly written but more significantly, taking from his
definition of sociology which I reproduce below, I decided by reason of the
presumed power relations he identified to concentrate on the characters he
created to buttress his views.
The easiest definition of sociology is that it is a study of society – how society is structured, the rules, the norms, codes and convention that govern it and the power relations which sustain it.
Long forgotten, now revived
Recently, even
though he has blocked me from interacting with him on Twitter, he has visited
that blog and first left a comment that I responded to and then left a treatise
that I believe I should publish in full here as a blog.
The fact that he
has joined cause with the risible article penned recently by Dr. Reuben Abati
is to be expected but I am saddened that I find a seemingly intelligent and
learned person unable to comprehend in any clarity what I was writing about
hoping I will address the low-hanging and rotten fruit of his original piece.
Comprehension is a difficult thing
Constantly, I run
the gauntlet of Nigerians unable to gauge perspective, context or drive despite
their supposed knowledge of English, it is unfortunate, but I am quite
forgiving. The way we are given to verbosity and the inability to be precise,
concise and master some elements of brevity is amazing, I had settled into a
coma by the time I got to the 5th point.
Mr Noel Ihebuzor’s
ego is bruised by my commentary, his argumentum
ad hominem might assuage his pain, and I can’t really be bothered with his
emotional state of mind. He simply forgets that comment is free and no permission
is required to comment on what has been put out in the public domain. If he was
half deserving of such courtesy, maybe, but I will offer his diatribe a space
on my blog, when dirty laundry is aired, there is a possibility of freshness.
Would I respond to
this? Unlikely.
A long read
The comments appear
below:
Noel Ihebuzor: Good try, Mr Akin Akintayo! You
successfully managed to by-pass the major issues raised in the article. The
omission is deliberate and does not surprise. 08/26/2012 06:05 PM
Akin Akintayo: Mr Noel Ihebuzor, I do not think anyone
including yourself should be in any doubt about what I had to say in this blog,
your sociology piece was badly researched, poorly written and the only
particularly clear thought processes you had in composing your piece were in
the names you created of your characters.
I dare say, that this
blog was much better researched than yours. 08/27/2012 01:46 AM
Noel Ihebuzor: Mr Akin Akintayo, I have just seen and
read your reaction to my short comment on your blog article. I am tempted to
ignore it but I will not. So here are few quick reactions:
1. With regards to your initial article and
your puny efforts to engage me in a discussion on Twitter following the
publication of the article, let me say that I am still intrigued by how you so
quickly came to identify yourself as belonging to the group I describe. Was this
a case of a guilty conscience needing no accusation?
2. The article describes the behavior you
belong to and whose norms you clearly identify with. Your attempted rudeness to
me on Twitter confirmed that such behavior to be your preferred conduct on
social media. For you, such behavior was and is still OK. The article points
out the inadequacies (social and strategic) of the same type of behavior, and
this makes you feel uncomfortable. Your response is to attack the article and
the writer. Such a reaction is understandable. But it is also sad.
3. You devote 509 words in your blog article
of 1303 words to the names I coined to capture the eccentricities of members of
your group. Incidentally, these coinages are patterned after the Twitter names
of a number of persons in this group you belong to. Please just go to Twitter
and check before you commence contesting this.
4. Let me acknowledge that your analysis of
the names is on point for most of them. I am happy you understood what I was
trying to achieve by use of those names.
5. By the way, “air” and “hair” are not
homophones. Neither are “head” and “ead”. It is surprising that someone who
flaunts his English identity as you do does not know this!
6. You miss the point on the significance in
the choice of “Koko” too in your preference for surface readings. The
significance for “koko” lies in its association with a place where toxic
materials were dumped at a point in our history. Koko is therefore a metonym
that represents the propensity of members of your group to emit outputs that
are largely of a toxic nature.
7. You were also totally clueless with regard
to one other name because you were trapped in a mindset induced and conditioned
by your primordial language loyalties. So, Mr. Akin Akintayo, how really well
researched are you?
8. Let me now say that the choice of names was
my partly way to reflect the aberrant conduct so typical of members of your
group. Clearly, this section annoys you
but does this justify your devoting more than a third of your write-up to it?
Or does it bring out realities of your group that you are uncomfortable with?
Does it unearth some truths you would rather deny about the mental qualities
and attitudes of members of your group? Denial is not unusual when persons are
confronted with uncomfortable truths about themselves or groups they belong to.
Are you also aware that some people in denial have also been known to accuse
persons who present uncomfortable truths to them of being delusional?
9. The other sections of my article receive
scant attention in your failed attempt at a critique – I had expected you to
contest the truth values of claims made in them. Should I read your read
silence to mean that you accept that the claims I made in those sections are
well-founded?
10. Mr Akin
Akintayo, your attempt to defend the poor behavior of this group is not very
persuasive, and the gloss in “a broad spectrum of expression from measured to
intemperate“, though a clever effort to use language to cover up the known
tendencies of the group you belong to for incivility is not successful.
11. Rudeness and
activist fervor are two different things. Capacity/proclivity to insult and use
hurtful language are not the same as courage. Courage has a different color.
Activism and negativity are not the same thing.
You and the group you represent will do well to recognize these
differences and apply them in your pursuit of your “activism”.
12. Since the
publication of my article, reactions by members of your group as well as their
activities continue to support most of the observations in the article. Only
yesterday, Mr Reuben Abati did an article in the Guardian where he lamented the
progressive enthronement of bad manners in the name of activism.
13. You say you see
nothing dishonest in the use of the URL for the article as the web address on
the profile of the fake Twitter account one of your collaborators created. I am
not surprised. Our values determine what we see.
14. Not everyone
who points out the deficiencies in the operations of your group is a government
agent or a government propagandist. It may interest you to know that I live and
work outside Nigeria.
15. We all want
change in Nigeria but it has to be change built on the principles of mutual
respect, politeness and self-discipline in utterances. Most Nigerians reject
change built on a culture of verbal violence, distortions, bullying and
intimidation such as you and the group you represent currently appear to be so
prone to using and are clearly so proud of.
16. Behaviors by
like yours give activism a very negative image. Increasingly more and more
Nigerians of your generation are beginning to be fed up with the conduct and
methods of your group. The question is now beginning to be asked – are these
people really activists or just hirelings of the opposition? Eventually, the
truth on this will emerge. It always does. When this happens, your group may be
the one at the risk of being put in stocks and pelted with rotten eggs for
concealment, dishonesty and attempted mass deception.
17. Finally, can I
urge you to review your write up? Some sections will benefit from a re-write to
make them clearer and less ambiguous – a good example is the first paragraph
under “a sad day for sociology”. What did you want to mean there? Ask any of my
former master’s and doctoral students from the early eighties and nineties, and
they will tell you that I have always insisted on message clarity in their
submissions and term papers. You also make some claims which beg for evidence
to back them up. How does the article make a mockery of sociology, for
instance?
18. I am not a
sociologist. I simply applied tools from sociology to observe, describe and
analyze the behavior on Twitter of a community of persons you belong to. I also
made comments based on my observations. The fact that the comments are not
flattering does not however make them untrue. The fact that you say that they
are untrue does not also make them untrue either. To show them to be untrue,
you will need to bring forth supporting evidence. I suppose you know that this
is one basic principle in research.
19. As for your
claim that your blog is the better researched one, there is an expression that
aptly describes such claims!
Incidentally, next
time you do a rejoinder to an article, be kind enough to inform the person
whose article you are reacting to. It is honest to do, to say the least! It
is also in keeping with standard practice. Good afternoon.
Conclusion
By the time you
have reached this point, I hope you have not yet called in the emergency
services, that was supposed to be a comment but one thing is clear from all
this, Mr. Noel Ihebuzor is quite lacking in appreciating the use of the
Internet, the essential etiquette required, he is thin-skinned and is unable to
engage in discourse that challenges his supposed erudite positions.
I stand by my
original views; they are as well presented as they should be.
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