Billboard Neuropolitics in Nigeria

By

Kòmbò Mason Braide (PhD)

Port Harcourt , Nigeria .

kombomasonbraide@msn.com

Thursday, 13 November 2003 @ 6:21 pm .

Incipient Saddam Hussein Syndrome:

For close to a quarter of a century, Iraqis contend with a relentless barrage of honey-coated, mouth-watering sanguine declarations from the government of ex-President Saddam Hussein, even as they lost one war after the other, particularly Gulf War I, and subsequently underwent both extreme deprivation and acute suffering, occasioned by multi-faceted international embargos. Understandably, today, Iraqis are among the least likely people on Planet Earth to believe the messages being sent out by the dazzling giant billboards that contradict the evidence before their very eyes. Iraqis know the intricacies of propaganda and psychological warfare (PSYOPS, in Pentagon parlance) all too well. As far as they are concerned, the sudden re-emergence of billboard politics in the streets of Baghdad, indicate that the United States of America intends to rule them, just like any other authoritarian son-of-a-bitch did before now: i.e. via billboard neuropolitics.

According to a recent New York Times “News Analysis” report, the United States of America is doing everything possible to counter the anxieties, and fears of Iraqis. All over Baghdad , the occupying “coalition” authorities have put up giant billboards and posters, featuring rural scenes, complete with date palms, arched over a serene river bank. Inspirational messages are splashed all over the pretty pictures, with evidently patronisingly sarcastic messages like, “ Baghdad is getting better”.

Actually, ridiculous and simplistic as it might seem, it makes perfect sense for US President George W. Bush (The Younger) to think that Iraqis will be reassured by giant billboards saying that everything in Iraq today is really nice, and that their days, post-Saddam Hussein, are bright, and beautiful, even as they hear bombs exploding, and see lethally armed, and trigger-ready US marines in tanks, and armoured cars, all over Iraq. Unfortunately, US President Bush is not used to contending with a population that knows, from long experience, that the people giving orders, and making optimistic predictions, (just like their immediate-past failed Messiah, His Excellency General Saddam Hussein) are probably not acting in the best interest of Iraqis.

Back here in Nigeria , cynical executive outbursts, and vacuous official pronouncements are often taken seriously. We actually expect outright lies, executive recklessness, and general impunity from our leaders who, not only distrust the freedom of our mass media, but also question our basic sincerity as human beings, even if we sometimes regard the farcical interplay between the ruler and the ruled in Nigeria, as unmistakeably sado-masochistic. There is a general perception that, any issue that receives sufficient executive curiosity, or casual interest, automatically gets wide media coverage, and must have been nursed, doctored, engineered, and/or even re-engineered to a point that it is considered “settled”: a rather strange kind of prefabricated reality! Now, more to the point:

Some Nigerians have become used to the idea that the only way they can get “reliable news”, is from the foreign media. Nigerians, who know that they, and their neighbours are living worse than they did 20 years ago, will turn to foreign newspapers to see how the Nigerian economy is doing. Those, whose neighbourhoods are as safe as they were in the 1950s, are terrified to walk the streets, or go window-shop, or even drive through cities, towns and villages, without armed escorts, and/or sirens, because of their conscious dread of the pent-up anger, aggression, and violent crimes inherent in the very society they lead, as reported in the foreign media they trust. Some Nigerian politicians, nonetheless, believe that they have given Nigerians their due share of the “national cake”, and that, probably, the Nigerians that they represent have, indeed, the highest living standards on earth, judging from the giant election campaign billboards, and posters still littering the Nigerian landscape over six (6) months post- 4-19.

Would it seem unduly radical to suggest that the Iraqi sceptics may be right? Or that they trust what their eyeballs may indeed be seeing, more than the subliminally seductive messages embedded in the mega-sized, awe-inspiring billboards, and posters, put up by the US-mentored occupying “coalition” government, post-Saddam? Would it appear subversive to even suggest that Nigerians could learn a valuable lesson, or two, from Iraqi scepticism, with all the giant billboards, monster-sized posters, and over-recycled self-praising jingles on radio, television, and even in cyberspace?

Kòmbò Mason Braide (PhD)

Thursday, 13 November 2003 @ 6:21 pm .