Recorded without parental consent, Success’ defiance and desire not to miss a minute of learning got the attention of celebrities, other Nigerians, her local government honchos and the state governor. Consequently, her fortunes swelled beyond what might have been imagined if the viral video had not been made. Even the state government was forced to pay attention to the sham they pass off as “free education” in Delta.
Success is the latest in the series of Nigeria’s poorest who have recently been saved from Nigeria’s mal-management, thanks to the power of social media to amplify issues and play on the most primal part of us. Less than a year ago, there was Tajudeen Ibrahim Agbabiaka, a five-year-old from Ibadan, Oyo State, whose video went viral because of his inability to use the English language. There is even one Ugochukwu Ibere, a selfless young man hawking sausage in traffic, who gave his wares to court-bound prisoners entrapped in a baking Black Maria in Lagos traffic.
Tajudeen, like Success, was showered with gifts by other Nigerians, met his state governor and was adopted by the state with promises of academic scholarship. Ugochukwu’s generosity paid off. The last time we heard of him, the manufacturers of the sausage he gave to the beleaguered prisoners had not only stocked a shop for him to sell their products, but also paid two years rent. In addition to those, I can give at least a dozen other examples of Nigeria’s poor who have been exhibited with varying diseases and needs on social media. The stories are all curated to appeal to the angel of our beings. The parents or sponsors do not just beg for help; they wear countenances that tug on every string in our hearts.
Many kind-hearted Nigerians, of course, respond, and for the most part, that is where the story ends. Most people hardly bother to find out how much was collected; if it was dispensed on the needy in a sustainable manner or what became of the person after a year or two. What seems to matter to donors is how they are swayed by the narration of suffering and the immediacy of response to save this one person from Nigeria and her many problems. There is often no strategic or long-term interest in saving the person.
Each time Success’ and Tajudeen’s stories occur, some people manage to look beyond the mushiness these sensational stories generate and point to the larger structural problems that created them. They have been the ones to call out the Delta State Government when it hastily suspended the head-teacher of Success’ school, as if they just woke up to realise that those kids were schooling in a pigsty! Where were they when the roof and windows became so decrepit that the elements had a fair game on the kids? What moral grounds do they have to blame anyone when they run a school like Okotie-Eboh Primary School 1 in Sapele Local Government Area? The abandonment of the school by the relevant authorities is symptomatic of other public schools in the state. And, for the record, Delta is one of the wealthiest states in Nigeria. Paradoxically, they also have some schools with infrastructure as ignoble as some of the poorest countries in the poorest regions of the world.
None of the grandiose promises and platitudes fed the public via the opportunistic photo-op and public relations mileage they got with Success Adegor changes the reality of millions of other children who have no choice but to attend such hovels called schools. Tajudeen’s startling illiteracy did not elicit an urgency to develop a sustainable policy that will boost early child education statewide and take children like him back to school. Instead, the Oyo State Government responded to the social media hysteria and made him an icon of their administration’s good-heartedness.
Let me first acknowledge this: When we all fall over ourselves to save that one child from Nigeria, it makes a difference to that child. However, in the long run, the good we do is not good enough. We allow governments who have long abdicated their responsibilities to take advantage of the emotional rush of those viral stories, swoop in to save the day and walk away after playing the hero. Nothing gets resolved eventually. We may get some moral and psychological gratification from donating to individual causes, but we are not saving the poor. We might even be making things worse for those at the centre of our generosity. None of these projects are sustainable in the long run. After the cameras are turned off and all the do-gooders go home, the poor will have to face the reality of living on the pedestal we put them. Some years ago, the buzz was all around Olajumoke Orisaguna, the bread-seller. The aftermath of that moment has perhaps turned her story into a sociological study of how the rich should not save the poor.
The gift economy, through crowdfunding, that Nigerians bestow on the chosen few is by no means unique. All over the world, people give to such causes. Thanks to technology, philanthropy is now cheap. We no longer need a single wealthy hero to save the day; we can all use our electronic devices to wire money. In the wake of the Christchurch terrorist attack, more than $11m have been raised. They collected the sum by bypassing traditional charity organisations who have institutionalised alms-giving. In the USA, the cost of health care is so prohibitive that people without insurance go online to beg for donations to pay their hospital bills.
While the practice is global, those of us in societies where basic infrastructure are virtually non-existent need to be wary of sentiment mongering. Countries that have social and physical infrastructure guaranteed can afford to give to single causes. For Nigeria, unfortunately such efforts can paralyse us. Rather than deploy our civic energies to advocate structural reforms, we all merely shower one person with gifts and move on. Those that have been most guilty of saving one child at a time – the tribe of the elite, the rich, and the so-called “social media influencers” – are folk with enough gravitas to advocate for better conditions for Nigeria’s poor. They should not fritter away their social influence by doing the least possible. If the Delta State and Oyo State governments could react to Success’ and Tajudeen’s videos, it means they can also respond to social pressure to make more meaningful gestures at sincere reforms.
There are times I wonder if the manner we give to causes like Success and co is also not an indication of our growing pessimism about the state of the society. Nigerians, it seems, are hoarse from regularly shouting about their living conditions and have accepted that some things are not going to change. They want things to be better, but they also despair because they do not see a defined path to the resolution of Nigeria’s situations. They are probably so jaded by the seeming intractability of these problems that they have resorted to saving Nigeria one child at a time, especially ones that go viral.
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