The Vanguard Effect: Why We Love the American Army More Than Ours Don’t get me wrong, the Nigerian government has failed us in many ways regarding this boko haram issue. But the alarming extent at which the Nigeria media is willing to go to paint the foreigners as instant saviors is almost embarrassing. Normally I would ignore this and just move on, but this to a large extent what takes place across our nation and is fed by hollywood movie sensationalism. From Transformers to Independence day to even Avengers we have the foreigners-will-rescue-us mentality. Call the American army and everything is magically fixed. So persistent are these images that Nigerians in the 21st century are of the mind set that once the foreigners get involved boko haram will be automatically caught … and overnight. I mean how else do you explain a National newspaper of the calibre of Vanguard printing an article on its front page with the headline CHIBOK: US MARINES LOCATE ABDUCTED GIRLS with an image showing 2 supposedly American marines leading a purported boko haram leader away? But yet the image is a picture taken not in Nigeria but in the Central African Republic that has nothing to do with bokoharam! But let’s ignore the picture as hard as it is to do. Lets focus on the article… The article itself is filled with so many contradictions it hurts to read (see article here ofilispeaks/vanguard/). And let’s not forget that it required 3 people to write it namely Kingsley Omonobi, Henry Umoru and Victoria Ojeme (who weirdly did not leave their contacts in the article) ! How it still turned out so shitty with all 3 of them writing is quite impressive. First it says “the 230 female students abducted by Boko Haram … have been sited at the Sambisa Forest in Borno State, by the Special Forces of the United States Marines.” but then it contradicts itself within a few paragraphs “But there are no plans to send American combat troops into Nigeria.” and then manages to re-contradict itself again “US Marines find abducted girls, arrest Boko Haram leader.” chibokHow do you explain such a wretched article coming from Vanguard and being front page news? An article that as of today has generated 17,000 facebooks likes and 928+ retweets of false news. And an additional 957 comments, most of which are glorifying the presence of the US army while raining insults on the Nigerian military and their incompetence? But yet no single facts were stated within it as the article failed to give any solid source just journalistic hear-say but yet we all run with it, tweet it, like it and believe it … because of the ... read complete article here ofilispeaks/vanguard/
Posted on: Sun, 11 May 2014 10:01:50 +0000
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