June 02, (THEWILL) – The Director General of Ebonyi Broadcasting Corporation, Chief Tony Nwizi, has expressed worry over how some citizens portray the image of the State on social media, especially Facebook.
Chief Tony Nwizi disclosed this in Abakaliki during an interview with THEWILL, while attributing such publications to primitivity and lack of exposure of the purveyors of such negative publications.
According to him, those whose stock in trade was to castigate the state should know that they would also be addressed in that manner.
He further added that ignorance was the bane of why people were attacking the projects of Governor Francis Nwifuru, especially the flyover and tunnel ongoing at Vanco junction, even as he noted that the governor must force development on the people.
He said, “I have continued to protest about how we present our image outside. Right from when I was NUJ Chairman, that was one of the problems I used to have with journalists. They were reporting us negatively, and in the quest to sell our papers, we went for the negatives.
“And I used to challenge them, they should go to the internet and Google other states and Google our state and see that everything they see is negative. And it affects us. I think the problem we have is that we are primitive. We are still primitive, and still marauding in our primitivity within our domain. We have not travelled. None of these people who are doing this thing has gone beyond 135.
“They believe that we are here and we all die here. When you talk, everything you talk about is negative, negative, negative. Okay, look at the beautiful concept of this EBOCAB that the governor commissioned recently.
“You see how they are castigating it. And you don’t understand that when you go out and introduce yourself as somebody from Ebonyi, they will address you based on what you have told them about yourself. And then you start complaining, I’m not like that.
“But you are the one who told them that you are like that. You cannot come and tell them that we are primitive, we don’t take a bath, we don’t wear clothes, we are always naked, we fight, we use knives to cut people’s necks, because you are trying to tarnish the image of a governor. But you don’t know that you are setting records for yourself when you go out.
“The governor you are talking about has gone beyond you and beyond that. It’s just like when one says that a bicycle is pursuing a Siena car. You see that it is a very, it’s an effort in futility. It’s a very useless venture. But you cannot undo it. The person you are attacking is already far above you, so you can never get to him.
“But you stay here and just be scratching and scratching and scratching and scratching. And I tell them, no, it is the worst thing that has happened to us. This Android phone that met us in our primitivity is the major bane of our problem in this part of the world. We are rigmarole-ing in our primitivity within our domain. And we think that we have, you know, butterflies that call themselves a bird. It’s the worst thing that happened to us.
“Because they don’t know the image they present about us by coming to social media and talking nonsense about what they know is not true. You see, when you see people talk and then you come and you believe that when you come to this and say one thing and people begin to clap for you, those who are clapping for you are more of clapping, you know, for you and you, you know, basking in the euphoria of your ignorance and you think you are doing the right thing. But until one day your eye will open, you will go outside and introduce yourself that you come from here.
“You will say, okay, those people that used to do this, you will now realise that you are the one who gave them that wrong impression, and you are benefiting from it. So most of them who cause this problem for us do not go out of here. They had their primary school in their local village, their secondary school, community secondary school, and probably came out of Ebonyi State University here or College of Education, Ikwo, and that is the much exposure they have had.
“They have not travelled beyond 135, for example, to know that there is more to life than what they are doing. So by the grace of God, that is why the governor is hampering education, because we are more or less educated illiterates, because we got our education within our vicinity, and we have not travelled out to see more. A lot of people have not even known what a radio house and a television house look like, but they will come out to talk about it.
“They have not even entered an airport to know what an aeroplane looks like, except the one they see in the sky, but they will come out and be talking nonsense. So that is the problem we have. We talk about our airport, and then somebody will come and talk negatively about it and creating the impression that our airport is not good.
“I’ll give you an example. There was one day we were coming back from Abuja and we were talking through Abakaliki and there was this airline that said no, that they said that Abakaliki airport is and that they were talking, saying so many silly things about Abakaliki airport and we were like, wow, have you been to the Abakaliki airport before? They have not gone there. They are talking based on what they have read on social media.
“And most of the airlines testify that the Abakaliki runway, airport runway, is the best anywhere they have seen. After it was rehabilitated by Governor Francis Nwifuru, we thank David Umahi, who brought this initiative and tried to force it on us. He tried to force development on us.
“And like I said, we are trying to force development on us. Like the Governor is trying to force development on us. When David Umahi was building a flyover, people were like, What are we doing with a flyover? What for? When he wanted to move people from the Abakama market to the international market, there was a protest.
“So, without force, you cannot get development. When Nwifuru was making efforts to build a flyover, a state-of-the-art flyover in Vanco, people were complaining. Why are you spoiling the town? Why not go and look for a new city? Do we build a new city and abandon the old city? So by the time he finishes the Vanco flyover, people will now boast of coming from Abakaliki, have you been to my town? If you go out and say, Have you been to Abakaliki before? Come to Abakaliki and see. And when they come, they testify to it.
“So when you listen to people saying, “What are we doing with the flyover”? What are we doing with the airport? What are we doing with EBOCAB? What are we doing with this? What are we doing with that? You know that it is just that same ignorance that we are talking about. And then is it, who is the musician, the old musician who sang Travel and See?. So because people have not travelled, they do not know”, he explained.
Sunday Ogbu is a professional journalist with eight - twelve years experience that had worked with various print and online media. Sunday specializes in news reporting with the aim of educating his readers on current social, political and economic occurences within his area of coverage. Sunday is a strong force to work with in the media industry and uses his positive attitude and tireless energy to encourage others to work hard and succeed. Sunday is inspired daily by his wife and their four children. In his free time, Sunday likes sight-seeing, reading and discussing issues of societal interest.
