The Cult of Information and the Information-less Society
Ajanlekoko, an electrical engineer, is a Senior Manager in one of the telecommunication companies operating in Nigeria. He earlier made same post on Nairaland.com
I posted this for a seemingly innocuous reason: I needed to check the VIN of a car online, and had to pay about $30, very reluctantly. I wasn’t happy about it, I even tried to see how i could get round not paying, but unfortunately, I had to in the end.
And that got me thinking.
You know we Nigerians don’t like to pay for any intangibles. We only like to pay for food & drink, finished goods, and maybe intimate favours. But we don’t like to pay for information. It tickles me to no end how much we live our lives devoid of information in Nigeria. We basically survive on instinct. And unfortunately, we seem to be wired that way from birth.
Now why did I use the terms Information Cult, and Information-less Society to headline this post? Well, is there an Information Cult? Yes, of course there is. You can see the way the West manipulates media and deploys it to project their worldview, influencing billions of consumers in the process. Advertising is an information cult. Essentially only a few people know the truth, but billions are always suckered into parting with some hard earned coins.
What about an Information-Less society? Well, you don’t have to look very far. Lets say I need to leave my office on the Island right now, and head to Badagry. I have absolutely no way of knowing what to encounter, what routes to take, the traffic situation, etc. I just hit the road, and rely on a mix of history, hearsay, and instinct, to get to Badagry. Sometimes it works. Most times it doesn’t.
How about the situations where you need to get a service from, say, the government. Information about that service is usually unavailable anywhere. Where it is, it’s incorrect. But you need this service, so you head to a government department on one side of town, only to be told that another department on another side of town is actually responsible for providing that service. At the end of the day, I waste time and money, and may not even get anything done.
Another good example. Which is a shorter route? Lagos Island to Lekki via Bonny Camp, or Lagos Island to Lekki via Falomo/Awolowo Road? I could easily find out by measuring the distance when I’m driving, using my odometer. Rather, I ‘feel’ the Bonny Camp route is shorter, cos I passed through today and there was no traffic. Why am I not able to trust my knowledge (how to carry out an empirical measurement using tools I have already), but rather choose to go with my gut?
So are we information-phobic people? I wonder about this a lot, since I work in the information industry. These days, with the wealth of information we have on the Internet, you wonder why one needs to go to school in the first place. But in Nigeria, people would rather trust their instincts than trust publicly available information. I am not sure if it’s a mix of trust issues (we have been lied to so many times by so many leaders!), or the notion that anything freely available can’t be worth much. But the thing is, we never explore the available information. I can’t count how many times I have paid for something that’s right in front of me to start with. What do you readers think about this?
