Once upon a time, seven heads of states attended an ICT Summit in one East African nation; a summit that was primarily intended to make a case for ICT, and to show commitment to transform our continent by letting ICT drive most, if not all, of the processes that would be undertaken in governance, health care, education, agriculture, and all other sectors.
In recent days, #BringBackOurGirls has verged into feeling like Twitter’s cause célèbre, something people participate in regardless of whether they know the larger context or the campaign’s aims.
Six of the leaders, speaking at the leaders’ panel predictably unanimously agreed that ICT was indeed their Number One priority sector. They appeared to be well aware of its opportunities, and challenges, and easily urged the audience, both at the summit and those watching via the television feed from the rest of East Africa, to actively identify and propose ways to overcome some of the stated challenges.
Initially, the last of these leaders disagreed. He argued that in his country, ICT wasn’t the first, second or even third among the priority sectors. It was fourth, after Agriculture, Industry and Services.
That was Yoweri Museveni, President of the Republic of Uganda, speaking at the Transform Africa Summit in 2013.
Several months later, Museveni posted his first tweet, and crucially had his Twitter account verified on the same day. At a public event the same week, he had taken a selfie that put him firmly on the same footing with the rest of the world, especially those much younger than him who seem to have realized that with digital cameras, it’s not just possible, but also easy to take a self photograph.
Selfie is a big buzzword these days. Of course, bigger since Obama was pictured taking one at Nelson Mandela’s funeral late last year; even if TIME magazine said in 2012 is when the word “really hit the big time”. They included it in their Top 10 Buzzwords of that year. Aided by the general growth in influence of Social Media, the word has become much more powerful, selfie trends, some representing good causes like #WeAreAllMonkeys (more on that later) and unfortunate ones like #AfterSex, are very much a part of our lives these days.
Mr. Museveni, with good intentions, argued that ICT isn’t any more important than Agriculture, or the Industry and Services sectors of Uganda, but that reasoning appears to disregard the participatory nature of ICT.
Under the right settings, Uganda’s youth can come up with innovations that make our government look good, even if we may still commit the bigger chunks of our budget to the other “more priority” sectors.Right Settings need not to be financial incentives, but rather awareness-raising gestures like presidential selfies with innovators; or more reasoned frameworks that both encourage and protect innovators – and those working with them. And of course, the high level deals that simply make the work easier. Deals that can make survival possible, like cheaper Internet, cheaper tools (laptops, phones and whatnot), and higher consideration (of local talent) while awarding contracts.
“Africa’s ability to sustain its current growth will depend largely on how quickly it will be able to shift from reliance on traditional commodity markets to modern economic structures that focus on technology-driven development. The focus on innovation is emerging as a key theme in the Africa Union’s long-term strategy, Agenda 2063,” wrote Prof. Calestous Juma in this article last year.
But that’s a story for another day.
Enter #BringBackOurGirls.
“Where are the stolen girls of Nigeria? And why don’t we care more?” BoingBoing.net asked on April 30th, two weeks after more than 300 girls were kidnapped from their school dormitory in Nigeria.
The next day, a group of African American women on Twitter wondered what the coverage would look like if hundreds of white girls had gone missing:
Desperate parents of the missing girls took to Twitter to vent out their frustration, after they felt their government wasn’t doing enough to find their children; but it’s difficult to imagine that they could have envisaged how much of a difference their simple act of Hashtag Activism would make.
Encapsulating both a story and a cause in just four words, the hashtag at first began to take hold on Twitter only within Nigeria.
But just days after news broke, around April 30th, that the terrorist group Boko Haram planned to sell the girls into forced marriages, #BringBackOurGirls went from 10,000 mentions a day to 100,000 or 200,000 – eventually going beyond 2 million mentions after – as is usually the case – celebrities joined the fray.
“In recent days, #BringBackOurGirls has verged into feeling like Twitter’s cause célèbre, something people participate in regardless of whether they know the larger context or the campaign’s aims. Critics have begun dismissing it as empty online activism that won’t, in the end, bring back the girls,” wrote Laura Olin, a “longtime hashtag skeptic who ran social media strategy for President Obama’s re-election campaign”.
In truth, Social Media campaigns aren’t field ops, so they don’t directly get things done. But they DO get people to act. They spread the word and move people in positions of influence.
Still in April, when Brazil and Barcelona footballer Dani Alves ate a banana that had been thrown at him during a Barcelona game, teammate Neymar took to Social Media and his selfie – he and his son holding bananas – and hashtag #WeAreAllMonkeys launched a Internet campaign that surely could teach FIFA a thing or two about tackling racism.
Millions of fans took and shared selfies holding, or eating bananas.
“We wanted to take the steam out of the word ‘monkey’”, he was later quoted as saying.
Notice that he didn’t say, we wanted to end racism.
You might recall that in 2012, Invisible Chilren’s #Kony2012 got America sending some personnel to help with the search for warlord Joseph Kony. If President Goodluck Jonathan could ignore a few protesters (and his first lady reportedly order their arrest), he surely couldn’t ignore the more-than 2 million voices from across the world, let alone Prime Minister David Cameron, the US first lady and two Secretaries of State.
Just like President Museveni couldn’t resist the temptation to tweet or take a selfie, even though he has previously reportedly said he’s happily computer illiterate
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