Ayeni Adekunle's Soliloquy – Let's talk about sex

By Ayeni Adekunle

Sex sells.

I know this; that’s why I chose this headline. D’banj knows this; that’s why he’s spent years selling us the concept of Tongolo, Koko and Anaconda. Psquare and Iyanya know this; that’s why they’ve planted images of their six packs and crotches in the minds of millions of ladies. Femi Kuti knows this; that’s why he created, for example, ‘Bang bang bang’. Wande Coal too, knows.

The video for ‘Go Low‘, which is being criticized in some quarters, is not any more daring, sexually, than many Mo’Hits/Mavin videos before it. Take for one, Tongolo remix, shot by DJ Tee many years ago. In fact, Mo’Hits, unlike many other labels, understood the power of sex (soft porn, if you may) from day one, and employed daring lyrics and visuals – be it for D’banj or Wande Coal or Dr SID. The only person that comes close, in recent times, in terms of mass sexual seduction, would be Tiwa Savage (who is now also signed to Mavin). But Tiwa’s matter is subject for another day.

Last week, the Nigerian Broadcast Commission told a NET reporter it didn’t actually ban Wande Coal’s ‘Go Low’ as had been reported. The commission, according to a spokesperson, had only advised terrestrial TV stations to edit parts of the video it considered to be inappropriate for broadcast.

‘We have no issues with the lyrics’, NBC’s Francisca Aiyetan said. ‘The issue is with the video clip and just a tiny part of it.  The advice is to edit that part before use on broadcasting stations…’

She then went on to explain why NBC is concerned: ‘It is important that we are extra careful with programmes on terrestrial free-to-air stations because viewers at home receive the signals of these stations without soliciting for them. These stations more or less barge into the privacy (homes) of their viewers with children (impressionable) watching unfettered.’

Dear NBC, thank you for your concern. But your action or otherwise would have made sense many years ago, before we had the Internet; before we had MTV and Trace and Soundcity and Channel O. It would have made sense years ago – before Goodluck Jonathan ‘brought facebook to Nigeria.’

Some of the ‘kids,’ on whose behalf NBC is asking stations to edit Go Low, watch AIT, STV, ONTV and co. But those familiar with the psychology of today’s Nigerian youth will tell you, that the majority of these ‘kids’ don’t look to terrestrial channels to get their entertainment. They’re divided between Facebook and Twitter; between MTV, Trace and Soundcity; they’re on Notjustok or Bellanaija or Linda Ikeji or Thenetng. How many young people do you know, dear Ms Aiyetan, who are interested in AIT’s political rally and live birthday broadcast-filled programming?

Our ‘local stations’ lost our youth a long time ago. If the NBC is truly worried about protecting that demographic from potentially corrupting and misleading content, then it should look to places where they spend the bulk of their time. Now I know the NBC as it is may not currently have such powers and understanding. But it might be a good time to begin to engage involved parties and government in a conversation that needs to happen: how do we regulate what teenagers consume on cable platforms?

How do we ensure that websites like YouTube (where about 300,000 possibly young people have already watched Go Low, and D’banj’s Oliver Twist, also reportedly banned by the NBC, has been seen over six million times), Youporn (whose popularity here is growing rapidly, by the way), Facebook, Twitter, Google, and the hundreds of local blogs springing up daily, accessible to Nigerians, operate by basic but generally agreed ethics that guarantee this same protection NBC wants our ‘impressionable kids’ to have?

When there are already millions of ‘young impressionable children’ watching a video on Facebook, on YouTube, on Notjustok and elsewhere, and millions of such people watching the same videos on music channels like MTV and co, how does NBC do its job?

Today’s definition of broadcasting, television and free-to-air (FTA) is not what it was when the NBC was formed 20 years ago. To continue to focus on conventional ‘terrestrial free-to-air stations’ and think it is performing a major duty to Nigerians, is to, in Wizkid parlance, be sleeping on a bicycle. After all, does Google not now own one of the biggest ‘free-to-air channels’ currently broadcasting in Nigeria? Yeah, it’s called YouTube, and their pay-off line is ‘broadcast yourself.’

According to its website, the NBC is mandated by Section 2 subsection 1 of Act No 38 of 1992 as amended by Act No 55 of 1999 to, among other things, advise the federal government on the implementation of the national mass communication policy, with particular reference to broadcasting, as well as regulating and controlling the broadcast industry.

Let’s say we agree that YouTube, Iroko, Notjustok and their likes are part of today’s broadcast industry; what should NBC be telling them to do about Go Low, for example? To also delete the scenes it deems inappropriate? To rate the video 18 or PG? Or should NBC just leave these Internet platforms alone because they’re not, in NBC’s 1992 dictionary, FTA?  Such conversations have been happening elsewhere for years. Considering our current Internet penetration rate, and the identified potential, it’s about time the debate began in Nigeria.

So, how does NBC for example, protect KSB’s kids who, I suspect, are more YouTube/MTV than Galaxy TV-watching, from those dangerous ladies in Go Low? Who protects my young nephew who lives on Notjustok, from the T&A Tiwa Savage likes to share from time to time? I know a lot of young teenagers who regularly visit thenetng. Who protects them when, say, a May7Ven chooses to bare her butt, like she did at HMV in London last month? How does NBC or anyone else protect these ‘kids’ from all the soft porn flying around in all those music videos on Soundcity? Who protects them from merchants like Cossy Orjiakor? Who protects them, even, from all the vulgarity on the radio, where many OAPs and DJs act like NBC does not exist?

Meanwhile, Francisca Aiyetan says NBC has ‘no issues with the lyrics’ of Go Low. Is she implying that she and her bosses at the NBC sincerely think it’s okay for those ‘impressionable children’ they so care about to listen to lyrics like ‘shorty go low low low low/make that man wanna spend that dough/ shorty go low low low low/tell me when you take that booty to the floor/when you go low low low low/ the only/thing/that I really I wanna know/is/ where we gon go go go go…?’ I’d really like to be educated.

And while we’re at it – something else that bothers me seriously: who will protect us from someone like Eedris Abdulkareem, who, as his new video, Twitter and audio rants have shown, should actually be permanently labelled by the NBC as NSFW or, in fact, NTBB?