There is a time tested brand formation strategy for African performers known simply as “call-response.” This has been used in most recent times from stage, screen and the streets. The notion is to check the attentiveness of spectators or members of an audience during live performances. A performer creates a unique call and the audience responds in a certain way. Fela Anikulapo Kuti will say Yehyeh and his rumbustious fans will respond with a clenched fist and yell yehyeh back at him. Femi Kuti, the son adopted the “Arararara” and his jet-set followers will return with “ororororo” and a burst dam of laughter soon fills the performance space. The world awaits what Made Kuti, the cool spirit following in the footsteps of Fela the father and Femi his son will adopt for his fans. As you know, these ‘call and response’ creations identifies these particular performers and helps assure them of the attentiveness of their loyal followers.
If this format appears to be working for Femi as it worked for Fela, Ordinary Dr. Ahmed Isa, the Chief Executive Officer of Media Strategies, the producers of Berekete Family Radio show has also bought into the formula. According to the show’s website “Hembelembe is a form of greeting on Brekete Family, a reality radio talk-show that most residents are quick to respond to by saying Olololooh.” The site gives no mention of how the call signal came about but since interpretation belongs to the reader/hearer, I hasten to go on a limb here by suggesting that Hembelembe sound, is a close relative of the Yoruba Ẹbẹ la n bẹ meaning ours is a plea. It does not matter if that attempt at mind reading is far off the mark, in a short while readers will agree or vehemently disagree with my poetic license.
This Radio show is much more than mere talk; it is a “program for the less privileged, voice of the voiceless. Berekete Family is the pioneer human rights advocacy daily radio program.” How can a medium in a highly dysfunctional state like Nigeria make such a claim and how, for crying out loud, can anyone judge the effectiveness of this show? As you know answers are not cancers, Tunde Aremu, a veteran journalist and social change agent sent this feedback “FRCN had a human rights programme sponsored by a donor agency as far back as 2000 till about 2003. I will try to find the name of the programme. I however recall that the programme also had a technical adviser attached to it from the donor agency.
Looking at the character and mode of presentation of Berekete, do we also want to draw some parallel between it and some programmes such as Agborandun that ran for years on NTA Ibadan and Ṣo Daa Bẹ (by Chief Banji Ojo) on BCOS, which have been replicated on other stations. The socially disadvantaged have relied on these public complaint programmes for justice. The only advantage Berekte seem to have over these is that it is coming during a civilian rule with a slightly more open space and it broadcasts on private channels.” In this feedback, Tunde Aremu raised a number of issues, most of which I cannot contest. I still have a few of mine too.
So how does a typical program come across to those of us “peeping” through Facebook Live narrowcast. On the day I first observed the program a voice off-microphone (off-mic, as we say in broadcasting) bellows half in jest and wholly serious-
“Let us stand up and read the National pledge after the count of three….”
The clean, clear, voice of Maigida Isa of the Human Rights Radio comes on my little screen. He is dressed as the ordinary president and with authority in his voice; he directs the affairs of this radio republic starting first with a direct speech to his listeners urging them to get up and get to work. If you think this is a preacher man on his pulpit dishing out the secular gospel to the parishioners, you may be forgiven. The opening speech of the program for the day (October 29th 2018), I chanced upon focused on the difference between thinking and reasoning. If you are a fan of Fela Anikulapo Kuti, this part of the show will transport you to the famous Yabis section of Fela’s shows that earned him the “headmaster” epithet. At the Radio show there are no instrumentalists nor entertainers. What you have is a mixed bag of fun and ‘serious’ heart-breaking issues that follow in quick succession. This very well-orchestrated program soon gets to the business of the day. It is an update on a car that was stolen but later retrieved with the efforts of the Berekete family program. The sheer drama of how the car was stolen and the intervention of the Police PRO would detain any listener or viewer to invest more time on that day’s show. The next case was that of a Policeman who was once attached to the EFCC but had an accident where two of his colleagues died but he survived with a broken leg that was becoming gangrenous because of neglect. The resolution of his case had to be personally handled by the Inspector General of Police. The EFCC until the time of the program had stopped paying the victim’s allowances but the Police resumed the payment of his salary and benefits. As a ‘reward’, the Inspector General of Police came out smelling of roses while Economic & Financial Crime Commission may need a spin-doctor to help clean its image especially the police officer at the entrance who demanded his hierarchical dues.
As Yoruba, people are known to advice, “news heard cannot in any way be comparable to a direct eye-witness account (as in Ìròhìn k̀o tó àfojúbà).” I witnessed, thanks to Facebook Live, the visit of the Vice President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Professor Yemi Osinbajo. As soon as the studio camera panned to where he sat, my mind panned to when Tunji Lardner in the 90s predicted the concept of media convergence, when radio shows will be seen on Television screens and the event reported generously in print. His prediction materialized but he would not have made a forecast of a possible convergence of humility and responsibility displayed by the Vice President, who was an august visitor to the program in October. To the surprise of most of us in the diaspora (well I have no empirical data to support that hunch!), especially those of us who live a frenetic life style, the VP sat through the almost two hours of the proceedings listening to Nigerians of all ages presenting their grievances. How many of the cases can I recount like the re-counting of Adepele’s teeth! Do you want me to retell the pathetic case of the widow who had her Trailer load of rice impounded by a customs officer or that of the former Nigerian Airways staff whose case was partially resolved and still had a plea for the Vice President like adult Oliver Twist. There was also the NITEL Staff who had a pending case from 2014 and were still seeking resolution. Like torrential rainfall, the cases appeared to be unending. The matter of Savannah Sugar Company, which was sold to Dangote in 2013, still has workers who have not been paid since that takeover. According to the ordinary president, “over 300 of them don die, and no one seems to be making any effort. In face their Chairman, one Elder Polycarp is sick now, he has an enlarged heart.”
The VP did not just listen to the various allegations and accusations he spoke like a pastor addressing members of his flock with words of assurances backed with the authority of his office. He singled out a caller who cast aspersion on the homegrown feeding program of the government. He gave out names and contact details of officers in charge of the program in Ogun state.
All through the program, I wished, I were a blood vessel in the heart of the VP and the aides who followed him to the studio, what went on in his mind? “How come he was that relaxed?” Could this be another performance by an officer of state? Will there be a follow up to the cases? As answers are always blowing in the wind, the best I could do was go in search of how this program came into existences. I was not surprised that “soup wey good na money kill am” The money or funding for this station and the 28 employees comes from different sources. International funding agencies like European Union (EU), UNODC, United Nations, and the Ministry of Budget and National Planning. These agencies were present on 10 April, 2017 for an official visitation. On that day, Dr. Uju Agomoh, the Dr. Uju Agomoh, project co-ordinator, Justice Project would not let the opportunity pass her by, she riled off a bouquet of expectations for the support given to the Berekete Family Radio show. She said
“we want to make sure that the policies and laws are right, we want to ensure that coordination among the criminal justice [agencies] are right, we want to build capacity of those who stand in the place of justice, we want to be sure that justice is accessible to those in need of it and we also want to make sure that children and the vulnerable who need care are attended to [in a prompt and dignified manner]”
Should you be interested in how many viewers saw/participated in the episode in which the Vice President attended; just look at the number of shares (this is a Facebook lingo for viewer distribution to other friends) of the program. At the last count, there were 4,100 views and the 92 real-time comments when the Live Broadcast was repeated a few hours later. Since then the statistics of viewership has been on the increase. The November 2 2018 recorded 9,300 views and a record-breaking 355 comments. The next day, 3rd November there were 8,600 views and 722 comments with 181 people sharing the episode. The statistics may not mean much to some readers but to media monitors these numbers show how well received the show is becoming.
Conclusion
If I can be allowed to paraphrase one of Newton’s laws of motion, I will argue that ‘every nation continues in its state of rot or uniform emotion unless acted upon by an external group.” The external group in this case are the funding agencies but the bulk of the work is by the ordinary president, Ahmed Isa of Human Rights Radio where according to his station’s slogan, broadcasting is being redefined. I will also add that the dysfunctionality in Nigeria has lasted for so long that those used to this state of crises cannot even notice the infinitesimal changes occurring around them. The Berekete Family show is aiming at justice for the people slowly but surely.
Should I ever have an audience with the Vice President my concerns will be to ask for a cerebral response to the following; what is a change? How do changes present? Is change a mere addition or subtraction? Can you look at a nation-state as an ecosystem where the very few producers live in fear of consumer classes and the parasites on the system?
Yes, my questions full ground berekete like the family of rabbits!