Why Naija needs data tariff hike

The greatest danger to the ordinary African understanding of the concept of democracy is the magic called the Internet. For members of the global community, the internet may have been the shortest bridge to intellectual equilibrium; in Africa, it has eroded time-tested virtues. Before the Internet, we were happy as we were, with our soldiers waking up from hangovers and pepper soup joints and somnambulating into the closest broadcasting house, ordering shift-weary studio managers to put on martial music before putting them on air where they glibly announce a coup.

The last time anyone had such cravings was in faraway Turkey. Even there selfie-stick-wielding people confronted and wrestled the guns and ejected them from armoured tanks. In 1989, the Tiananmen Square mob did not get such privilege.

Pharaoh Hosni Mubarak was fine-tuning his succession plan with his son in mind when the Arab Spring caught him pants down. It took only 140 keyboard characters to get  Egyptians on the streets. Tunisia’s Ben Ali barely got enough time to catch a special flight to oblivion and his legacy dusted by cheap data.

Everywhere you go in Africa, handheld devices are becoming the new weapon of choice for social mutineers. Whenever threatened, wise African ruiners lock the Internet and put the keys in safety for full control. Only last week, Yahya Jammeh did just that and broke the back of the opposition. Our friend, Haile Mariam Desalegn opens and unlocks the Internet as he deems fit. Those who desperately need votes unlock the Internet, but after winning, they take control. Bala Ibn Na’allah was more forward-looking than Sai Baba’s NCC, but he chose the wrong route.

The fear of the cellphone and cheap data is the beginning of wisdom for every cheating husband or wife. Phone-wielding anti-corruption agents have busted policemen at the passenger seat of negotiation. Except where they outnumber cellphone users, soldiers can no longer assault bloody civilians or drag them in puddles without the act going viral. Hazing, normally used to shake off the last vestiges of the bloody civilian in military recruits have been trending on social media and costing officers their ranks. With cheap data, nothing is sacred anymore. Everything done in secrecy is revealed on rooftops. The Chinese denies freedom at home only to empower hecklers with their cheap gadgets.

With cheap phones, small boys have lost respect for elders. Teachers no longer have the right to whip their students into line and masters can’t cut and slash their offending house help without incurring the wrath of human rights groups. Small boys not qualified to stretch their hands towards Sai Baba’s without genuflecting now go on Facebook to challenge who Zahra should marry? There is neither limit, nor bounds to commoner’s heckling of aristocrats or proletarian challenge of bourgeois power just because of  cheap data.

To paraphrase President Jones, ordinary vote inducement hitherto the key to winning any electoral process is now endangered practice resulting in the recovery of stolen mandates. Tinubu cannot go to America without someone insinuating he’s planning to form another mega party. Videos of the underground spiritual game that delivered Benin and Ondo to APC or solidified PDP stronghold on Rivers are going viral on YouTube. To let this continue is to remove a politrician’s right to lie, cheat and steal without challenge.

If data plans remain cheaper than a bottle of Orobo, with every Sani, Somtochukwu and Sekoni having access, how could anyone prevent a mass uprising of hungry and angry malcontents? Those who claimed that the APC have reduced life expectancy would get away with the truth because they have the evidence. Ordinarily, they should be charged with exposing state secrets. It is therefore ingenious and expedient to arrest cheap data.

The suspension of the over-taxation of cheap data is the calm before the storm. Ask anyone who has been ripped off by data traders. Government must make the choice of feeding on roadside corn more desirable to its citizens than paying for data to post spurious stories on timelines. In this recession, firmly planted by votes garnered through social media campaigns, government must chastise voters with the snakes and scorpions of unaffordable data. It is a sign of strength. Who wants cheap data for people to keep complaining with gadgets charged on generating sets?

This is a manual from 1984. For those not old enough to know, in 1984, homes with phones designed wooden boxes and put padlocks on receivers, thereby declaring reception free but dialups expensive. Back then, cellphones weighed like dumbbells, and those who carried it had upper social status. Ask David Mark and he would remind you that telephones are not for the poor. Yet in his lifetime, they are forcing him to eat his own words. Increased tariff is the way to go, that way, Sai Baba can concentrate on the things that matter– inflicting more pains. The best way to subdue a restless, hungry, angry people with attitudes and how to do it is to create less jobs, raise taxes and keep data away from them.