During the week, news made the rounds that pop musician Davido and media personality, Toke Makinwa had both placed a bounty of ₦1million and ₦500,000 respectively on some social media users who felt the need to overly exercise their freedom of expression via their social media handles.
In Davido’s case, a young woman had posted a claim that the music star had impregnated her. Further, she claimed that the singer had left her to her own devices. An outraged Davido (and new Daddy if I might add); immediately took to his social media to place a bounty on his alleged accusers; to be paid to anybody with enough information to locate the lady.
Needless to say, ₦1m is enough motivation to want to find anybody, so the reaction was instant.
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Also, Toke Makinwa had suffered a similar fate on Twitter. In her own case, a user accused her of owing a staff for over six months. The fashion entrepreneur immediately toed the line of her mentor in wealth.
She offered a bounty of half a million naira to anybody with enough information to prove that she has indeed been owing or maltreating any member of her staff.
Twitter has been forthcoming for Toke so far. The temptation of “easy money” is too sweet to be ignored. Funny enough, the accusers have been quick to recant their statements or at least go silent, in Toke’s case. Money and the promise of legal action stop nonsense!
I was thinking of how nice it would be to apply this same energy to our government officialls; and indeed to any agency put in charge of the state’s welfare. Meanwhile, I haven’t figured out how much would be enough to hold our errant government officials to ransom or who is wealthy enough to release the kind of money that would be needed.
But just imagine.
They only react when we drag them on the streets of social media. Case study is Babajide Sanwo-Olu and his absentee governance. He eventually showed up when the heat grew uncomfortable.
Also, his media team splashed photos of him within Lagos here and there. Then, he followed that up with an announcement; that he would renovate certain roads to alleviate the traffic situation.
It has been some weeks since that announcement. So far, the good work has ended as far as I can see.
Maybe a bounty of ₦2million Naira will provide us with an answer to why that promise has not been fulfilled?
Can we place a bounty on LAWMA too? I am thinking of a sum in the neighbourhood of ₦500,000. We need to understand why they think it is okay to let the refuse piled up in front of our gates stay with us for longer than two days. The bounty might help provide us with valuable insight.
This bounty system makes sense if you think about it. It doesn’t have to be monetary. It could be a tweet, a post or a comment on an op-ed.
Indeed, the bounty is making your opinion heard by the public and hopefully; the government too in an attempt to hold them accountable to their functions and promises.
We have to stand up to political bullying if we want to be taken seriously at all.
