When Yesterday Barks at Today. Simi, Wizkid and Critical Digital Literacy (1)
It seems to me that all of us at one moment or another would have our yesterday query our today on mild issues or contradictory issues, like I have seen in a recurrent pattern of events globally. Yesterday can challenge today when past posture, perspective, social media posts, and mistakes interrogate your present moment. When something you did in nursery school taunts you in university, or when what you said at one stage of your career confronts and haunts you today at another phase. Yesterday barks at today when your current “conviction” mocks your past posture. The electoral chairman, who said there was genocide yesterday, said there was none today, but yesterday still barks. He told us he would never serve under his government of an alleged druggist, but today "he is serving his country," and yesterday still reared its "ugly" or beautiful head against today, depending on how you see it.
I told someone we all have a past, and so many are living in a moment that will become the past, and here is where caution, knowledge, and empathy are important. If yesterday meets you today unchanged, or if we have a pattern from yesterday that proves your today correct, we might pay some attention. I have always wanted to leave Nigeria, but at some point, I told the people in my circle that I would stay back and build Nigeria, but today I guess I am building it from a distance; hence, I post this.
The recent furor over Simi has many layers that time would reveal, and I hope scholars will attend to them in one form or another. But patterns like these did not start with Simi—a pattern where, as part of a cruise or fun, we say things for the clout of it, shock value, and more. In 2019, Basketmouth was “disengaged” from an EU-sponsored ambassadorship because some of his past jokes that a scholar referred to as “unfunny laughter" resurfaced. Bovi and his homophobic jokes are ones I have seen lately. Scapegoating Simi would not address our habit of cruising on other people's pain or for the fun of being the person with the viral trend. I remember those days when ableist jokes about people with disabilities were a thing. Many of you laugh about it, and some of us were labeled “too sensitive” when we resisted it.
If we had functioning and effective institutions and collective value despite our varied convictions, it wouldn't be now that Simi’s post would surface. She would have been apprehended and made to answer some questions. To bring up her post after she made a case against what turned out to be a "pseudo" rape appears like mudslinging. Mud-slinging is when you throw dirt at a person to discredit whatever conviction or credibility they have. Why are you raising it now? I understand that there is no statute of limitations on accountability, but why now?
