ERROL BARNETT OF CNN LAUDS NIGERIANS ON SMN

The world was agog with events were organised by both cooperate and individuals to mark social media week. Nigeria was not left out of the excitement as “Inside Africa”, an international programme on CNN sent one of its correspondents in the person of Errol Barnett to monitor the range of activities that were lined up for the social media week.

Visiting the most populous Black Country for the first time, Barnett was seen blending with folks around Lagos as he went about his research with his production crew. As busy and as crucial his assignment was, he was able to feel at home and catch the gigs that Nigerian offered.

According to Barnett, “this research will feature on ‘Inside Africa’, which is the show I host and the concept of the programme is for me to travel to the most interesting and fascinating part of the continent, connect with the people of Nigeria by telling them that they are part of our channel.”

“The thrust of this adventure is to specially showcase the social media week activities in Nigeria to the world because that is what my programme tries to do; to show people sometimes what they don’t expect,” he enthused.

The essence of social media week according to him is to help people and organizations connect through collaboration and the sharing of ideas and information;  in other words, it is to help enlighten people on how to take full advantage of social media.

Though with is full advantage, some elderly people have associated social media with negativity that is taking away the African culture from the young generations, but Barnett is confident that SMN has not truly taken away the norms of African traditional from the youths.

In his words, “the culture and tradition of the African people has been in existence for hundreds of centuries and that cannot not be undone within a decade. The tradition here helps keep people close to each other and that is one of the driving forces of social media networks.”

With the spate of activities and the massive response as well as the rate at which he saw young entrepreneurs leveraging on SMN, he was forced to reveal that in no distant time, “Nigerians will drive the social media revolution in the continent of Africa.”

When he saw the trading on the dense traffic in the city of Lagos, Errol Barnett applauded the entrepreneurial spirit in Nigerians and ascribed it to “ceasing every opportunity to make ends meet.”

One of the amazing features that trilled Barnett was the ‘Computer Village’ in Ikeja, Lagos, which is a beehive of activities as the market that services a lot of technology and computer issues. “It is amazing to know that the growth of the computer market is credibly significant as people from other parts of West Africa come to the computer village to buy and order for their computer accessories,” he said.