Nigeria is a remarkable country. It seems to be one week, one trouble and the political climate has made it sometimes a case of one week, several troubles! It does not look like this will change any time soon. Fiction writers in Nigeria may also have a problem as it seems right now. Some of the happenings in our polity if properly chronicled will ordinarily be bestselling thrillers. Creative writers are therefore in competition with the oddities our country regularly throws up.
A couple of weeks back, #Ekitigate made its grand entry into our national lives. It still lives there. For those who haven’t heard, #Ekitigate is about the audio recording made public by Captain Sagir Koli of the 32nd Artillery Brigade stationed in Ekiti State. The 37-minute audio recording which was made available by Sahara Reporters online allegedly reveals a meeting attended by Governor Ayo Fayose of Ekiti; Senator Iyiola Omisore; one Honorable Abdulkareem; the Minister for Police Affairs Jelili Adesiyan; and Senator Musiliu Obanikoro who was at the time the Minister of State for Defence. At the meeting, the conversations bothered around strategies that can ensure the then gubernatorial aspirant, Mr. Ayodele Fayose emerges the governor of the state. The now controversial recording was recorded on the 20th of June, 2014 when Captain Koli accompanied his commanding offer, Brigadier General Aliyu Momoh to the Spotless Hotel venue of the meeting in Ado-Ekiti, Ekiti State. The Ekiti election eventually held on June 21, 2014 and Mr. Fayose emerged winner. Newspaper and online reports have debated the authenticity of this audio which was made available here. Given the several interests in the audio, Soundcloud’s geeks must apparently have noticed the traffic from Nigeria.
As expected there has been denials, counter denials and litigation threats from the fingered actors. There have also been folks who swore by their tweets that they can confirm the voice of the characters in the audio recording. There are equally those who think the voices were doctored using some form of advanced simulation technology. Voices do not have prints on them like the molecule called Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA) which contains the biological instructions that make each species unique. It is of note that each time one calls the customer care centre of a bank for transaction purpose or that of some mobile telephone company operators there is that caveat before response the call attendant gives – this call is being recorded for record purposes or atimes it is said that the call is being recorded for training purposes. Nigerians would not forget the famous instance of #UcheFaceYourWork. Uche, who works for a mobile service operator had called a customer’s line to retrieve information from him post-portability only to have the call received by the wife of the customer who mistakenly thought Uche was a concubine of her husband and asked her to face her work. I digress.
Nigeria is not the first nation such high profile and controversial audio recording will be happening. This time last year, Recep Tayyip Erdogen, the prime minister of Turkey was shaken by the leak of an alleged phone call conversation that allegedly took place between Erdo?an and his son in which he warned his son to hide large sums of money before police raids in a graft inquiry that involved the government. The controversy is yet to be fully laid to rest as Erdogan, like Fayose has said it was a simulation. If only voices were like DNAs, it would have been easy to unravel the truth behind the recordings. Hopefully, by the time the technology around forensic voice identification called Automated Speaker Recognition Systems (ASRS) is brought to a safe end, controversies like this will never exist in society again. Like the case of #EkitiGate, recording engineers who have examined this recording believe it is authentic. Attila Özdemiro?lu, a recording engineer and former president of the Musical Work Owners’ Society of Turkey (MESAM) insists the conversation was not spliced. In essence, he meant it was not a case of a couple of clips being brought together and so the recording is authentic. Erdogan and his allies will have none of this. Each time, security operatives on the international scene unmask the identity of a terrorist even with facial mask on, it is the progress made from the ASRS that is being used. It is hoped that it will become the fingerprint for voice in a not-too-long future. Until this happens, our minds will continue to play games on us when we hear things the #Ekitigate audio recording and are without empirical information.
If truly, #EkitiGate recording is authentic and Captain Sagir did this for altruistic purpose then he deserves recommendation; it may however take time in coming through the official channels. He reminds one of the frankness of Alozie Ogugbuaja, a police public relations officer in the 1980s. No one remembers him today except in history circles. The gentleman passed some factual remarks about the military describing them as an idle group who were always busy at mammy markets drinking and eating and thus had enough time to plan coups. Predictably he was dismissed from the Police Force. Captain Sagir perhaps learnt from him and reportedly left the country before releasing the audio tape.
Audio is one of the strongest forms of contents online. www.soundcloud.com which was used to share the file was purposefully designed in 2007 and headquartered in Germany is an online platform for audio distribution and it was originally created for musicians to enable them upload, promote and share their recordings with each other and get feedbacks but it has grown beyond those boundaries today and is now the perfect shopping location for new artistes. One of its new use is what we have witnessed with #EkitGate and it is not the last time such controversial recording will burst forth in our public space.
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Sola‘Sola Fagorusi is a social entrepreneur and a prized freelance writer with a bias for youth and rural development. He started off as a youth staff with Action Health Incorporated in 2001. The Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife alumnus currently manages the programmes of OneLife Initiative, Nigeria. ‘Sola is a DESPLAY Africa (Africa’s foremost and most consistent annual youth democracy academy) fellow and has been on its faculty since 2011. Keenly interested in governance and pan-Africanism, he volunteers as online editor of YouthHub Africa; a cyber-community for young Africans involved in social change. He believes in the efficacy of oratory and writing as tools to drive developmental engagements. As a freelance writer, he spares time to pen thoughts on contemporary societal issues and is a weekly columnist with Nigeria’s most read daily ? Punch Newspaper. His training and capacity cuts across democracy and governance, leadership, micro-enterprise, ICT4D, SRH, value chains, development communication and policy issues. He tweets @SolaFagro and blogs at www.kadunaboy.com
