The "Killer" that is "Killing" and "not Killing" Nigerians

I just hope that this draft will be better than the first one I lost to the combination of NEPA and epileptic internet services! About the title also, it's equally confusing to me. Just make your own title at the end.

Courtesy: www.imagetrail.net
You are wrong if you think I am going to talk about the myriad crises we have been seeing in this country. My concern is the so-called killer text messages that we have been receiving in recent times: "Pls, don't pick any call with 09141, 111, 04040, it's instant death after d call, bcos over 20 people av died already, pls tell odas fast. It's urgent" read one of the messages that I received from folks who LOVE me more than me! That very evening, I got a total of five such messages with slight variations in their content. One even claimed that a total of twenty people have died.

Chei! People can be gullible here! Fear has become a national past time and some people are deriving pleasure from watching others squirm and panic due to the inexistent terror they have contrived. Someone eventually deciphered the code: 09141, if you complete it with another 1, it is just the date of the day that the pranksters went to town with that text message - 14th September 2011.

This is not the first time this has happened. Sometime in the past, we received such text messages telling us to switch off our phones by 10 pm (in order to avert doomsday, I suppose). At that time, free night calls was still a new thing in the country and people were enjoying the freebie. Then some character woke up with a very wild joke to deter me from making my enjoyable night calls; trust me, I disobeyed the warning then and went ahead to make my calls that fateful night. This time around, I did not waste my credit.

My thoughts, these false alarms are being generated by the telecom outfits to increase their recharge card sales and to gain competitive advantage. Don't ask me how. But ask me how I know: because "4040" is the number which one telecom organisation in Nigeria uses for its adverts and sales. And I got a call from it this morning, which I received and did not die!

If we had a government, someone would have asked questions in order to find out how these tales started in the first place. But a government that is clueless about how to stop bombs and senseless pogrom from decimating its population is hardly to be relied upon to provide the answers we seek.

Folks, I may be wrong. I may not know Physics and Chemistry. But all I know is that juju and technology do not go hand-in-hand. No witchcraft can kill you through mobile technology. The only thing that can kill you here is FEAR!

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