Cluelessness is a harbinger of fear and falsity. Ignorance falls for it embracing same as truth. Facts are more often free and accessible, but only for those who care to dig up on them. In this present world of social media and its rangy sensationalism, falsity, unfortunately, is as free as the air we breathe. The world of news gathering and sharing has become a fact-free enterprise. It is now a home-depot of deception, concoction, lies, and larceny.
A week ago, a message was forwarded from multiple sources to my WhatsApp platform. It came from a masked source that spoke eloquently in a mix of Yoruba and English languages. I often ignore social media messages. Many are junks in the trunks of the human brain. But when this one came crawling in in this season of lockdown and quarantine, and with a few extra minutes available to splurge off listening to the mundane, I invested my precious half-an-hour into listening to the rambling of a scarecrow who detailed how some people from all around the world are bunching up and hatching to kill Nigerians off with a discrete installation of towers for the technological innovation called 5G. The author’s intention was obviously to douse feeble hearts with fear of the known unknown. My loved ones who frantically forwarded the message to me had fallen as victims into the trap of discrete deceit. They became slaves to unwarranted fear. I wondered if this guy does not know that Nigerians already live in fear of many things in their backyards. Why not spare them?
The fear-mongering did not stop here. This time, it came from the “Holy-of-Holies’. A Nigerian pastor, Chris Oyakhilome, the capo di tutti capi of Christ Embassy Church, also jumped on the bandwagon of the perpetration of fear. Oyakhilome controls a large following home and abroad. He appeared on TV smudging every nook and cranny about what he believes is a devious and dubious agenda of the Nigerian government about the 5G wireless technology. He declared with audacity that the COVID-19 lockdown and stay-at-home orders of the Federal Government are a surreptitious attempt to install wireless communication 5G towers in Nigeria’s two big cities: Abuja and Lagos. Oyakhilome spoke with authority as if he was in one of government’s cabinet meetings where this “killer-decision” was made. But this man is learned and well-travelled; what happened to him? Why has he chosen to spew untruth and fiction? Oyakhilome, in my opinion, should know better than unnecessarily scaring the daylight out of poor Nigerians, and out of nothing. But he does not. And that is sad.
What exactly is 5G? It is the Fifth Generation of wireless communications technologies supporting cellular data networks. Its design is to elevate the mobile network to not only interconnect people, but also interconnect and control machines, objects, and devices. The technological upgrade comes with a smoother and higher level of performance and efficiency as the technology makes phone networks deliver with faster speeds. By the time the new innovation spirals through with its full market effect, it is expected to flood the global economy with about $12tn worth of goods and services and create up to 22 million jobs. In other words, the world grows bigger; global and local economies grow stronger; international businesses are conducted easier with less technological bottlenecks to deal with; and the world of communication engenders a better feel for man and his business ideas.
But why do conspiracy theorists like the masked man on my WhatsApp message and unmasked man of God Oyakhilome want us to fear 5G? Surreal voices behind the spread of the fear have also linked it with the present novel pandemic COVID-19. And many gullible folk are falling over one another in fear of the new technology. 5G comes in different types and not all 5G signal innovations are the same. There is the sub-6 gigahertz GHz; and also, the “millimetre wave”, which is 24 GHz and higher. The only type of 5G radio signals now being used on 5G networks in China are the sub-6 GHz variety which is used even in the present 4G phone we all carry and WIfIs in our homes. WIfIs and microwave ovens in your homes use between 2.4GHz and 5GHz. If you want to be afraid of the power of the 5G, it’s already in your pocket, in hotels where you spend the night; in your kitchens; and in your homes.
China turned on its 5G networks in Wuhan around October 2019. The COVID-19 pandemic started in a market in Wuhan around December. Conspiracy theorists claim that 5G could lead to cancer; but it is simply impossible to have this happen. Radiation on human bodies damages the cells; but 5G microwaves do not portend with such power to do so. If the visible light which comes in at a range of around 430THz to 770THz cannot hurt humans, 5G at 3.4GHz to 3.66GHz is a low-frequency radiation far below infrared and visible light.
Is there any causal connection of 5G to COVID-19? Contrary to several recent misguided online gossips, none has been established to date. Studies after studies have submitted that 5G has no detrimental health effects in general.
The noise about 5G is about competition between China and the rest of the world. The hugest bulk of the 5G stretching across the globe is owned by Huawei Technologies, a multinational networking and telecommunications equipment company based out of China. Huawei is dominating this field with investments all over the world. It has dug its feet with over 50 core infrastructure in about 35 countries of the world. Will other nations fold their arms and watch China dominate the world economy? The US especially is fighting really hard not to let that dream come true. 5G is Chinese-controlled; and China is dominating many sectors of the global economy including agriculture in Nigeria. While the US is branded the world’s political power, China as of today is the world’s topmost economic behemoth. When the world hears Huawei, they hear the Chinese government in control of what Huawei controls. All controls spun by the Chinese must give the world a sleepless night. I suspect that the noise to down 5G and bruise it as bad and scary is a reaction of business competitors who are not willing to play second fiddle to the Chinese; and are prepared to knock off Huawei from the tower of control of the world’s technological space.
But I am more concerned about the homegrown fear that Oyakhilome and his ilk are spreading around Nigeria. Nigerians have always been trolled around to live in fear of the seen and unseen. Herdsmen kill them. Malaria sends them to early graves. Poverty and hunger have not left them alone. They can’t travel between cities without the fear of kidnappers that may jump out of the bushes into the middle of the road holding them hostage. Armed robbers are killing, stealing, and destroying defenceless lives. Now, the unknown COVID-19, that has snuffed lives out of tens of thousands all around the world, and not sparing Nigerians.
My people have for ages been emotionally traumatised daily. Nigerians are already drenched with fear; they don’t need their troubles doubled by fictions and fabrications from no one. They need alleviations at this time. And only truth helps to accomplish that. There are other things that will kill people in Nigeria and around the world, 5G is not one.
Credit: Fola Ojo, Punch