A sign of the times
Nigeria's telephone system was slower than its roads until the advent of cell phones. People in Lagos used to joke that it was faster to drive across the city through the "go slows" than it was to wait for a dial tone. Not so much anymore.Nigeria: Telecoms - Country Overtakes South Africa As Largest African Market
"Nigeria has overtaken South Africa to become the Middle East and African region's largest market in the first quarter.
"The country has further stretched its lead in the latest period... Nigeria at the end of August hit the 55 million subscriber mark according to Engr Ernest Ndukwe, Vice Chairman of Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC)."This makes it the 18th largest market in the world...
"Iran with a population of more than 70m has moved from sixth to third [in the Middle East and African region] over the course of last year..."
We know that text messages are important in Nigeria. In 2002, protests against the Miss World pageant in Abuja were organized by text messagers. Now this:
How to say I Luv U in Nigeria
"Nigerians are compulsive text senders.
"Corny "romantic" messages and jokes are constantly being sent, received and recycled.
"Many men complain that women send them 'hot' text messages, but all they really want is money, while women say they are pestered by men sending 'romantic' texts when all their suitors really want is sex...
"What may appear cheesy and ridiculous to western eyes may not be so creepy to Nigerians, says a well-known agony aunt. [In the Queen's English, an "agony aunt" is a newspaper columnist who gives advice about personal problems to readers who write for help.]
"Nana, who answers readers' questions about relationships in the Weekly Trust newspaper, says Nigerians might see the words differently to native speakers of English...
"'A lot of us in this part of the world are translating in our heads constantly from our local languages to English.'
"'A lot of Nigerian languages don't have a difference between "love" and "like", so a lot of these messages will come across as a love proposition when what the sender really means is "I like you".'"
Labels: civil society, Nigeria
posted by Ken Wedding @ 6:37 AM
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