Vladimir Duthiers, correspondent of Associated Press (AP) and CNN in Nigeria, has revealed Nigerians were responsible for the bad publicity the country’s power sector received during the night of the American Superbowl.
According to him, following the 30-minute power outage at the stadium during one of the world’s biggest sporting events, the AP noticed massive activities on its Twitter live feed map from Nigeria.
Duthiers was speaking on one of the panels at today’s Marketing: Social Media, Public Relations and Branding as Tools for Changing Global Perceptions and Aiding the Development of Africa session at Social Media Week Lagos 2013.
“It was serious and the colour changed to red, so we developed interest and looked closer at the activities,” Duthiers said.
On closer observation, he said they discovered thousands of Nigerians were tweeting that power outages had become a normal thing in Nigeria.
He said some of these tweets got thousands of retweets, causing the American media house to develop interest in the power crises in Nigeria.
“We took note of it and reported it,” he said.
He said their audiences were interested in understanding how Nigerians have been able to come to terms with power outages. He said one of the tweets showed Nigerians have masks with which they can see in the dark.
Nkiru Osika, founder of Enterprise Creative, said those Nigerians were only joking although other parts of the world did not find it funny.
She therefore urged the government of Nigeria to work on projects that will make Nigerians who are active online spread the good news from Nigeria.
