Clapping With One Hand: Why We Must Stop Aiding What We Condemn

Snowballing as a method of data collection is scientific, yet non-probabilistic. It is effective because it gives research direction once the target data set is clearly defined.

That was the jargon from a typical “research methodology” class. But to truly understand research, we must pay attention to life itself and how we live it.

It was only when I listened to parents talk about raising multiple children — including my own parents’ strategy for raising the eight of us — that snowballing finally made sense to me.

Here is the catch: parents invest enormous time in raising first-borns in the belief that these first-borns will become the model for the younger ones. In my family, this strategy worked.

Whenever we derailed as children, my parents would hold my elder brother and sister accountable. The principle is simple: our actions are vicarious. We learn largely from what we see our elders do.

No new human behaviour is invented. At best, behaviours are modified. So once you get the first set right, the subsets take adequate shape.

This is exactly where I blame some of us who aid fake news peddlers with the “tusasia ozi a” syndrome.

The kind of comments, forwards, and shares that someone like Ofoegbu the fake news blogger got is the reason for his current undoing. For that reason, I support the principle of also holding accountable those who share fake news or promote terroristic ideologies.

An individual is a product of his society. For a society that aids and amplifies the likes of Ofoegbu and others like him, we must either complain less about how they turn out, or we must stop aiding them. Silence is no longer an option.

— Mazi Ejimofor Opara

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