There's this self-defeating idea that entertainment celebrities don't have the moral right to speak on social ills, for the simple fact that they aren't our perfect models of morality. Well, even for me, no Nigerian celebrity, in Kannywood or Nollywood, or music or comedy, is outwardly, an optimistic model of morality, but, bad news, neither you nor I.
Therefore, Kannywood celebrities are simply human beings like us, flawed and alive, who've chosen a career that makes their entire lives a good source of news, and in a society in which a good percentage of its members have mixed feelings about, but that should never discredit the validity of their opinions, or the genuineness and appropriateness of their advocacy for what's good.
All over the world, celebrities speak for or against social problems, and sad but true: it's much easier to pay attention to a famous person talking about a current event or social issue than it is to listen to somebody who may have far better knowledge and experience in the issue, but who might also have the charisma of a dry bread.
That's why celebrities - the famous people in the entertainment industry - in most advanced societies have been crucial in raising the profiles of social movements to appeal to the youths - who are the majority of their audiences - and who are believed to be the critical pivots of social progress. And that's even more urgent especially in places like Nigeria, where the vast majority of the population is youth.
One of the reasons I particularly appreciate when any celebrity is on my side on any issue - social or political - is that I want the rightness of my opinion or social cause to be acknowledged and amplified by people who have the megaphones that I don't.
It doesn't make it more right when Nafisa Abdullahi, for instance, agree with some of us that Almajiranci is a big problem in northern Nigeria, but it can make the anxiety reach the places our voices might not have reached, and hopefully, instigate the right actions.
Reasonably or not, we tend to treat celebrities as authorities in the ways their personal and public lives are good contents in pages of newspapers and blogs and social media trends, but one thing they can't be (I want you to guess it...) is fafet, I mean, perfect. And when they're agitating for causes, we can do well to ignore the clothes they wear and be more interested in the rightness or wrongness of their messages.
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