Enkindling light into a dark room manifests the beauty, brilliance and enablement of light over darkness. After enkindling, light is sustained through energy-mediums like candle, kerosene lantern, electric-lightbulb, firewood, fuelled material or other energy-materials. Light does not appear or stand on its own; it always depends on something else for introduction, sustenance and transmission. Just like light, information brightens and liberates human minds from the darkness of ignorance, fear and several limitations. Yet, information depends on resources for gathering/discovery/creation, transfer (information marketing) and actualization into reality.
Many internet ‘gurus’ invite energetic Nigerian youths to join information marketing as a way out of unemployment and poverty. They insist that information marketing promises more prosperity for unemployed youth, instead of demanding access to ‘internationally-devaluated mineral resources’. This view is sustained by the instances of successful information marketers like Facebook, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Nairabet, Linda-Ikeji, Nairaland et al. Also, the absence of physical industries for producing necessary commodities in Nigeria positions information marketing as the hope for unemployed Nigerians. Hence, young and old Nigerians pursue the sector’s promise by frantically searching for sellable information in entertainment, gossips, technology, lifestyle et al.
Information are facts or details about somebody or something.[1] Information marketing could be seen as making profits from providing information or medium for information about people/objects of interests. Though providing information was/is done physically through lectures, live-coaching, print-media or other physical contacts, modern information is provided virtually through internet. Modern information marketing channels include websites, freelance (writing, graphics, programming, etc.), affiliate-marketing/advertisements, blogging, V-logging, online buying, selling, betting, networking et al. These information are expected to either entertain, edify or assist the receivers in handling other situations in reality. In return, they pay directly or indirectly for virtual services rendered.
With the opportunities created in information marketing, the claim that Nigerian youths do not need access to mineral resources for prosperity appears plausible since:
- Joining information marketing requires little starting capital compared with the capital for extracting and processing mineral resources; it only requires the person’s time.
- It is immune to the limitations created in the local business atmosphere and policies, since it is virtual.
- It does not require so much thinking about business ideas, plans or search for raw materials.
- It has a very large global market, and is still growing especially in Nigeria.
Despite the promise of internet marketing, soft/virtual materials and global connectivity, the primacy of physical resources remains constant in generating, transmitting and utilizing the information.
- Generating marketable information (generalizable knowledge) primarily comes through physical research, experiment, meditation, imagination and observation of people or objects (resources). Health information comes after several clinical trials, and information from other fields come from physical experience with resources that form their subject matter.
- Human capital, which is a major factor in producing information or materials, is developed through contact with physical resources. Without contact with physical resources, both as subject matter and instrument for learning, no new information or idea may be formed or transmitted for marketing.
- Almost all the equipment for transmitting the information are made from mineral resources. Mainframe computers and hard-drives, optic cables, phones, screens, laptops, bandwidth and other materials for transmitting and accessing the information are developed from physical resources. And without constant energy/power, especially generated from mineral resources, the internet crumbles like light without candle to burn upon.
- Without access to physical resources for education and mineral resources for productivity, the virtual information may never be actualized. People do not eat information, wear or sleep on information. They apply information on material substances, for “you cannot put something on nothing and expect it to stand.”[2]
Information is necessary to guide humans in their interaction with the environment for survival and happiness. Yet, it depends on contact with physical resources for actualization, in order to create sustainable wealth.
Unfortunately in Nigeria, the access to all mineral resources for wealth-creation and productivity is seized by the militarized government. The Nigerian Mineral and Mining Act states that:
“… all lands in which minerals have been found in Nigeria and any area covered by its territorial waters or constituency and the Exclusive Economic Zone shall, from the commencement of this Act be acquired by the Government of the Federation…”[3] “No person shall search for or exploit mineral resources in Nigeria or divert or impound any water for the purpose of mining except as provided in this Act.”[4] “The property in mineral resources shall pass from the Government to the person by whom the mineral resources are lawfully won, upon their recovery in accordance with this Act.”[5]
Observations in Nigeria show that the federally-confiscated mineral resources are auctioned to foreigners, who use them to produce what they sell to Nigerians at exorbitant prices. With the seizure of access to mineral resources for research and productivity, information marketing in Nigeria mainly becomes marketing foreign products. And no amount of information marketing about foreign products will liberate Nigeria from poverty and unproductivity. Real wealth is created by using good information in processing mineral resources into valuable commodities for the society. Information marketing obtains fragmented commissions from foreign manufacturers, which is not enough to solve unemployment or poverty in Nigeria.
[1] Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary, International Student’s Edition, s. v. information
[2] Lord Denning, master of rolls
[3] Nigerian minerals and mining act 2007 act no. 20, chapter 1, Part 1, Section 1, paragraph 2
[4] Nigerian minerals and mining act 2007 act no. 20, chapter 1, Part 1, Section 2, paragraph 1
[5] Nigerian minerals and mining act 2007 act no. 20, chapter 1, Part 1, Section 1, paragraph 3
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