CAGED TELEVISION

Photograph by J. C. McCall

The economic decline of Nigeria after the oil boom of the 1970s has bred a culture of political corruption so extensive that attempts at reform have been largely futile. Nigeria has become a nation plagued by thieves at every level. Given this environment, televisions in public spaces are often caged. The economic crisis in Nigeria is the product of a global economic arrangement that assures the extraction of petroleum for consumption in America and Europe but does little to contribute to the development of a productive Nigerian economy. Nigerian modernity is constrained by these economic conditions just as surely as this television is constrained by the iron cage that surrounds it.