Everybody Is A Pundit -By Akinyemi Akinola

So, this needs to be said and written.

You mustn’t necessarily have an opinion about every trending topic, nobody expects you to know it all, you are not Google.

We live in an age where everybody is a pundit, some go as far as calling themselves analysts or consultants and sadly a few media houses bring these people on live programmes to give “expert” advice on issues, of course, shallowness and ignorance is usually displayed, then the average viewer with a much more deeper but not enough knowledge on issues than the analyst with a platform will start seeing himself as an expert, if someone with such shallow thoughts could appear on TV what stops them from labelling themselves consultants on social media too. Hence the social media is flooded with so many self acclaimed analysts, experts and consultants.

One person would have expert opinion on sports- and i mean all sports including ice hockey and bobsleigh(imagine the average Nigerian who has never left the shores of this country analysing these sports with a lot of confidence), politics- both local and international, legal issues, the same person will analyze medicine, defence etc and you begin to wonder if they’re superhuman.

Many have come up with the argument of knowing a little about everything. i strongly agree with that, i grew up like that too. Knowing a lot about a very few things and a little about a lot of things but that doesn’t qualify you to comment about everything, remember you only know a little.

The main culprits here are the so called influencers and people who are fortunate (some actually worked hard) to have a platform.They have an expert opinion on every issue , give out false information, dole out unconfirmed news and mislead their followers.

You should know that the emptier the barrel, the noisier, the more you try to sound and appear intelligent by commenting on every trending topic, the more you reveal your ignorance and those you think you want to impress will only laugh at you while urging you on so that they will have more things to laugh at.

I close this with Farooq Kperogi ‘s words, “Having a platform and an audience are not credentials to know everything about everything. I know that’s a strange thing to say on social media where everyone is an “expert” on everything under the sun”