Naija Taken Apart
by Don Lytical Dedoc
Films about Nigeria, where every claim carries its basis. The figures are on screen, the sources are printed under them, and when we get something wrong we publish the correction and the count.
Two kinds of film sit here. Some measure the country. Some are about the machine that draws them, and what it gets wrong about Nigeria.
One
Measuring the country
Nigeria, graded against the hand it was dealt
A benchmark, not a ranking. A ranking mostly measures how rich a place already is. This grades Nigeria twice: on what it actually achieves, and on the gap between that and what its endowment predicts. Nine floors checked before anything is scored, ten pillars, a hundred and two indicators, and then the thing the instrument exists to do, which is turning the gap into a date.
We Deserve the President That We Get
A saying, tested. After every election somebody says we deserve the President that we get: half a confession, half an accusation. Four parts, counted back to the presidential election on 16 January 2027.
Two
The machine and Nigeria
These films are drawn and voiced by machine. That machine is wrong about Nigeria in ways we kept finding, so we started counting them in public.
I asked for an ode to the hardworking Nigerian. The machine refused.
I asked for an ode. It produced a count instead and would not write the ode. This film is the argument between us about whether refusing was the right call, and what the figures can and cannot tell you about effort.
I asked the machine why it cannot see my country.
Twenty five of forty one pictures in an earlier film were wrong about Nigeria. This one counts them, names which part of the machine did it, and puts the prompts on screen beside the pictures it produced from them. It also says where our own scores were wrong, by how much, and in which direction.
Where to follow
The full films are on YouTube. Shorter cuts, and whatever is being made next, are on Facebook.