Beware, Mr. President Of That Killer Phone!

Mankind, as we know it today, has come a long way on a journey that is, at best, described as non-linear. The trajectory of our evolution through savagery and barbarism to civilization, constitutes the defining moment in the shift from prehistory to history. It took quite a great deal of energy, native wisdom and sheer ingenuity for the homo sapiens descendants of the arboreal primates to subdue nature, using all its vast resources in the service of God and man.

Whenever two or three persons express a concrete desire to associate with one another, and assuming next that need has ever brought close to one another only such human beings with similar signs, similar requirements and experiences, the easy communicability of need projects into an immense evolutionary advantage. In order to cooperate in production, in social and domestic life, people have to inform each other about what they have seen and heard, share their impressions and store and communicate varied knowledge. There is no doubt that a congenital biochemical predilection for communication is hardwired to our DNA. Ditto, sex and carbohydrates.

Mankind, as we know it today, has served as a veritable theatre for three great acts of social surgery, namely: the neolithic revolution, the industrial revolution, and the technological revolution; all of which are logical extensions of our evolutionary odyssey. Taken all together, these revolutions constitute the matrices of civilization and have truly revolutionized the conditions of human existence. The long and great strides that have been taken in the last two decades in the field of information and telecommunications technology have steadily catalyzed the globalization of the world to the extent of creating a global microcosm from the macrocosm we are all used to. This development has affected the human communication spectrum through an amplification of its locus and focus. The need for participants to be physically present in a location for face-to-face communication has become less and less important as information can now be disseminated not only through writing and telephone, but as well as via e-mail, texting, instant messaging, internet relay chat, blogging, broadcasting, twitter, etc.

The present age is the age of information technology and the civilization of the modern age is the civilization of information technology, and Africa is right in the thick of it. Thanks to one weeny, classy, zeitgeistig paraphernalia. The cell phone! It is a great wonder how this gadget with a small screen and a slow processor is made to create a valuable user experience. In comparative terms, there exist very few appliances that can match the versatility and eclecticism of the cell phone, and in certain parts of Africa, it is being used to perform tasks that were not originally designed for it. For example, in Kenya, prepaid air minutes have become a form of currency, transmittable from phone to phone by text message. In South Africa, wild life researchers sling cell phones round the necks of elephants to track them through the bush and jungle. The phone sends a message every hour revealing the animals' whereabouts. Wonderful! It is claimed that Africa has the largest growth rate of cellular subscribers in the world, its market expanding nearly twice as fast as Asian markets. Nigeria is considered Africa's fastest growing cell phone market. With its introduction in 2001, the jet-speed take-off made mincemeat of the conservative estimate by experts in the industry, leading to an acute shortage of equipment and capital. The number of subscribers in the nation of more than 130 million has ballooned from about 700,000 to over 10 million.

The euphoria enveloping the advent and use of this gadget may continue ad infinitum even in the face of feeble attempts by a vocal minority to draw the world's attention to the danger signals radiated by cell phones. For all its beauty, versatility, portability and usability, the cell phone is a walking time bomb. That is the simple truth which nobody is prepared to accept. However, it is the nature of truth that it is first, pooh poohed, then, violently opposed, before it is accepted as self-evident. Cell phones operate with radio frequencies which emit non-ionizing radiation through the antenna. Non-ionizing radiation refers to any type of electromagnetic radiation that does not carry enough energy per quantum to ionize atoms or molecules. The light from the sun that reaches the earth is largely composed of non-ionizing radiation, but because of absorption in the atmosphere's ozone layer, 99% of the radiation is filtered out. Non-ionizing radiation generates a lot of microwave energy which may be imparted when it interacts with matter. The antenna for the cell phone is the source of this microwave energy. The problem therefore arises when the unwary cell phone user places a source of heat close to the ear which is connected to the brain through the auditory nerve, for long periods of time. In the African context with our propensity to ask after everybody in the extended family, including our cats, dogs and goats, we are reckoning here with a time frame of gargantuan proportions.

Of the more than 3 billion users of cell phones the world over, 60% belong to the category of regular users. A regular user is defined as somebody who uses a cell phone for once a week for 6 months. In the Nigerian context, where land lines are unavailable, expensive to procure and difficult to maintain and where some cell phone users spend upwards of 4 hours at a stretch, the epithet of regular user is a misleading misnomer. Chronic user does not only sound better, it captures more appropriately the enormity and gravity of the situation.

As those who are knowledgeable in this matter will claim, non-ionizing radiation can cause brain tumours. Since cell phones are associated with non-ionizing radiation, they are an obvious cause of three types of brain tumour: glioma; cancer of the parotid, a salivary gland near the ear; and, acoustic neuroma, a tumour that essentially occurs where the ear meets the brain. It is said by the experts that chronic cell phone users have a four-fold increased likelihood of developing this kind of tumour which is more likely than not, to occur on the same side of the head where the user typically holds the phone. Other health effects associated with cell phone include behavioural disturbances, male infertility and microwave sickness syndrome (neurasthenia).

A study by the International Agency For Research on Cancer of 4,500 users found a statistically significant link between tumour frequency and mobile phone use. The strongest and most credible studies on the subject have come from Sweden which has been using cell phones for the longest period of time, right from the early 80s. Studies from Israel, France and Germany all point to cell phone links to brain tumours, neuromas and gland tumours. Exhausting the body of evidence for the case against cell phone especially from the perspective of its purported links to brain cancer would be tantamount to taking coals to Newcastle. This is because there is a plethora of studies on the subject with some even linking microwave and other electromagnetic radiation exposure to an increase in allergies. Microwave exposure has been shown to trigger mast cells to generate more histamine which is the chemical responsible for allergic reactions. Microwaves have also been found to be an important matrix for immunoglobulin antibodies which are responsible for triggering an allergic reaction to protein. Is anybody reading this right?

Nearly one in three (30%) adults are of the well considered opinion that the cell phone is the invention they most hate but cannot live without. The truth is that cell phone use is more dangerous than smoking, and if cigarette packs are emblazoned with warnings from the surgeon general linking cigarette smoking to lung cancer, the mountains will not labour only to bear a lousy mouse if similar warnings are issued in the instruction manuals of cell phones. If everyone is a user and not everybody is a smoker, we are looking here at a very flammable matter that has all the potential of a pandemic tsunami.

While visiting home in 2004 for my parents' obsequies, I noticed that a female acquaintance on her second day of helping out with the preparations was without her cell phone. On asking if it had been stolen or forgotten at home, she simply replied that she "borrowed" it out to a friend who had an occasion to attend! In Nigeria, cell phones make very loud sartorial proclamations (or is it exclamation?). They are more important than a Gucci counterfeit bag of Aba provenance (this is no dissing. I truly respect the entrepreneurial abilities of the Aba folks, and the fact that they are always in the van of scientific and technological progress makes me more than eager for their version of non-electromagnetic cell phone. Big up!).

Cell phones do, however, as matter of fact come with warnings in their instruction manuals which considering the billions of dollars in profit every year, are not stringent enough. Users are warned against unnecessary contact with the antenna when the phone is switched on. On a very serious note, cell phones should have minimal contact with the body and that is why it is advisable to keep them in holsters. And when it is being used, it should be kept at least 15 millimeters up to an inch from your ear. That is the very reason I handpicked our president's photo in order to highlight the point that clutching the phone to your ear the way he is going about it here is all wrong. Coupled with the fact that our servant-leader has been suffering from certain allergic reactions, would it not be safe or dangerous to insinuate...

The easiest way to get around the problem of exposure to radiation is to use an ear piece or to use the phone on speaker phone mode. There was a time when some safety conscious drivers would perform the next most logical task after stepping into their cars, which was to belt up. This always drew the ire, bad belle and sarcasm of other drivers and neighbours who regarded such measures as mere show off or grandstanding. Na shakara! Shakara oloje! The same thing is likely to happen when those of us who think that a word from the mouth of Cassandra is enough for the wise now decide to wear an ear piece while using their cell phone. I guess such a person will be viewed as a curio. And then what about using the speaker phone and giving everybody the opportunity to become privy to matters that are best discussed within the sanctum santorum of the bed room or other sacred places including the politician's and pastor's lying tongues. I, personally, do get irritated when I am forced to eavesdrop on telephone conversations or listen to discordant tunes blaring from cell phones. Short of plugging my ears with cotton wools, I have now made it a dietary habit to consume large amounts of eggs, beans and other items that can generate a great build up of gas inside my body. The stinking discharge from a flatulent stomach is an efficacious antidote to the menace posed by noisy commuters and their cell phones.

Another word of caution. Do not use a hand-held phone while driving. Park your vehicle first. Mobile phones have been shown to be a dangerous distraction to drivers of automobiles, whether hands free or not. Are you going to tell the driver who is jet-speeding from Benin to Lagos so as maximize his turnover, to park his vehicle in order to make a call? He rightly will ask you if it was your father that bought the vehicle for him. If we do nothing to overcome these problems, then the benefits accruing from information and telecommunications technology may very well be denied us because the social costs are simply astronomical.

Other admonitions include the warning not to use the phone at a refuelling point or near fuels or chemicals. Nobody gives a hoot about this, although the only case I am aware of is that of a Nokia cell phone that exploded because of some defects in the battery. Man, you ought to have seen this! A cell phone exploding inside the pant's pocket of an unwary user. I think it happened somewhere in Holland, and after that incident a lot of Nokia cell phones were retracted. This is the more reason why it is wrong to replace the battery with an incorrect type. My Samsung SGH-U700 Users Guide says the phone could explode as a result of that.

Every fortnight, I always travel on a luxury bus from Berlin to Lübeck, a city close to Hamburg to visit my family. And just before we set off, the driver reminds everybody to switch off their phone as it may cause interference with the bus computer or some other equipment. The point I am trying to make here is that if leaving the cell phone on can cause interference with a mere bus equipment, then what about an aircraft. My instruction manual says again that using cell phones in an aircraft is both illegal and dangerous. Ditto, hospitals or health care facilities.

To end this piece, let me reiterate a point I made earlier on. Nearly one in three adults say the cell phone is the invention they most hate but cannot live without. Well, everything appears to be safe for the time being. I mean in good ol' Naija. This is not synonymous with the scare about two years ago about the mysterious killer phone in which after users received mysterious calls, they bled to death. This is about safety, protecting your health and not being careless. Please if you see me downtown using an ear piece, it is not shakara o. I want to live long. Got people depending on me. Peace to you all.