WhatsApp is bad for tenants!!
There is World War III in our compound and it has nothing to do with anything relating to the house! Neighbours are almost getting into physical fights, cars are being vandalised, people are not talking to each other….all because of our WhatsApp group!
I live in a three bedroom flat in a block of 6 flats on the Mainland. It is a typical block of flats in the Lagos Mainland. There wasn’t too much interaction between tenants because most of the time, we are out at work and everyone comes back home late. Another reason for the lack of interaction is that the parking lots are well laid out and we don’t share many services so there is no need for us to engage with each other. My family is in Canada so I am hardly in the flat and so I am just on ‘hello’ terms with my neighbours.
Then one faithful day, three months ago, I got a notification that I have been joined to a WhatsApp group. From the name of the group, it was clear that the membership was made up of my neighbours in the compound. As a rule, I do not go for these groups but I thought it would not do any harm.
The first problem was my next-door neighbour, who likes to send prayers
and Christian messages every morning.
One day, I said my usual ‘hello’ to her in the morning but she countered that I did not say ‘Amen’ to her prayers she send to the group.
“Was I not a Christian?”
I explained that I am a Christian but
that did not mean I had to say ‘Amen’. This woman who used to be so nice before started giving me funny looks. She must have accused another neighbour because someone posted that the group was not a religious one and so religious messages should not be posted. Oh my! That started a torrent of posts from everyone (except me) on Christianity, tithing and other aspects of the religion. Gradually, people started being abusive by making snide remarks about each other.
The remarks moved from religion to politics, ethnicity and economics. Sometimes, I would wake up and there would be over 400 unread messages. Scrolling through the posts, I would see that none of the posts had anything to do with the management of the house. I woke up one morning to see two of my neighbours being separated by the security guard. What happened? A discussion on ‘the forum’ had resulted in one neighbour knocking on another’s door with an invitation to ‘rack it out’. Someone accused another person of parking in his space. The other ‘double dared’ him to do anything about it. In two days time, the person double daring, had his car vandalised. Another battle broke out.
Tired of all the issues resulting from the group, I left.
Nobody asked me why or tried to join me again. Our relatively peaceful compound now had its peace fully disturbed…all because the neighbours now had a way to communicate their different opinions to each other. To me, ignorance of all that ii bliss.