By Bayo Wahab

While the world continues to dread a possible World War III and locals in Nigeria lament the loss of lives in hundreds, US-based Nigerian academic Olamide Eniola, finds his anthropological research on terrorism reporting and audience reception, the power of narratives and the cruciality of language rather timely.

The Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant Programme (FLTA) alumnus discusses the impact of his work on developing and developed countries, considering the incidence of global conflicts.

Your PhD research focuses on how terrorism is reported in Nigeria. Why this topic?

 Nigeria has lived with terrorism for over a decade, yet we don’t often look at how the stories are told. My research examines who shapes these narratives — journalists, the state, insurgents — and how that impacts public perception and even policy.

You previously taught Yoruba in the U.S. under the Fulbright FLTA programme. How did that experience influence your work today?

 It was a transformative experience. Teaching Yoruba to Americans and African-Americans showed me how much our language and culture are valued abroad. That gave me deeper insight into the power of indigenous languages, not just as cultural markers but as tools of diplomacy, education, and even security.

Through Fulbright, I learnt that the US prioritises the teaching of Less Commonly Taught Languages (LCTLs) as critical to national security. In that light, I decided to inquire how my mother tongue, Yoruba, and other languages prominent in Nigerian (in)security discourse, such as Hausa, Kanuri, and Arabic, are deployed in the production and consumption of news about terrorism in Nigeria. While I am conveniently navigating security discourses in Yoruba, I am also exploring them in Hausa, Kanuri, and Arabic through my research assistants, who speak these languages.

You also worked with incarcerated Black men during Black History Month in the U.S. Can you talk more about that?

Yes, I joined the MSU African Studies cultural outreach team in February 2020 to visit the Coldwater Correctional Centre for Black History Month. At the outreach, we shared African culture with inmates of African American descent. When it was my turn to speak, I shared two Yoruba folktales that emphasised the theme of resilience. The men found strength in stories of overcoming. It made me realise the healing power of narrative, especially when tied to cultural roots.

What are some things your fieldwork in Nigeria is revealing?

 Journalists are under immense pressure, not only from the state or their employers but also from the terrorists who want to control the media narrative. There’s also gender-based discrimination, which affects how news is produced. I’m working with journalists to collect their stories and with women journalists in workshops to address these challenges and amplify their voices.

And what’s the implication of your research for developed societies, especially the US?.

My research examines how media narratives shape public perceptions of insecurity and terrorism in Nigeria, with a focus on the interplay between official discourse, journalistic practices, and everyday interpretations. While grounded in the Nigerian context, the findings carry significant implications for developed societies, particularly the United States, where the diverse media ecosystem influences political ideology, security policy, and social cohesion.

In Nigeria, media coverage of terrorism does not simply report events, it actively constructs public understanding of threats, often amplifying fear or distorting realities. My work traces how state narratives are reinterpreted (“vernacularized”) by citizens, sometimes reinforcing distrust in institutions or, conversely, fostering resilience.

This phenomenon mirrors challenges in the U.S., where fragmented media landscapes and algorithmic amplification have exacerbated misinformation, and conspiracy theories. For instance, narratives around mass shootings, domestic terrorism, or border security often splinter along ideological lines, with significant consequences for public trust and policymaking. My research provides a framework for analysing how such narratives evolve, offering insights into early detection of harmful discourse (e.g., identifying when legitimate critiques morph into destabilising conspiracy theories), strategic communication that bridges divides between official messaging and community-level interpretations. Policymakers, tech companies, and civil society groups could apply these insights to refine counter-disinformation strategies, ensuring they resonate with diverse audiences rather than inadvertently deepening divisions.

With the Iran and Israel war taking over the global discourse, what’s your take and how do you think your research can help mediate in this potential World War III with the US and other countries actively in the mix?

My reading of the Iran-Israel war is that it is a war being fought through missiles on the ground, and through competing narratives that radicalize populations, justify violence, and entrench divisions. In this missile and information war, storytelling is not just commentary; it is a strategic weapon with real-world consequences. Western media often reduces the conflict to ‘Iran-backed aggression’ vs. ‘Israeli self-defense,’ sidelining nuances such as regional proxy wars and civilian trauma on both sides.

Moreover, social media amplifies this simplification. Netizens, through Platforms like X and TikTok, weaponize outrage, flooding feeds with #WWIII hashtags, AI-generated fake imagery, or out-of-context videos, turning digital spaces into an infrastructure of escalation. Who wants to go to war, let alone WWIII? Beyond the exchange of airstrikes, the most decisive battles are being fought not with weapons, but through stories that shape global perception.

In this context, my research reveals how media discourses fuel cycles of retaliation, and how they can be leveraged to de-escalate these cycles. My methods can help identify narrative traps such as language that dehumanises the ‘other side’, helping coverage to highlight shared suffering by Israeli and Iranian civilians fearing war.

Media alone cannot end wars, but it can strip them of their ideological fuel. By replacing demonization with nuance and fatalism with solutions-oriented reporting, we create space for what my Nigeria exploration proves is possible, namely, narratives that prioritize shared humanity over manufactured hatred. In an era where a single viral post can tilt nations toward violence, my work is not just academic; it’s a diplomatic imperative!

Some claim that the Yoruba language faces a threat of extinction. What’s your take on this, considering your well-documented efforts in this regard?

The question of language endangerment requires nuanced thinking. In Nigeria’s context, Yorùbá’s future hinges less on imminent extinction and more on fundamental questions of value. What I have observed through both research and teaching is that when a language proves its relevance across multiple spheres of life, its vitality grows naturally.

As a Fulbright instructor at Michigan State, I witnessed firsthand the demand for Yorùbá in American classrooms. This was not just heritage learners seeking roots. Many students recognized Yorùbá’s value for understanding West African culture, business, and even popular music. My current linguistic anthropology research reveals something equally telling, which is, when discussing Nigeria’s complex security situation, my participants frequently speak Yorùbá for its nuanced expressions of community and belonging.

And I think this is instructive. We must keep diversifying how Yorùbá is learned and used. Apart from my work, there are language preservation efforts aimed at promoting Yoruba literary writing, as well as novel initiatives aimed at expanding the domains of Yoruba in science and technology. When a language thrives in literature, science, technology, and daily conversation to the point that it becomes indispensable, the language does not merely survive; it evolves. For me, the threat is not disappearance but diminished domains of use. By continuing to expand Yorùbá’s spheres of influence, we are not preserving a relic, but nurturing a living language ready for tomorrow’s world.