Traditional communication and Covid-19 safety protocols in Afaha Oku group of villages in Akwa Ibom State Nigeria.

Abstract

This article explores the traditional communication and adoption of Covid19 safety protocol in Afaha Oku group of villages in Akwa Ibom State, South South Nigeria. It questions the effectiveness of traditional communication in information health delivery among residents, the traditional communication medium that was used to disseminate the information, the extent to which traditional communication was adopted, the factors that militated against traditional communication. It uses ethnographic descriptive data sourced through participation, observations, metalinguistic conversations based on simple random sampling by balloting. 180 participants were interviewed. 54 males and 126 females respectively. A self-development instrument on: traditional communication and adoption of Covid-19 safety protocol in Afaha Oku group of villages in Akwa Ibom State (TCACSPAOGVAIS) was used for data collection. The reliability co-efficient of the instrument stands at 0.89. Mean scores are used to answer the research questions while t-test is used to test the null hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. Results indicate zero traditional communication due to poor education of town criers on Covid-19 protocols resulting in wider spread of pandemic. There was no significant difference between the mean responses of male and female respondents of Afaha Oku group of villages on traditional communication and adoption of Covid-19 safety protocol. The calculated t-value of 1.70 is less than the critical value of 1.980. Therefore, gender was a nullity and the null hypothesis was retained. Thus, it concludes that to avoid lapses in information and wider spread of pandemic, town criers should be adequately educated and funds made available for to cater for future exercises.