Loudspeakers and Lagos

Loudspeakers are a normal part of city life in Nigeria. Whether it’s the religious house in the neighbourhood or the small business by the road, people use loudspeakers for various reasons.

In Lagos for instance, people use loudspeakers for three main reasons ― advertisement, attraction and worship.

Some people use loudspeakers to advertise their goods and services especially when they are making a special offer to the public. For example, agents of a telecoms company may park by the road and play music while they announce their promos and services through a loudspeaker.

Kabiru Abdulahi is an executive at a transport company in Lagos. He says, “We have three loudspeakers on our walls facing the road. We use them as a means of advertising our business, to announce to people in the area that there is a motor park around here and to let them know the routes that we commute.“

“We also advertise on radio, but loudspeaker advertisement is equally effective.”

Abdulamid Fadeyi listens to music at very high volumes because they “motivate him to work”.

Some other businesses do not use loudspeakers for advertisement. But they use them to attract people to their business. They normally play pop music to get people’s attention. On holidays for example, a fast food restaurant near a busy road may put out a loudspeaker and get a DJ to play music, so that people on the road would be entertained and be drawn to the location of the music where they might end up buying something.

James works at a barbing salon. He says, “At night we play music through the loud speaker so as to draw attention to our salon and appeal to any potential customers that may be walking by or driving by.”

Emmanuel Chinecherem sells movies and music CDs. He also says, “This loudspeaker helps our business very much because it makes people come to our shop to buy something. We may be playing a particular song now and a passerby would just come in and say he wants to buy the album.”

“People moving around may be too busy or may not notice our movie and album posters. But it certainly gets their attention when we play a film or a song that they like.”

Loudspeakers are also very useful for churches and mosques. Mosques use them to alert nearby Muslims when it is prayer time. They also use speakers to broadcast their programmes such as the Juma’at.
Similarly, churches use speakers to broadcast their programmes so that people in the area can listen in, pray with the congregation and so on.

The effect of loudspeakers varies. Abdulamid Fadeyi repairs computers in a shop flanked by two shops where music CDs are sold. He says “At times I get bored and I listen to the music. It entertains me and motivates me to work. But sometimes I just want to work quietly. But this is not possible because of the noise. Then, it has become ‘noise’”

“Also I’m a Muslim and I live in a house near a mosque. My neighbours are mostly Christians and they endlessly complain about the ‘noise’ the mosque makes when the loudspeaker is on. In fact, one of them recently threatened to call the police into the matter. But as a Muslim, I’m not bothered by the mosque because I understand what they are doing.”

Loudspeakers and microphones are a part of life in

Lagos

Wale Olafimihan, a Christian, says, “In my own areas there are some churches that really disturb the neighbourhood with their loudspeakers when they have a programme. Sometimes it is hard to answer a phone call in my house because of the loud sound coming from a church near our house.”

“Usually we just overlook those things, whether it’s from a church or a mosque. We just overlook those things as a show of religious tolerance.”

Talking about the health effects of loudspeaker sounds, Dr Samuel Olugbade says that continuous exposure to loud noise can impair hearing. He says, “The effects don’t stop with the ears. Non auditory effects of noise exposure are those effects that don’t harm hearing but cause conditions such as increased blood pressure, cardiovascular constriction, laboured breathing, and migraine. It can also decrease productivity and undercut the performance of the person at work.”