President Muhammadu Buhari will go down
in history as one of the worst managed presidents Nigeria ever had when
it is evaluated on the basis of effective and strategic communication.
The problem is not a shortage of personnel to carry out the necessary
tasks of reaching the Nigerian public. No, the problem is he is managed
by an incompetent team that thinks its highest duty is to write tepid
press releases. His media team generally appears to lack initiative, and
in a desperate bid to outshine one other, they embarrassingly
contradict themselves when they (eventually) communicate with the
public.
Due to them, the Presidency has been
subjected to a needless ridicule. The latest of their sins is about the
press release issued by the Presidency after the barbaric murder of a
certain Mrs Bridget Agbahime. The woman was killed by a Muslim mob in
Kano over allegations of blasphemy.
There are a number of howlers in that press release, none that should have come from the Presidency.
One was to refer to the victim as an
“Igbo market woman in Kano.” Considering that we are all citizens of
“One Nigeria” why make a reference to her ethnic group? Was that a sly
suggestion that she occupied a space she does not belong? Saying “An
Igbo woman in Kano” presupposes that her citizenship and
constitutionally guaranteed right to live in Kano are both contestable.
It is a crying shame that even the Federal Government could not look
past tribe and let their eyes rest on her Nigerianness. Instead, they
“reduced” her to another Igbo woman.
The press release added that “When law
and order breaks down, those who become victims are never distinguished
on the basis of religion or ethnicity.” This is another desperate
attempt to efface the possibility that the victim was picked on because
of religion and ethnicity, and her death was not merely circumstantial.
Indeed, her death came about as a result of a breakdown of law and order
but the perpetrators were not confused about the identity politics that
drove them to murder her in such gruesome circumstances. Claiming that
in the midst of a breakdown of law and order, we are all liable to
become victims erases the reality of people who, during mass riots, were
specifically targeted in many mass riots for their religion and
ethnicity. This effort to minimise the political context of those
killings is an obtuse form of political correctness that panders to the
sentiment of those who kill and their enablers who – like Pontius Pilate
– wash their hands off their culpability and watch the murder happen.
If the murderers and perpetrators do not select their victims in the
various riots and attacks that had taken place in the past, then, how
come the victims are almost always of a certain demographic? And how
come the aggressors’ demographic is so predictable?
Another major gaffe – and this one has
been picked up by a number of commentators – is the part of the press
release that suggests that the woman deserved her death. The release
said, Let us learn to respect each other’s faith, so that we can know
each other and live together in peace.”
This is a most tactless thing to say
considering the circumstances in which Madam Agbahime died. For one, it
presumes that the woman died because she overstepped her bounds by
allegedly blaspheming. If she had expressed more respect, she would have
been alive among others. That is a form of victim blaming that
displaces the blame from the murderous maniacs and locates it on the
poor woman.
The other reason that clause in the
press release is problematic is that it accommodates the idea of
blasphemy, and that it should be indulged and honoured as a legitimate
wrong. This is anti-democratic and in fact, a thoughtless intervention.
Like a number of Nigerians, the President – and his media aide who
drafted the release – took it for granted that the only people who
occupy Nigeria border space are the people who profess one faith or the
other. In Nigeria, by the way, to profess faith largely means to be
either a Christian or a Muslim. All other faiths, minority and marginal,
have their basic rights regularly (and unapologetically) eroded by
these two dominant ones who tend to assume Nigeria was made for them
only.
The Nigerian state, while not
constitutionally allowed to recognise any religion in official capacity,
caters to these two religions. We see this in the contestation that
accompanies electioneering in Nigeria, state sponsorship of pilgrimages,
and the willingness of political office holders to identify with one
religion or the other. The existence of other religion is easily
forgotten and even worse, there is no acknowledgement of people who have
no faith to profess. For instance, the “faith” of an atheist is
non-faith, a non-belief that negates the faith of the believer. By
asking us to respect each other’s faith, we leave behind those who have
no faith or those who do not fall under the umbrella of Christianity and
Islam. If we get to know others more by respecting the faith of others,
how do we propose to live in peace with the atheists or non-theists
whose “non-faith” is inherently blasphemous?
That is why there should not be an
indulgence of the possibility that faith can be blasphemed, or that
“respect” for other people’s faith is a recipe for mutual co-existence.
Apart from the inherent falsehood for that statement, it is worth noting
that respect for faith must be balanced with respect for non-faith as
well. The Director of MURIC, Prof Ishaq Akintola, reasoned that even if
blasphemy had been committed, she should have been taken to a police
station rather than be savagely attacked. Again, that kind of thought
process is exceedingly problematic. If she did not believe in their God
to either exalt him, she should not have to shut her mouth to avoid
allegations of blasphemy. People should not have to believe nor pander
to those who believe so that they can keep their lives. That is a
terrible form of dehumanisation and a violation of their constitutional
rights.
Currently, a number of people are on
death row in the same Kano State where the Agbahime incident occurred,
convicted by the Sharia Court for the sin of blasphemy. The Federal
Government should intervene and see to it that those people are promptly
freed. Their trial process is a meaningless one. It does not make sense
that they be punished for not giving any regard to another person’s
belief or faith. Under Islamic law and in an Islamic state, that kind of
totalitarianism may make sense to those who are willing to abide by
such dictates. To those of us who have chosen to live under a democracy,
there can be nothing like blasphemy. Anyone who wants to protect their
god from criticism should hide them in a private vault. All gods – as
long as they are unleashed to roam in the public sphere, as long as
taxpayers’ money is used to fund their rituals, as long as they are in
our faces – are fair game for both ridicule and reverence. Those who
blasphemed God with their mouths are also expressing their rights to
free speech. How do you punish them for one and retain the other? If God
wanted them dead, he has enough machinery at his disposal to kill them
dead by himself.
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PLEASE BE POLITE