Days after the February 25 Presidential election, there are fears that actions of some politicians may widen disunity and threaten the already fragile peace in the country with the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) warning that the nationwide rise in hate speech are being fueled by politicians seeking political patronage.
NHRC expressed regret that ethnic and religious sentiments are being employed to create division, fear, and hatred among different groups.
The Commission told Nigerians to note that using and misusing Social Media to spread ethnic and religious hate-laced messages is worrisome as they have far-reaching and complex implications.
Chief Tony Ojukwu, the Commission’s Executive Secretary, who stated the organisation’s position, lamented that the threat had crept into places of worship where religious leaders have joined the unholy enterprise of spreading hate speeches.
Though ethnic hate-laced messages cut across political parties, Spokespersons of President-elect Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s All Progressive Congress APC) Presidential Campaign Council (APC_PCC) – Bayo Onanuga and Femi Fani-Kayode – have come under the radar recently because of their tweets.
The situation has become more worrisome as Tinubu has maintained silence about the development, with many suspecting the Spokespersons may be echoing his mind.
Following the conclusion of the March 18 Gubernatorial elections, Onanuga warned the Igbo in Lagos State against “interfering” with politics in the State.
Tweeting via his official Twitter account, Onanuga said: “Let 2023 be the last time of Igbo interference in Lagos politics. Let there be no repeat in 2027.
“Lagos is like Anambra, Imo, any Nigerian state. It is not No Man’s Land, not Federal Capital Territory. It is Yoruba land. Mind your business,” he wrote.
Onanuga would later double down on his tweet, saying he owed nobody any apology for asking the Igbo never to interfere with the politics of Lagos State.
“I hope the Obidients and their LP have now realized that Lagos is not ‘no man’s land’. The state has indigenous owners and today they emphatically made the statement loud and clear,” he said.
Onanuga’s tweet was reported to Twitter management for being inciting and racially discriminatory. But after the microblogging app said the tweet does qualify for removal, the APC PCC Media Director made another tweet saying he owes no one an apology for what he said.
He said, “My traducers dragged me to Twitter. Twitter ruled I have done nothing wrong.
“Let me make myself abundantly clear: the views I express on Twitter are my personal views. I don’t owe anyone any apology for addressing the existential threats of our people. I am after all, first of all a Yoruba, before being a Nigerian.”
Meanwhile, on Monday, the International Criminal Court (ICC) formally acknowledged receipt of a petition written by Professor Gideon Christian to investigate election and post-election violence in Nigeria, which alleged incitement to ethnic hate by Onanuga.
Christian had, in his petition titled: “Request to Investigate the Election and Post-Election Violence in Nigeria as well as Incitement to Ethnic Hate by Mr Bayo Onanuga”, invited the Office of the prosecutor to investigate a series of ethnically motivated violence resulting in injuries and death during the just concluded presidential and governorship elections in Nigeria.
He alleged that Onanuga issued a threat on Twitter warning individuals from the Igbo ethnic group that 2023 should be the last time they would be interfering in Lagos politics.
Similarly, the United Kingdom has hit out at Fani-Kayode over controversial comments made during the electoral season.
The British Deputy High Commissioner to Nigeria, Ben Llewellyn-Jones, faulted Fani-Kayode for derogatory remarks, warning that the UK government would issue visa bans to people undermining democracy.
Meanwhile, the Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Festus Keyamo, last week, wrote a letter to the Department of State Services (DSS) calling for the arrest of the presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi, and his running mate, Datti Baba-Ahmed, over their comments on the outcome of the 2023 presidential election.
Keyamo, who served as the spokesperson of the APC Presidential Campaign Council, accused Obi and Datti of making incendiary claims on the presidential election, which he said was capable of truncating the nation’s democracy.
Datti was reported to have said that if the President-Elect is sworn in on May 29, 2023, it would “signal the end of democracy”.
An Abuja-based activist, Maduabuchi Idam, told DAILY POST in an interview that the statements of these individuals had incited the Nigerian public and could amount to treasonable offence.
Idam, a lawyer, warned that individuals acting for their political principal should consider that the country has different religions and tribes.
He said, “These statements have clearly incited the Nigerian public. And they can be construed to mean a treasonable offence. You cannot say that those statements have not incited Nigerians or, in one way or the other, attempted to cause disunity.
“Nigeria is, without a doubt, a complex society with different religions and different tribes. And that is why individuals acting for their political principal should factor that in mind so that they don’t do anything that would cause disunity.
“So for anybody writing to ICC, I don’t know how that would go because ICC is actually having jurisdiction over the government or individuals when it has to do with war crimes. I don’t know how that will fly, but I can tell you that under our local laws, those comments have clearly flouted the provisions of the penal code.”
Originally published in Daily Post
