Punch and the culture of hate mongering
Our attention has been drawn to the editorial of the Punch Newspaper of Wednesday 12th December, 2019 in which the paper successfully managed to expose its morbid hatred for President Muhammadu Buhari and the government he heads. This is coming on the heels of the spirited attempts by the paper to influence the 2019 elections […]
Our attention has been drawn to the editorial of the Punch Newspaper of Wednesday 12th December, 2019 in which the paper successfully managed to expose its morbid hatred for President Muhammadu Buhari and the government he heads. This is coming on the heels of the spirited attempts by the paper to influence the 2019 elections through jaundiced reportage and several opinion pages that were aimed at discrediting the president and his government.
Beyond just the attempt by the newspaper to discredit Mr. President, it has progressed from just expressing hatred for him to inciting the public through the invocation of derogatory means that instil fear, to insurrection. Imagine this statement, “Nigeria has had more than its fair share of draconian rulers, whether in military or civil garb, but none has succeeded in breaking our resilience and irrepressible spirit”. This is outright manipulation of a situation with a sinister motive meant to spark outrage which bore semblance and emblem of #RevolutionNow proponents.
These are inciting statements and should be treated as such. Nigerians are peace loving and would not do the bidding of the Punch and those they are in cahoots with. The paper disdainfully labelled Nigerians ‘lethargic’. This is really unfortunate. For a paper that said it is protecting the interest of Nigerians on the basis of which it labelled the president a dictator to refer to the same people it purports to protect as lethargic is irresponsibility taken to a height never known before in this country.
Nigerians are no fools. They know those who love them. No amount of blackmail will force Nigerians to do what ordinarily they will not do.
It is pertinent at this juncture to ask: does Punch and several other vocal minority groups in Nigeria think they can undermine the silent majority believing that they alone have monopoly of knowledge of right and wrong?
It is obvious from the position of the paper that it is now a partisan entity in cahoots with the opposition whose intention is to snatch the mandate freely given to the President by Nigerians. This intent is obvious from the drive to cast the president in a military garb that will portray him as a dictator. To drive home the point, the paper promised to refer to the president as a ‘Military General’ and his government a ‘Regime’, meaning an authoritarian government. These were the exact words used by the advocate of the so-called revolution facing trial. It is now obvious that the call for a Revolution had been an idea beyond the proponents whose faces are known to Nigerians.
They can continue their posturing and hate mongering as they did in the past four years of the Buhari government, but they will never succeed in breaking the spirit of the Nigerian people committed to remaining together as one indivisible country. All they have succeeded in doing so far is embarrass the country and expose their contempt for the president and the Nigerian people who freely elected him to lead them to fight corruption and retrieve Nigeria from the hands of the corrupt.
Enough of this hate campaign!
Prince Tonye Princewill Ekpeki Michael, Concerned Nigerians Initiative
No. 16B House 1, Mafemi Crescent, off Solomon Lar Way, Utako, Abuja