The Federal Government has accused
“The Economist” newspaper of racism, prejudice and denigration of Nigeria’s
genuine effort at national re-orientation.
The Minister of Information and
Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, made the accusation in a statement he issued on
Wednesday in Abuja. The statement is in response to a publication by the weekly
magazine on “Change Begins With Me” campaign.
The minister said: “Our attention
has been drawn to a story by The Economist, datelined Lagos and featured in the
paper’s print edition of Sept. 24, 2016 entitled: ”Nigeria’s war against
indiscipline, Behave or be whipped’’.
Contrary to the newspaper’s
self-professed belief in ”plain language”, the article in question, from the
headline to the body, is a master-piece of embellishment or dressed-up
language”.
“It is loaded with innuendos and
decidedly pejorative at best and downright racist at worst.’’ The minister
faulted the conclusion in the publication that President Muhammadu Buhari
wanted to ”tame” Nigerians with the ”Change Begins With Me” Campaign.
change-buhari “For those who are the owners of the English language, the use of
that word is unpardonable.
“The verb ”tame” suggests that Nigerians are
some kind of wild animals that must be domesticated, and the usage reveals the
mindset of the authors of the article. “It is a deliberate put-down of a whole
people under the guise of criticising a government policy,’’ he said.
Mohammed said the author was wrong
in insinuating that some 150,000 volunteers were being trained as enforcers of
the ”Change Begins With Me” Campaign. He said the president, while launching
the campaign, made it clear that “moral suasion, the very antithesis of force,
will be employed to achieve attitudinal change among Nigerians’’.
He said the President never said
that ”moral police would be unleashed’’as reported by the newspaper. “In
writing the story, the paper did not even deem it necessary to speak with any
official of the government, thus breaching one of the codes of journalism,
which is fairness,’’ he said.
The minister clarified that the
campaign was launched to ‘”help restore our value system and rekindle our
nationalistic fervour’’.
He added that the campaign was not
designed to shift any responsibility to Nigerians, as many had erroneously said
but an all-inclusive campaign designed to start with the leadership. “Change
Begins With Me” was designed to start from the President, then trickle down to
the Vice President, ministers, other top government officials and to all
citizens.
“The campaign is asking Nigerians to be the
change they want to see in the society; for example, the motorists among us
must obey traffic rules, our aggrieved youth must stop destroying public
property, “Patent medicine sellers must stop selling fake drugs; commercial
vehicle drivers must stop taking alcoholic beverages before driving.
“There is nothing extraordinary or
over-burdening in all these,’’ he said. The minister noted that many countries
in the world, at some points, had also embarked on the kind of campaign that
Nigeria launched. He said that it was uncharitable for newspaper “to hide
behind the facade of its own prejudice to denigrate Nigeria’s genuine effort at
national re-orientation.’’
Source:Vanguard
Tags
Society