By Bob MajiriOghene Etemiku
Sometime in 2014, and
prior to the 2015 General elections, most Nigerians were shell-shocked at the
sort of language which certain highly-placed politicians flung here and there
at Goodluck Jonathan. The arrowhead cum leader of those who used
these irresponsible words to describe their president then was Nasir El Rufai,
now governor of Kaduna State, followed by the present minister of information
and culture, Lai Mohammed.
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| *Jonathan and Buhari |
From the way these highly-placed Nigerians
used these words, nobody would have thought those words constituted what we now
know as ‘hate speech’, ‘fake news’ and ‘irresponsible journalism’. What again
made such words as ‘clueless’, incompetent’ and ‘making Nigeria ungovernable’,
seemingly harmless then was that the individual who those hateful and highly
embarrassing words were directed at appeared to take them with a smile and did
so apparently because he understood that insults and aspersions are corollaries
to public office, and your ability to accept them, deflect or dodge them makes
you a leader or a charlatan.
