Of Hate Speech, The FRCN Annual Lecture And The 2019 Polls

By  Victorson Agbenson

In many ways the 2019 polls is a behemoth stiring us in the face, sometimes with the terror and tremour of a monster. Its outcome and possible attendant fallouts are even more imagined.

How will it all play out? Is the question that agitates many minds. In 2015 a negative prophecy, nay prediction from the US hung over us: it pointed to free, fair elections or disintegration.  Today the scenario is not entirely different, only that no supper power has made any prediction. 

Will Nigeria get it this time again? This was perhaps one of the underlying thought line at the just held  Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN) Annual Lecture.

The talks provided a platform for discourse on need for national unity and stability with particular focus on the menace of fake news and hate speech against the backdrop of the 2019 elections.

According to the FRCN Director of Programmes, Sina Abimbola who chaired the lecture organising committee, the talks was "to show Nigerians as we always do every year  that we are committed to the tenets of the cooperate survival of this country. We always give them a reason to discuss Nigeria within the year, so this year was not an exemption even though positive of funds nearly didn't let us hold this year's own"

"However, the Director General Dr. Mansur Liman said to us that, we are Radio Nigeria, we should go ahead and live up to our expectations, that Nigerians expect us to perform certain roles apart from programmes and news, and one of these is to give then something to talk about, to ignite healthy  disccussion's about the state of the Nation"

So when it was time to choose a topic to focus on this year, it was not difficult to camp around the forthcoming 2019 Election. 

And the management then decided to take it home to the issue of fake News and hate speech because these are the flashpoints of possible eruptions in the reportage of the 2019 election. 

The issue of hate speech invocks diverse thoughts in different minds . This is so because what  constitute hate speech have different descriptions. For instance if a politician gives hard tackles to his opponent, does that amount to hate speech?

But these issues were critically and clinicaly  interrogated by the guest lecturer for the day Professor Ayobami Ojebode of the Department of Language Arts, University Of Ibadan.

He submitted that what constitute hate speech goes far beyond what many of us consider to be such.  For instance if i see a Yoruba man and describes him as 'Owambe' man, it is hate speech. Owambe is the general Yoruba word for partying. The Yoruba have be stereotyped as a party - loving tribe. The common belief is that they create parties out of every circumstance. But as typical of stereotypes, there is always the making of sweeping generalisations. My two friends who have hosted me to parties the most are both from Edo and Delta states , Izuagbe Ibrahim and Ernest Osogbue, respectively. Anyway someone would argue that Mr. Osogbue's wife is Yoruba. But that's the problem with generalisations after all.

Again, if I chose to refer to an Igbo man as 'Ofenmano' which literaly means one who likes oily food, Proffesor Oyebode believes that I'm guilty of hate speech.

I grew up in Warri and when we see a Hausa man we call him 'Aboki'. Till this moment I don't know the meaning of Aboki but we generally use it to derogatorily refer to anyone from Kogi state down to Sokoto. The Proffesor  said this also amounts to hate speech.

Professor  Ojebode was able to widen the scope in terms of what hate speech is. So one thing that became clear was that we have been committing the offense of hate speech against ourselves  without knowing. 

                 

Just like hate speech,  fake News according to Professor Ojebode  was not a new phenomenon. Its been with us long before now. 

So on the overall we need to have a broader view of what constitutes hate speech and fake news. What constitutes hate speech is even what some us don't think what it is, hate speech is not just about calling people cockroaches as was witnessed in Rwanda or when reporters  spin a story about a politician they don't like accusing him of is sleeping with another persons wife  or accuse a cleric of having concubines. These are things many journalists are not conscious of which the guest lecturer drew our attention to. So as we arrive at the junction of the 2019 election we should be aware of what  to do as a reasonable and responsible journalists who have the interest of the Nigerian Nation at heart. 

Recall that the federal ministry of information under Alhaji Lai Mohammed had started a campaign against fake news and hate speech, so in a way the FRCN management is thinking in sync with the Ministry.

But the concept of fake news was popularised in recent times by the US President Donald Trump who has been having a running battle with the mainstream American media. My visit to the US earlier in the year showed me that sharp division. I met very senior journalists in the US who are bitter with President Trump just as the President is bitter with them. The only medium that seemed to be with Trump is the Fox News which the mainstream American media says is not practising journalism.

As most journalists in that country allege, any news that was not favourable to him, Trump would call fake News. And the world has continued to watch how he has been having a drawn battle with a very reputable media institution like CNN describing it as a harbinger of fake news. But it must be pointed out that a news is not fake just because it is critical of anyone.

One major purveyor of fake news is the social media. A major plank of my PhD thesis is focusing on this menace that has come to stay in a world of mud slinging, unfair competition s and grasping for power.  As many have seen, the outcome of the 2015 election was largely influenced by the social media. This trend will not abate as 2019 draws closer.

Beyond this,  Professor Ojebode drew attention to another delicate dimension which is that, even the social  it is now in a position to misled the traditional media. This means that what may form  our headlines in sometimes are issues thrown up by social media. And we are seeing many stations quoting and picking  stories from the social media. Both broadcast and print organisations have been guilty of this but we must never lose sight of the fact that as journalists we have some codes of conduct and ethics that should guide our operations. Professor Ojebode emphasises that it is only  when journalists play by these rules that they can escape falling short of globally acceptable standards.

       

Having been covering politics and elections for almost two decades, it is my considered view that  if you look critically at this codes and work withing them, there is a possibility of not running fouling of the law especially as we  report the coming  election.

Let's not also forget that election is not an event, but a process, its a while gamut of processes and events which culminate in the actual casting of votes , counting , collations and announcing of results. INEC for instance will have to be ready, the people will have to register and be armed with their PVCs. 

Political parties have their roles, they must conduct primaries, screening and so on. So far we have seen the fallouts from these processes in the parties, with the attendant dissagreements and court cases even up to the supreme court. 

All these must be well reported and captured by the media. And in doing this, the media will  have to interact with the the INEC security agents, Police, Army,  Civil Defense and so on. The media will also talk about the aspirant themselves and highlight their programmes. To meet the acceptable standard, and rise above the temptation and lure  of fake news and hate speech which can injure our desire to have a hitch free election we must be vigilant and place national interest above every other considerations. For Sina Abimbola he says  "if you ask me I think the lecture achieved its objectives" but for me we will know if it did after the 2019 election is won and lost by the political gladiators as reflected by the reportage of we journalists.