Politicians and hate speech are like bedmates. They dine and wine together. What is injurious, however, is when hate speech goes beyond issues to persons.
Last week, the spokesperson of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Olisa Metuh, and his loquacious counterpart in the All Progressives Congress (APC), Lai Mohammed, engaged each other in a very competitive game of hate speech.
My mistaken belief has been that since the presidential election is over, hate speech would no longer be fashionable in political communication. But instead of going down, the stakes have gone higher.
While Mohammed brags like a victorious power-hungry combatant, Metuh is doing everything crude and naughty to learn the ropes of opposition party spokesman, a role Mohammed has played with fluency over the years.
Mohammed had, the week before, raised the alarm that the APC’s transition team was being frustrated by that of the PDP. The alarm was, however, watered down by APC Transition Committee Chairman, Ahmed Joda.
Nonetheless, Metuh fired a statement on Wednesday, May 13 admonishing Mohammed to learn how to desist from fabricating lies.
He said: “But for the maturity of President Goodluck Jonathan and the head of the APC’s Transition Committee, Ahmed Joda, who cleared the air, the country would have been thrown into a crisis over the false alert by Lai Mohammed that the Presidency was frustrating the transition process.
“After Joda debunked Lai Mohammed’s false statement and denied that his committee was being frustrated by the PDP-led Presidency, we waited for 48 hours expecting the APC spokesman to apologise to the nation, but this has not been done ….
“Lai Mohammed in a press statement last Thursday alleged that the Presidency and the PDP had ‘bluntly refused to cooperate’ with the APC to ensure a successful transition and that the Transition Committee of the federal government had refused to hold any meeting with that of the APC.
“Even after the PDP through a statement last Friday debunked the false allegation with facts showing that the committees of the two parties have been holding fruitful meetings, Lai Mohammed vehemently stuck to his position, only for … Joda to confirm on Tuesday that the two panels have been meeting and operating on the same page and that at no time did his team complain to anybody that there was no cooperation.
“[Mohammed] must realise that his style, which is anchored on lies, has negatively impacted the polity, especially hundreds of young Nigerians who now engage in insults and fabrications in the media thinking that such is what party publicity is all about.
“Lai Mohammed should know that the campaigns with its attendant propaganda are over and that Nigerians expect a more mature and patriotic behaviour from the political class.
“He should therefore learn to get his facts right and be truthful in his statements at all times.”
Mohammed, a master in the game of political propaganda and hate speech, replied on Thursday last week: “We say, with all sense of responsibility, that as of today, May 14, 2015, just about two weeks to the May 29 handover date, no shred of information as to the status of governance from any ministry, department or agency of government has been given to our Transition Committee.
“If that qualifies, in Metuh’s lexicon, as cooperation, then there is a problem somewhere. We dare Metuh, or anyone for that matter, to controvert the fact that not a line of handover note has been handed over to our Transition Committee. Until then, Metuh has egg on his face.
“Metuh decided to put his foot in his mouth when he latched on to the statement made by [Joda] forgetting that in making his statement, [Joda] was only acting the statesman that he is by not saying anything that will put the federal government in bad light.
“A discerning party spokesman, rather than a rabble-rousing one, would have understood the elder statesman’s stand for what it is instead of using it as a peg to issue a needless, hollow statement that puts his party and government in bad light.
“We had decided to allow sleeping dogs to lie, but now that Metuh has stirred the hornet’s nest, it is time to put out the facts for Nigerians to judge.
“What happened was that, following the request by our Transition Committee to meet with them, they invited us to what was the first formal meeting between both Transition Committees.
“But the meeting was a mere photo-op, as it yielded nothing concrete as far as handover notes are concerned.
“In fact, what we met at the so-called meeting was far worse than what we had thought. Whereas we had hoped to get their handover notes on May 14 (the date they had indicated to us informally), they told us point blank that the notes won’t be ready until May 24.
“Because this date falls on Sunday, that means we won’t be getting the handover notes until May 25, just four days before the May 29 handover date.
“How do they honestly expect us to peruse thousands of pages of handover notes, ask pertinent questions and seek necessary clarifications within four days?
“Because we want a smooth transition, we asked if we could meet with some of the ministers pending the release of the handover notes, but they said no. When one of their members even suggested that the whole process be fast-tracked, they did not budge.
“Despite this set back, we decided not to put the whole issue in the public domain, until the babbling Metuh decided to look for trouble, describing the deliberate stonewalling by the Jonathan administration as cooperation.”
How soon will this exchange end; or is it just starting?
