By Ishaya Ibrahim
Nigerians appear still outraged by Bello El-rufai’s comment in which he threatened to gang-rape the mother of a twitter user.
Bello is the son of Kaduna State governor, Nasir el-Rufai, who had threatened to rape a man’s mother and pass her off to his friends after a debate about President Muhammadu Buhari’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The story, which dominated social media on April 12 and 13, appeared to have died down until the sack of Otorieze Obi-Young, the Deputy Editor of Brittle Paper, a literary publication on April 15.
The sack resonated the rage again as the editor was said to have been relieved of his job for publishing a story against Hadiza el-Rufai, the mother of Bello, for initially backing her son before making a u-turn following social media backlash.
“Today, my time as Deputy Editor of Brittle Paper, a platform I’d’ve given my heart for, came to an end. I was made to leave because of my report on Hadiza El Rufai’s comments on her son’s gang-rape threat, a report that was taken down,” Obi-Young said.
In solidarity, a number of writers whose works have been published by Brittle Paper, said they were discontinuing further relationships with them, and demanding that their essays be pulled down from the platform.
Chibuihe Obi, one of the writers, said: “I am publicly rescinding the award Brittle Paper gave me in 2017 and will forthwith return the cash that came with the prize. I have also written to Ainehi Edoro (the publisher) to demand that my works be pulled down from their site,” he said.
Another writer, Michael Chedoziem Chukwu, made the same demand.
“I have sent Brittle Paper a mail. They have to pull my work down,” he said.
Jerry Chiemeke followed up also with the same demand. “I will be seeking that my short story ‘Coming To Terms’ be withdrawn from the platform,” he said.
An anti-rape activist, Kiki Mordi, whose undercover work with the BBC in universities led to the sack of lecturers who prey on students, said Brittle Paper has lost her respect.
“I guess that is where my respect with Brittle Paper ends. A platform that protects rape culture doesn’t deserve my respect,” she said.
But Edoro, the publisher, who also doubles as the editor said that the sack of Otorieze has nothing to do with censorship but professional misconduct.
“Otorieze post was an impassioned, deeply personal piece,” she said in a statement, adding that it could have led to libel suit as he dragged two Nigerian Newspapers into the controversy. “It was not clear why he was accusing two Nigerian newspapers of writing “hastily assembled, face-washing gimmick” and another of being “unintelligent”. And why was the diatribe “shame! Shame! Shame! Shame!” being used in what should have been a plain reportage of facts,” she said.