Ehiwe To El-Rufai: Your ‘Body Bag’ Comment Is A Hate Speech By Ehiwe O. Samuel

The sanity of any democratic clime is brought to bare when
citizens are allowed to air their views and opinions about matters
of State and public policy.

Freedom of speech is a sine qua non to every democracy, but it
does not end there. If freedom of speech is guaranteed, it is even
more important to guarantee freedom after speech. The need to have
a sane and safe society cannot be over-estimated. Every independent
nation, like Nigeria, has a duty to ensure that it caters for its
own internal issues, although this does not rule out the
possibility of mutual assistance between countries.

Hate speech, as it has come to be known, is a phenomenon that
has eaten deep into the fibre of the corporate existence of many
States. It has caused the death of many, the ruin of nations and
the collapse of State structures. It is indeed not even to be said
that leaders in any political structure should be the last to
encourage hate speech.

In a recent interview, ‘the accidental public servant’,
for whom I have great respect said;

‘‘Those that are calling for anyone to come and intervene in
Nigeria, we are waiting for the person that would come and
intervene, they would go back in body bags because
nobody will come to Nigeria and tell us how to run our country. We
got that independence and we are trying to run our country as
decently as possible and we know the history of those countries
that are trying to teach us these things. We have read their
history.”

Now, what is a body bag? According to the Cambridge dictionary a
body bag is a heavy plastic bag used to transport a dead
person, especially a soldier who has been killed in a war.
This means that only a dead person is conveyed in a body bag.
Consequently, the statement by the accidental public servant simply
means that foreign observers who come to intervene will be killed
and sent back to their various countries as dead men. This, with
greatest respect, is an abuse of the freedom of speech guaranteed
under our constitution. It is even more damning, coming from a man
of the status of a governor in the world’s most populous black
nation. This statement is tantamount to a threat on the
international community which should be discouraged at a time when
international collaborations is most expected.

In his defence, he said the statement was made from a patriotic
front, to uphold the dignity of Nigeria. Good defence! But that
does not derogate from the fact that a death threat to accredited
observers from the international community is hate speech. Without
prejudice to the provisions of Section 308 of the Constitution
of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 as amended, the
governor must be made to answer questions as to how he intends to
carry out the threats. Does it mean he already has a squad that
would implement the threat? Is this statement not a threat to
national security, considering the porous nature of the security
architecture in Kaduna, particularly Southern Kaduna where families
are killed, and the intestines of children are ripped off by
bandits with no one being brought to justice?

In conclusion, it is important that as Nigerians, our personal
interest should not blindly lead us into undermining the sanctity
of human lives. To say people will be killed for intervening
legally in an electoral process is ‘ambition’ taken too
far. While this has raised lots of comments both in the national
and international scenes, it is instructive to note that same
should be curbed and nipped at the bud by all means possible.