My message to the Nigerian media

By Kadaria Ahmed

It is with a heavy heart, worry about Nigeria and a sense of impending doom that I am sending this message to my colleagues in the media .

Let me begin with a question, what exactly will we gain if Nigeria descends into war? How does it advance us, if our fellow citizens turn on each other and begin large scale ethnic killings, against each other? Let me even assume that a few of us don't believe in Nigeria anymore and want to see it broken into its constituent parts. How does enabling ethnic strife help achieve this objective in a way that guarantees the outcome you want?

For sometime now, many of us have thrown away the book on ethical reporting, propelled by emotion, we have betrayed every moral consideration that assigns our noble professsion a role so significant we are seen as the last hope of the common man, so much so our jobs are constitutionally protected.

Despite numerous examples that exist which have proved, including not too long ago in Rwanda, that the conduct of the media can help in, promoting, starting and perpetuating violence and ethnic strife, we have turned a deaf ear to pleas to not become a tool that enables hate.

But we have failed to heed these warnings.

We have given platforms to the worst among us, the extremists and the blood thirsty. We have turned militia leaders and criminals into champions. Instead of us to lead calm and rational discuss on the existential challenges we face with a view to promoting actionable solutions, we have succumbed to hysteria and the next exciting click bait headline.

And yet for many of us, especially media owners, this place called Nigeria has been relatively good .

This country has given many of us more opportunity than the majority of our fellow citizens. We have reaped a bountiful havest from this place. We have done so well that, if God forbid, this country is consumed, and chaos reigns, many of us will hop on a plane and bugger off to the many different countries abroad where our families live in peace, even though they are not native to those places.

We will run off and leave our foot soldiers, our reporters and headline writers, who we allowed maybe even ecouraged to go down this path to navigate a country at war, alone and perhaps without the ability to fully protect their families both immediate and extended from the horrors that will follow.

And there is no doubt it will be horrific. The play book is written and tested. We saw it in Sierra Leone, in Liberia, in Rwanda and more recently in South Sudan and the Central African Republic.

There will be killings in the thousands, limbs will be chopped off with machettes, women and girls will be raped, food will be scarce, fear will reign. The most brutal among us will take charge. And their word will be law. They will not tolerate journalists who try to hold them accountable.

And these horrors will not always come from the bogeyman we have been at great pains to create and project. It will come from the militia leaders fighting to take control of our neigbohoods and increasingly scarce resources. This is not a film script. This is the reality of war.

Our job is to hold power accountable and it is exactly what it should be.

The focus on those in charge, especially President Muhammadu Buhari, should be relentless and loud and insistent.

But when the killings happen and they seem to have already begun, it is not the President's family, nor that of his Ministers nor indeed anyone with any kind of serious influence that will mostly die.

It is regular folks, people already forced to travel and move in order to eke out a living , settlers, across all of Nigeria.

The ignoble role we are now playing in bringing this country to chaos is at odds with most of our history. We have always being the ones Nigerians could rely on to lift our voices, together for the betterment of this country.

Our proud history of fighting colonialist masters, carried on with the fight against military dictatorship, to standing up to civilian governments that tried to perpetuate themselves in office.

I don't know at which point we decided that a focus on ethnic profiling despite the repeated warnings about where this leads, would be a good idea.

So here we are today about to be consumed by the hate we have stoked.

They will write about us , just as they wrote about our colleagues in Rwanda. That we fanned the flames of ethnic hate, and enabled them consume our country.

They will write about us in the first person, because we live in a digital age and the internet never forgets and records last forever. They will identify us individually, and sooner or later a few of us will end up before an international court.

What we do today and what will count is whether we had the courage associated with our profession to buck the trend, jump off the bandwagon and do what is right instead of getting swept away by the moment, forgotting ourselves and the ethics that should guide us all .

In the end, we all die, but while we live, we write our legacy. It is not too late to make it one that saved our country from the brink.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/newsdiaryonline.com/my-message-to-the-nigerian-media-by-kadaria-ahmed/amp/

hmm

Pls ask them, what do they exactly want.

If we really want to breakup Nigeria must it be by inciting violence.

Government needs to regulate online media or else there will be no Nigeria.

Most of you people spreading disinformation online, when real war breaks up will you be able to withstand the brutal inter tribal conflict.

The type of war that will come if we continue to promote violence will be worst than the civil war, every ethnic group will face each other and massacre themselves, the owners of these online media will be in Ghana and various countries reporting on your death.

Hmmm

There is solution to every problem, where is Mr president, what is he doing about the problem facing this country?

tamdun:
There is solution to every problem, where is Mr president, what is he doing about the problem facing this country?

Mr president is not the solution....all branches of Government plus the citizens need to come together to solve insecurity in our country, after all it is the citizens that commit crimes.

It is also a fact, every ethnic groups are all protecting their criminals from persecution, they use them as a trojan horse to cause trouble for the federal government.

Useless thing!!

When you were doing arrangee presidential debate for DemonBuhari on ChannelsTV you thought you were doing me and GEJ government abi??

Stupid Ashee

TooMuchStuff:
Useless thing

When you were doing arrangee presidential debate for DemonBuhari on Channels TV you think you were doing me and GEJ government abi??

Stupid Ashee

Can you write something intelligent other than abuse.

thebosstrevor1:


Can you write something intelligent other than abuse.

Ubanka yaci uwarsa!!

thebosstrevor1:
Pls ask them, what do they exactly want.

If we really want to breakup Nigeria must it be by inciting violence.

Government needs to regulate online media or else there will be no Nigeria.

Most of you people spreading disinformation online, when real war breaks up will you be able to withstand the brutal inter tribal conflict.

The type of war that will come if we continue to promote violence will be worst than the civil war, every ethnic group will face each other and massacre themselves, the owners of these online media will be in Ghana and various countries reporting on your death.

Is it online or social media that make herdsmen to be killing, mamimig, raping and destroying everywhere and the government of day folds its arms?

TooMuchStuff:

Ubanka yaci uwarsa!!

I guess that is your own solution, i am not suprised.

thebosstrevor1:


I guess that is your own solution, i am not suprised.

Shege mai shan Fitsarin Rakumi kawai....wawa!!

Dan Burukutu sha sha sha!

As usual, majoring on the minor and minoring on the major.Why can Kadaria direct her write up to her fulani brethren that are wrecking havoc across this nation and the sitting government that is covertly & overtly condoning every of their atrocities.

iwaeda:


Is it online or social media that make herdsmen to be killing, mamimig, raping and destroying everywhere and the government of day folds its arms?

Online media are spreading lot of FAKENEWS and disinformation while inciting violence.

Most of the stories about herdmen are FAKENEWS.

Most crimes are done by indigenes but then they look for scapegoats to put the blame on .

TooMuchStuff:


Shege mai shan Fitsarin Rakumi kawai....wawa!!

Your hausa is poor.

thebosstrevor1:


Your hausa is poor.

Thank goodness you got the message.

Kazami...

TooMuchStuff:


Thank goodness you got the message.

Kazami...

I am sure you are happy now

thebosstrevor1:


I am sure you are happy now

Very happy that you are kept where you belong.

Don't like hypocrites like Kadaria who was openly partial in her moderation of presidential debates in favour of Buhari who couldn't debate on his own with other contestants

TooMuchStuff:


Very happy that you are kept where you belong.

Don't like hypocrites like Kadaria who was openly partial in her moderation of presidential debates in favour of Buhari who couldn't debate on his own with other contestants

Now how has this information helped your life?

thebosstrevor1:


Now how has this information helped your life?

Putting her and you Fulanis in trash bin of demons.

thebosstrevor1:
Pls ask them, what do they exactly want.

If we really want to breakup Nigeria must it be by inciting violence.

Government needs to regulate online media or else there will be no Nigeria.

Most of you people spreading disinformation online, when real war breaks up will you be able to withstand the brutal inter tribal conflict.

The type of war that will come if we continue to promote violence will be worst than the civil war, every ethnic group will face each other and massacre themselves, the owners of these online media will be in Ghana and various countries reporting on your death.

Yes, government needs to gag the masses from complaining about the killing of herdsmen. You know that our herdsmen gets more angry when they hear people lamenting about being killed in their farms. Governments should go against the masses and gag them, the herdsmen should be left alone to operate.

TooMuchStuff:

Putting her and you Fulanis in trash bin of demons.

If it makes you happy, then be happy

Kaduna1stson:


Yes, government needs to gag the masses from complaining about the killing of herdsmen. You know that our herdsmen gets more angry when they hear people lamenting about being killed in their farms. Governments should go against the masses and gag them, the herdsmen should be left alone to operate.

Stop acting like it is only herdmen killing people..most crimes are done by indigenes, stop putting blames on herdmen

thebosstrevor1:


Online media are spreading lot of FAKENEWS and disinformation while inciting violence.

Most of the stories about herdmen are FAKENEWS.

Most crimes are done by indigenes but then they look for scapegoats to put the blame on .

Government should have acted by arresting the indigenes behind the killings, but also dont forget MURIC findings about killer herdsmen.

thebosstrevor1:


Online media are spreading lot of FAKENEWS and disinformation while inciting violence.

Most of the stories about herdmen are FAKENEWS.

Most crimes are done by indigenes but then they look for scapegoats to put the blame on .

Yes, every story about herdsmen kilKings is a lie, there are no herdsmen in the south, all cows in the south are owned by Tinubu and other yoruba indegenes, they just want to call out fulanis because of 2023.

thebosstrevor1:


Stop acting like it is only herdmen killing people..most crimes are done by indigenes, stop putting blames on herdmen

I insist, herdsmen has never killed anyone.

thebosstrevor1:


If it makes you happy, then be happy

NL is anonymous for a reason.
To shamelessly and fearlessly air your views.

Tell your sister Kadaria to stop spamming the media space with trash

iwaeda:


Government should have acted by arresting the indigenes behind the killings, but also dont forget MURIC findings about killer herdsmen.

I am not going to deny that we don't have herdmen that kill, they most times kill when their lives are threatened, i have seen firsthand when a farmland was cleared by cows but the issue was solved before it led to conflict, why are people not after the pathway for solution rather war and most times i blame the press for igniting that tension.

Many death would have been avoided if the press didn't first create the impression of so called killer herdmen

These idiots have started finding their voices now that Fulani is feeling the heat

A broken Nigeria is better off

Let us divide by any means necessary.
This contraption ain't working

thebosstrevor1:


I am not going to deny that we don't have herdmen that kill, they most times kill when their lives are threatened, i have seen firsthand when a farmland was cleared by cows but the issue was solved before it led to conflict, why are people not after the pathway for solution rather war and most times i blame the press for igniting that tension.

Many death would have been avoided if the press didn't first create the impression of so called killer herdmen

When you defend, fear God!