A talk on offensive/hate speech is always amusing for it is always value-laden and subjective, hence difficult to judge. And no matter how intense it may be, the truth is that it cannot be wished away by a piece of legislation. Hatred, the foundation ground of hate-speech, is a product of circumstances and situations. To get rid of it, honest and serious efforts to remedy those circumstances must be made. No other measure could do.
Now that the issue of hate-speech, especially on social media, seems to be constantly featuring in the Nigerian public space, since post-May 29, 2015 at least, it will not impertinent for one to lend one’s voice into the discourse. More so as legislative moves towards that direction are said to be underway, and that the Almighty Nigerian Military, keeping faith with its repressive and fascist nature, has, reportedly, already embarked upon the witch-hunt of the Nigerian cyberspace ‘hatemongers’.
One inescapable and unmistakable fact about this country is its unenviable reputation of, when confronted with issues, always looking at the superficials, the bare details and the symptoms, grappling with them without taking the trouble to look at the root causes of the problem so as to find a potent prescription for it. This has been the trait, and the trend, with virtually everything; from our lame war on corruption to the perennial fake concern over the putative falling standard of education, insecurity, economic over-dependency down to our empty rhetoric against indiscipline and all that.
What they now call hate speech is, in truth, nothing but an expression of frustration and anger, sighed out mostly by young Nigerians for whom the only place to blare their worries, disappointments and grievances is the easily accessible, and anonymity-giving, social media. If our political class considers the trend followed by these youth a bad thing, a ‘threat to our corporate existence’ a close and dispassionate look should then be had at the cause, the genesis of the trend. That is the only way the ‘menace’, if it is one, can be appraised and appropriately addressed.
There is no gainsaying the fact that the kind of heated and vitriolic exchanges one will see, coming from these sidelined and bypassed youth on the internet, notably the social media, is, to put it mildly, disheartening and scary. An outsider may even think, and rightfully so, that the country is on the brink of war, with a time-bomb on the verge of detonating. Every issue and event, whether social, political or governmental, is viewed from a sectional or ethno-religious prism, with vituperations and invectives thrown at one another.
I am not a fan of pedantics, and will not therefore go into the concept analysis of what hate/offensive speech and its constituents entail. And, by the way, to do so is not by any means necessary as all that we care for, here and now, is to have a clear picture of the problem. And for us to do that, it is imperative that we take a closer look at the respective quarters from which the so-called hate-speech usually springs up. And by quarters here I mean the youth that engage in this ‘hatemongering’.
Such a look, even if casual, will invariably reveal that the so-called ‘hatemongers’ are, in most cases, products of lower class families that managed to have attended universities and other higher institutions of learning. They are hardly found among the other class of agonized youth that troop daily, from the southern part of the country to the northern, and vice-versa, looking for posture, any posture, not necessarily a greener one.
The fact that this ‘hatemongering’ comes from this social stratum, from this type of youth, is enough to convince us that the problem is deeper than what our conscienceless and unscrupulous political class wants us to believe it is. A dispassionate assessment of the situation will reveal that the trend is an expression of frustration, desperation and exasperation. The hapless youth are confronted with a society that is in every respect contrary to the promise of a decent life and a better future. A society that is nowhere close to being conducive for their yearnings, dreams and aspirations.
Upon leaving school, these young, energetic and hopeful youth come up against the stark reality of the Nigerian situation. Their dreams get shattered and their hopes dashed, leaving them with a disorganized present, a bleak and gloomy future. They get to realize that not everything is for everybody; that whom you know is more important, more relevant and more effective than what you know; the qualifications you obtained or the skills you acquired. The reality suddenly dawns on them that though the country is one, it is nonetheless populated by two nations; two categories of people: the connected and the detached, those with substance and those without; those who get everything on the platter of gold and those who get nothing in spite of concerted and persistent struggle; those with an assured future and those that are living amidst false hopes, empty promises and uncertainty.
The luckiest among them, by some sort of miracle, may at a time, after a long wait and toil, get some employment thrown at them. But even that will not change their worldview because the so-called job, unsatisfactory as it usually is, was offered them in most cases after bootlicking, which itself is only made possible by some primordial affiliations. These pathetic youth are, by and large, disgruntled, disappointed and discontent. They feel betrayed and let down by the country they were, right from childhood, made to believe belongs to them. They consequently never feel obligated to nurse for the country any allegiance, loyalty or duty.
Among these hapless youth, some already have had their worldview contaminated, replaced by negative consciousness: a consciousness that elevates primordial sentiments, religious, ethnic or sectional, over and above national consciousness, a sense of belonging and a feeling of togetherness, or, in the very least, even a sense of humanity.
And this is largely due to the fact that even the contents of our curriculum do not in any way help in ameliorating our despicable situation as a nation because, just like every other sector in the country, our educational system has woefully failed the country, and still does. Whether in humanities or the social sciences, the Nigerian youth is given no chance of developing a positive view of their country. They are, instead, fed with all sort of negativities embedding in them a skeptical and distrustful view of the other at best, and a resentful and antagonistic one at worst. Our history books, as well as literary works, are a testimony to that, and Soyinka’s Season of Anomy and Achebe’s Anthills of the Savannah (not to mention his There Was A Country!) could, among numerous others, be cited as examples.
Therefore, to blame these downtrodden youth or target them for prosecution (read: persecution and repression) or even reprimand will be the highest form of injustice. They are victims not of circumstances but of a deliberate and well-orchestrated design. Our political class wants things to continue this way because the arrangement serves them well. They want these youth to remain entangled in this mess, the mess of lack of direction and uncertainty, so that they will remain a pool from which political thugs, assassins and lackeys will be readily handpicked and recruited.
The only way by which this expression of despair, of frustration and anger can be addressed is for our political class to mend its ways. Merit should be restored. Equal opportunities for all persons, in all things, should be turned from a mere dream, a wishful thinking, into a veritable reality. This, and nothing else, is the only assured measure that will pave way to forging and fostering a national consciousness, a sense of belonging and a feeling of togetherness.
