Bastardising the #Bring Back hashtag

THE abduction of more than 250 schoolgirls from a boarding secondary school in Chibok, a town in insurgency-embattled Borno State in April 2014 triggered a worldwide outrage and calls for their immediate release. Thus was born the #Bring Back Our Girls hashtag campaign, which has been going on both in Nigeria and other parts of the world.

This campaign became popular because many prominent personalities and celebrities from around the world signed on to it, and countries also declared their readiness to assist Nigeria in efforts to rescue the girls from their Boko Haram captors. Unfortunately, rather than the rescue effort making progress, what we see is an escalation of the insurgency, which has enabled the terrorists to gain more space and abduct even more young women – and men; some of whom have been reportedly murdered.

In the face of the worldwide outrage, the leader of Boko Haram, Abubakar Shekau, caused the release of a video, in which he derided the efforts to rescue the girls. He declared his own hashtag: #Bring Back Our Soldiers, to press his demand for the release of his captured fighters in exchange for the girls in his captivity.

Some promoters of the second term ambition of President Goodluck Jonathan stirred the hornet’s nest when they started a hashtag campaign:#BringBack Jonathan 2015. It was traced to the president’s Adviser on Public Affairs, Dr. Doyin Okupe. The refrain was taken up by the many groups jostling to be identified with the second term endorsement of President Jonathan.

We join Nigerians and people from all over the world who found this hashtag campaign insensitive, abominable and condemnable. It is even more so, coming from a highly placed official of the Presidency, who has taken great delight in tweeting it repeatedly.

The president has taken the right step in causing the promoters of this repugnant hashtag campaign to step it down, though tougher action ought to have been taken against the people behind it for embarrassing not just the Presidency but the nation at large.

It is shameful and distressing enough that the rescue mission has not taken place. But for political opportunists close to the president to use his name to make a parody of the #Bring Back Our Girls campaign is the height of insult and insensitivity to the plight of the girls and the pains and anguish of their families.

The president must take firm steps to rein in the hordes of self-seeking politicians and political appointees seeking relevance and carrying out his campaign in manners that drag his name to the mud. Indecent exposure of the president in the name of campaigning for his re-election might actually work against him.

- Culled from: http://www.vanguardngr.com