‘When they called Jonathan “incompetent”,”weak”, “gutless”, “clueless” it was not hate speech’

In reaction to Acting President Yemi Osinbajo’s promise to treat what he described as “hate speech” as terrorism Mr. Jackson Ude the publisher of Pointblank News said the following. “APC thrived on hate speech between 2014-2015. 

Today that seed they sowed is haunting them. They now say it’s terrorism! Don’t be deceived.

APC came to power by hate speeches, divided Nigeria along ethnic and religious lines, sowed seeds of discord and blamed PDP! Hypocrites!” How apt and how courageous Mr. Ude’s assertion is. I could not have put it better myself. President Muhammadu Buhari, Acting President Yemi Osinbajo, National Chairman Chief John Odigie Oyegun and all the other leaders of the APC are indeed a bunch of self-serving deceivers and self-seeking hypocrites. Worst of all they are the architects of terror and the fathers of hate!

Permit me to send a strong word and warning to them from here: YOURS ARE THE WAYS OF BULLIES AND FASCISTS! WE CANNOT BE INTIMIDATED BY YOUR PENDING LEGISLATION OR YOUR PUERILE BARRACK-ROOM TACTICS AND NEITHER SHALL WE BE SILENCED. YOU CAME TO POWER BY HATE AND YOU WILL LEAVE IT WITH HATE!

When they rejected the notion that all Nigerians were born equal under one God it was not described as hate speech. When they propounded the theory and engendered the philosophy that some Nigerians are more equal than others it was not described as hate speech. When they called those that believe in restructuring “opporunists” and “political jobbers” it was not described as hate speech. When they called those that believe in exercising their right of self-determinaion and that are struggling and fighting for equal rights, equal opportunities and the liberation and emancipation of their people “treasonous criminals”, “evil secessionists”, “irresponsible souls” and “godless rebels” it was not described as hate speech. When they called the opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP) “a bunch of criminals and looters” it was not described as hate speech.

When they called President Goodluck Jonathan “incompetent”, “weak”, “gutless” and “clueless” it was not described as hate speech. When they described him as a “drunken sailor”, a “drunken fisherman”, a “kindergarten President” and insulted members of his family it was not described as hate speech. When they called us “wailing wailers” it was not hate speech. When they called us “PDPigs” it was not described as hate speech. When they called us “baboons and dogs” and their wives called us “hyenas and jackals” it was not described as hate speech. When they called us “cold-blooded murderers” and described us as “thieves and rogues” it was not described as hate speech.

When they encouraged and clapped for a foreign leader who described our people and our nation as “fantastically corrupt” it was not described as hate speech. When they demonised our leaders and called First Lady Patience Jonathan an “ugly and illiterate hippopotamus” it was not described as hate speech. When they called President Obasanjo and President Yar’adua “incompetent jokers and treacherous thieves” who “stole all the money that they were given for the power sector” and who were part of a “cabal of kleptomaniacs” it was not described as hate speech.

When they called Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers state a “murderer, cultist and gangster” who “has no character” and a “cutlass-wielding butcher and thief” it was not described as hate speech. When they called Governor Peter Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti state a “loud-mouthed and illetrate gutter-snipe” and a “low-life danfo driver” it was not described as hate speech. When they called the National Chairman of our great party, Senator Ahmed Makarfi, an “unfit, sick and dying invalid” and called the PDP itself a “nest of killers and vipers” it was not described as hate speech. When they called Senator Iyiola Omosore the “killer of Bola Ige” and they called the Igbo people the “5 per cent that would not receive favour” it was not described as hate speech.

When they threatened the Igbo with genocide and gave them a quit notuce to leave the north it was not described as hate speech. When they sang cold-blooded and chilling songs calling for the extermination of the entire Igbo race it was not described as hate speech. When they said “an attack on Boko Haram is an attack on the north” and when they said that it was their intention to “spread sharia into every part if the federation” it was not described as hate speech. When they openly referred to Christians as “pagans”, “arne” and “unbelievers” and when they called Muslims that are in the PDP and that supported Jonathan “heretics and infidels” it was not described as hate speech.

When they said that the killing of every Fulani person during the war against terror by the Nigerian Armed Forces was “a debt that would be later repaid” it was not described as hate speech. When they called Shiite Muslims “lecherous souls, wife-swappers, animals, idol-worshippers and blasphemers” that were “not worthy of life” it was not described as hate speech. When they called the Yoruba “cowardly and treacherous”, the Igbo “greedy and ungrateful” , the Niger Deltans “oil bats and filthy scum” and Middle Belters “slaves and minions” it was not described as hate speech.

When they said if it took “the slaughtering of 20 million Niger Deltans” to bring peace to Nigeria and to secure the flow of oil it should be done it was not described as hate speech. When they called the poor and suffering masses of the core north “almajiris” and claimed that they were destined by God not to go to school, not to receive an education and not to live a better quality life it was not described as hate speech. When they boasted that that same poor northern masses were condemned by God to live as unworthy paupers and beggars and to suffer and wallow in ignorance and poverty for the rest of their lives it was not described as hate speech.

When some misguided elites, religious bigots, ethnic supremacists and modern-day nazis claim that they were “born to rule” and that the rest of us are nothing but “servants, field-hands and serfs” it was not described as hate speech. When they called yours truly a “hate-filled ethnic supremacist and racist”, a “spoilt child”, a “religious bigot”, a “Christian extremist”, an “intellectual fraud”, a “depraved and orgy-loving sodomite”, a “seducer and destroyer of women”, an “incestous peadophile”, a “common criminal”, a “gangster, murderer and assasin”, a “hired gun”, a “rottweiller” and an “insane drug addict” it was not described as hate speech. When they called other PDP and opposition leaders “ritualists”, “cultists”, “killers”, “evil”, “cursed”, “beasts”, “scum”, “thieves”, “rogues”, “haters”, “filthy dreamers” and “cancerous vermin” it was not described as hate speech.

When they claimed that Jonathan was responsible for the death of Dora Akunliyi and that he should “get on his knees” and “crawl and beg Nigerians for forgiveness” it was not described as hate speech. When they say that those that called on Buhari to “resume or resign” are a bunch of “jobless and idle youths” it was not described as hate speech. I could go on and on.

Is there any shameful, disgusting, undeserved and malevolent label or any insulting adjective and bestial nomenclature that the APC and their friends have not employed or applied to those that have gallantly opposed their tyranny and hegemony? Is there any sickening lie that they have not told about their perceived enemies and detractors?

Is there any life that they have not sought to scar, endanger and threaten? Is there any family that they have not used their associates in the media to malign and to incite the Nigerian people against? Is there any slander, libel, fabrication, disinformation, misinformation, misrepresentation and hateful and destructive lie that they have not indulged in? We know and hear all these things and we laugh them to scorn.

It is like water off a duck’s back and it takes nothing whatsoever from us because Nigerians know the truth and they are far wiser than these professional APC haters and agents of destruction think. The fact of the matter is that lions pay no heed when goats bleat and when cattle murmur.

Dragons lose no sleep when the cock begins to crow and tigers do not concern themselves with the insults and opinions of sheep. Whichever way they want to play it, whatever they do and whatever they say the APC will continue to get as good as they dished out to others over the last four years. We are not intimidated by their threats of labelling us as terrorists and their crude attempt to intimidate and silence us.

This is because resisting tyranny and evil is a divine obligation. We shall continue to call a spade a spade and a tyrant a tyrant no matter what they say or do and we are prepared to pay whatever price may come with it. We cannot be muzzled and we shall not be silenced. To the faithful and true I say the following: we must shed our fears and we must never forget that the Lord is with us. We must never forget that even though they may have today, we have tomorrow.

We must be focused, we must be strong and we must be bold knowing that we serve a God who is mighty in battle and who never fails. He is the El Shaddai and the Elohim. He is the Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle. He is the Lord of Hosts, the God of the Armies of Israel and the Ancient of Days. He is our shield, our glory and the lifter of our heads. He is awesome in battle and His banner over us is love. With Him, victory is ours and our enemies shall be brought to heel and crushed under our feet like the desert sand.

We lift our swords in the name of Jehova Perazim, we raise our shields in the name of Jehova Elyon and we march forth into battle in the name of Yahweh, the Lord of the Universe, knowing that glory, honor and victory and the blessings of the Most High God await us! His precious love and faithfulness, from whom none can separate us, shall overcome the malice and overwhelm the evil of the architects of terror and the fathers of hate.

By Femi Fani-Kayode