Nigerian editor, Otosirieze Obi-Young, has lost his job after criticising Mrs. Hadiza Isma El-Rufai, wife of Kaduna State governor, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai.
The shocking exit of Obi-Young as the deputy editor of Brittle Paper, a digital literary journal, has stirred outrage online, after he said in a statement he was forced to leave Brittle Paper because of its “censorship” and lack of “freedom”.
The controversies began after Obi-Young wrote an article that was critical of Hadiza Isma El-Rufai, who is also a novelist.
Trouble began after Mrs El-Rufai’s son Bello, had threatened segxwal violence against the mother of a Twitter user @thanos_zer’s who disagreed with him on Sunday over the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Moments later, @thanos_zer posted a screenshot of a direct message he said Bello El-Rufai sent to him in which he (Bello) threatened to ‘rape his mother’ and other ethnic slur.
Although she later denounced her son’s tweets, Mrs El-Rufai’s initial failure to condemn her son’s tirade left many disappointed, including Obi-Young.
“Don’t @ me. Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind,” Mrs El-Rufai wrote on Twitter on April 12.
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“All is fair in love and war. My belief: Respect everyone, but take no shit from anyone. I didn’t see any threats of rape. I would never condone that.”
But shockingly, Obi-Young’s criticism of Mrs El-Rufai initial failure to repudiate her son’s tweets was deemed below the editorial standard of Brittle Paper’s founder Ainehi Edoro.
Obi-Young’s article titled “Novelist, Feminist & Kaduna First Lady, Hadiza El-Rufai, says all is fair in love and war after son’s gang-rape threat draws backlash” has been pulled from BP’s website.
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“The Founder called me and expressed concerns about my criticism of a Nigerian newspaper in it and the informal and strongly-worded tone addressing said novelist,”
Obi-Young said in a statement posted to his personal website.Quote
“I edited the post, removing the relevant sections. The Founder called back a few minutes later and said she wanted me to take down the report. That was unacceptable to me. I saw no reason why my post-publication edits, which removed my opinion and restricted it to reportage, were not enough.”
But Obi-Young insisted he was “factual”. Without being informed, he was logged out of Brittle Paper, its social media accounts, and its WhatsApp group – the primary work communication space.
Meanwhile, Edoro said on Wednesday evening that Brittle Paper did not do anything wrong. She said in a statement that the former deputy editor, whom she referred to as “a trusted friend,” defied editorial guidelines.
Edoro condemned Mrs El-Rufai’s comments about her son’s “odious” tweets as “reprehensible”. But she insisted that her former deputy editor’s article was “impassioned, deeply personal piece reporting”.
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“I found the title inflammatory and unnecessarily incendiary,”
Edoro said. She said she was “fine” with the article until she got to the end, where she found a couple of paragraphs she found offensive and libellous.Critics have lashed out at Brittle Paper for the decision to lay off Obi-Young following the article, with many citing the patronage of the El-Rufai’s as the reason for the move.
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