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The Punch Newspaper and The Fragile Peace in Nigeria By Muhammad Mahmud
Reading an interesting article in the online edition of the Punch newspaper, my attention was forcefully diverted to a popping news item which reads “Gunmen kill policemen, burn Churches in Kano”. I had to skip reading the article to click on the story for its serious implications. But after reading the report which the paper said was written by an “agency reporter”; I found it a totally misleading piece. The reported incidence, which the paper couldn’t wait to confirm, from the authorities, before going public, purportedly happened elsewhere as indicated by the paper in the body of the report. I was disappointed by the unprincipled and unethical manner the paper carried the story. Scrolling down to express my feelings about its report on the comments column, I perused some opinions and what I saw made the misleading story a child’s play. All sorts of abuses and unprintable words were written against Islam, its Prophet and the Muslims. I was surprised that a national paper like the Punch will dedicate its pages for such primordial and uncivilized expressions. The insults, instead of drawing ire, depicted a consoling picture of how deep the haters of Islam and Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) are living in self inflicted torments. An insight of the silent but unmitigated torture suffered by haters of Islam is displayed by the hate comments that made not the slightest harm to the steady progress of the religion worldwide.
Nonetheless, I was surprised by the insensibility of the editor to let his page reduced to that disgusting level. I was surprised that he comfortably made available his pages to be used for insulting millions of the paper’s subscribers and/or patronizers who might have spent millions of Naira to advertise in the paper.
I am aware that the Punch is not the only online paper that demeans its paper and site in this style. Some Nigerian newspapers, unfortunately, reduced themselves to such disgusting level as the Punch.
But I am more surprised by the pretended unawareness of what is going on or tacit approval by the bodies that are supposed to check this unethical attitude of the papers. I expected such bodies to call these newspapers to order before not after they spark yet another round of religious crisis. |