PEOPLE AND POLITICS

Miss World riots – matters arising

Mohammed Haruna

If there was one riot in the current affairs of this country which was completely avoidable, it was the Miss World riots of November last year in Kaduna and Abuja. The riots, as we all know, were sparked by a story in Thisday which attempted to ridicule Muslim opposition to the staging of the Miss World pageant in Abuja during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Miss Isioma Daniel, the 21 year old reporter who wrote the story, tried to portray this opposition as hypocritical by categorically stating that Islam’s holiest prophet, Muhammad (SAW) himself, far from minding its being staged in Nigeria, would have picked any of the contestants for a wife.

This was a most irresponsible and insensitive thing for even the greenest reporter to write for the simple reason that no one who has gone through secondary school education – and Ms Daniel is a graduate – does not know that virtually all religions frown on the public celebration of sexuality. The only thing that was more irresponsible and insensitive than Ms Daniel’s story was the action of the editors of her paper in allowing the story to pass. That is, if you put aside government’s indefensible involvement in the whole sordid affair – beauty pageants have always been purely private affairs – coupled with its inexplicable inability to pre-empt the riots that followed several days after Thisday’s story. Days during which warning bells of troubles ahead rang loud and clear.

There was, however, a very big difference between Thisday, on the one hand, and all the other major actors in the drama, on the other. The difference was that Thisday had the courage to own up to its mistake and apologize profusely to Muslims and to Nigerians. In sharp contrast, the government, the organisers of the pageant and Ms Daniel, herself, have been either defensive about their roles in the drama, or worse, they have been totally unapologetic.

To date government has not shown any sign of regret about spending hundreds of millions of Naira of the tax payers money on an essentially voyeuristic event. This is not to mention the unprecedented ministerial, gubernatorial and even presidential reception it accorded the organisers and contestants. Far from government showing any sign that it demonstrated poor judgement in getting involved in the pageant, it has even sought to blame its inability to attract foreign investors to the country on the riots!

While government has been defensive on its role, the organisers and Ms Daniel have been totally unapologetic, if not offensive. Take the organisers first. Ms Julia Morley, the 63 year old owner of the pageant, for example, was quoted by The Times of London in its edition of December 6, 2002, as rejecting any responsibility for the riots. “Its ludicrous”, she said, “to suggest that we were responsible for the riots. WE WEREN’T EVEN IN THAT WRETCHED AREA. I felt sad about the deaths, but realistically you cant run around being sad about every riot”. (Emphasis mine). Meaning, in plain English, Sorry? Sorry for what?

Obviously, Ms. Morley was in such a hurry to reject any responsibility for the riots, she forgot that in today’s global village of instant telecommunications, you don’t have to be physically present in a wretched place to start a riot there. All along Ms. Morley had been aware of considerable international and local opposition to staging the pageant in Nigeria, albeit for conflicting reasons. Yet she persisted in going ahead, most probably out of consideration of easy money to be made from staging the pageant in a country which obviously has its priorities mixed up.

Even after the Kaduna riots, both the government and the organisers were determined to still forge ahead with the pageant. That the event was eventually cancelled was obviously not out of any consideration for the lives and limbs lost and the properties destroyed in Kaduna but simply because the contestants became afraid for their own safety. The reader will, I am sure, recall that even while the fire in Kaduna was still burning, the president had gone on network television to reassure the world that nothing, absolutely nothing, untoward can happen to the contestants. The narration in Weekend Vanguard (November 30, 2002) by Ben Bruce – the Nigerian partner of the organisers who doubles as the Director-General of the NTA – of his encounter with the Inspector-General of Police, Alhaji Tafa Balagun, was evidence of the presidency’s determination to go ahead with the pageant no matter what. According to Bruce, he received every assurance from the Inspector-General of Police that the pageant will be protected. “I.G. whatever it takes” Bruce quoted himself as telling Tafa Balogun, “whatever it takes, you stop it, we have to.” According to Bruce the I.G. had told him that the police had intelligence reports that there will be demonstrations in Abuja against the pageant on the very Friday that it was cancelled. “Ben”, Bruce said the I.G. reassured him, “we would do whatever it takes to, we will do everything possible.”

Well, the police may have done their best to stop the demonstrations, but unfortunately they still went ahead and invariably degenerated into widespread maiming of innocent people and the destruction of their property on and off the streets of Abuja. Apparently the Abuja demonstrations, following closely on the heels of the more destructive Kaduna riots, was the last straw that broke the will of the contestants.

Today it is nearly four months since the riots. By now you would think it is enough time for us to put the whole sad affair behind us. It seems, however, that there are some people, most certainly Ms Daniel herself, who are determined to keep the wounds of the sad affair permanently open. Twice now she had given the BBC interviews and twice she has sounded somewhat unrepentant and even gung-ho about her story.

The first time she spoke to the BBC in January, she tried to portray herself as the victim of religious bigotry by those who could not take a joke about their religion. Apparently her sentiments were shared by people like my good friend Father Mathew Kukah. Following the BBC interview in question, the reverend father wrote in Thisday of February 1, to defend Ms Daniel. “I listened to Ms Daniel’s interview on the radio two weeks ago”, said Kukah, “and found it so touching. To hear this very young girl speak about being lonely and in a strange land, with no protection and no friends or family, was indeed heart searing”.

Kukah said he simply could not understand why no one, not the governor of her state, nor the chairman of her local government, nor the Attorney-General of the Federation, nor the Ministry of Women Affairs, nor even the Christian Association of Nigeria, has stepped forward to defend Ms Daniel’s right to return to Nigeria and move about freely in the light of the ill-advised fatwa that the Zamfara State Government issued on her life.

Kukah is, of course, entitled to his sentiments about Ms Daniel. I too felt somewhat touched by the January BBC interview even though she did not sound remorseful to me. The second BBC interview was, however, a different kettle of fish altogether. This was the interview she gave mid last week. If during the first interview she sounded defensive, this time she really came out with all her guns blazing.

Perhaps she had read Kukah’s sympathetic piece and felt emboldened to go on the offensive. Perhaps she had read Wole Soyinka’s characteristically vitriolic and unwarranted attack on some Muslim leaders, notably Dr. Lateef Adegbite, for what he claimed was their role in encouraging the Miss World riots. He had called these Muslim leaders fools and “thinly disguised advocates of violence” in a press statement which several newspapers published last month.

Perhaps Soyinka’s attack on Muslim leaders, and, to a lesser extent, Kukah’s somewhat gentle criticisms of just about everyone for not coming to Ms Daniel’s defence emboldened her, but in her second BBC interview, she was anything but apologetic. Instead of showing any sign of remorse, the young reporter proceeded to attack, first, her publishers for apologizing at all to anyone over her irresponsible story, and second, the Muslim community for easily taking offense at what was supposed to be a light-hearted joke! As far as she was concerned, she said, Thisday’s apology was, indeed, a betrayal of their duty to defend her as their employee. She went on to argue that if anyone should apologize for the riots, it was neither her publishers nor herself, but those who participated in the riots.

Of all those who have come to Ms Daniel’s defence, I find Soyinka’s remarks the most curious. Curious for the simple reason that the same Soyinka who would describe Adegbite an advocate of religious violence inspite of the critical role the Muslim leader played in containing the riots, the same Soyinka has never seen anything wrong in the ethnic violence perpetrated by OPC, an organisation which holds the record of being the most bloody-minded and destructive of all the ethnic militias in the country. On the contrary, he has consistently attacked the federal government for its half-hearted attempt at containing OPC.

Perhaps it is the solidarity of very important persons like Soyinka and Kukah that has emboldened Ms Daniel to go on the offensive. Perhaps it is the BBC, itself, which is determined to ensure that Nigerians do not put the Miss World riots behind by seeking out Ms Daniel for interviews as frequently as possible. Perhaps Ms Daniel herself wants to ride on the infamy of her story into fame and fortune; in that interview she talked about coming home in the near future and becoming a literary giant.

Whatever the case, the sooner everyone involved in the whole unfortunate affair accepts that mistakes were made on all sides and, consequently, the sooner we all strive to make amends accordingly, the sooner will the wounds of the Miss World riots heal. God knows that with all the violence being perpetrated on the political front, we will do with a little but of quiet on the socio-economic front.