The Nigerian literary community is currently engulfed in controversy over the sack of the Deputy Editor of Brittle Paper, Otosirieze Obi-Young, resulting from an article he wrote addressing Hadiza El-rufai’s reaction when her son threatened to “pass” someone’s mother around to his friends.
Otosirieze Obi-Young
On Sunday, April 12, Bello El-Rufai, in a series of tweets, had threatened to “pass” the mother of another Twitter user to his friends after describing the woman as a “whore.”
Bello El-rufai, son of Kaduna State governor, Nasir El-rufai
Bello wrote in a private message to the follower after they argued about politics: “Tell your mother I’m passing her to my friends tonight.”
“No Igbo sounds please!” Bello El-Rufai added an ethnic attack, having thought the Twitter user was Igbo.
Twitter users were incensed by this and they tagged Bello’s mother, Hadiza El-Rufai to tweets about her son’s threat to gang rape someone’s mother.
Hadiza El-Rufai responded: “All you people talking about @B_ELRUFAI Don’t @ me. Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind.
“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.”
Her response attracted criticisms from Nigerians who accused her of supporting her son’s rape threats.
She later issued an apology, stating: “When I posted the tweet below, I assumed it was just the usual Twitter gbas-gbos. Having read the tweets chronologically, I have had conversations with Bello. Never ever should sexual abuse be employed as ammunition in public/private exchanges, no matter the provocation.
Deputy Editor of Brittle Paper, Otosirieze Obi-Young wrote an article condemning Hadiza El-Rufai for her tweet supporting her son and it was published on the Brittle Paper platform.
However, the 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” was pulled down from the platform on April 14 and Brittle Paper released a statement saying that the article was pulled down because it did not meet the editorial standard.
On April 15, Otosirieze revealed that he woke up to see that he had been logged out from all Brittle Paper accounts. He added in the lengthy statement that he had been fired from BP where he worked for 4 years.
Otosirieze said that despite editing the article as Aniehi instructed she still called him and informed him that she was pulling down the whole article completely and fired him from his position.
He wrote: “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. I edited the post, removing the relevant sections.
“The Founder called back a few minutes later and said she wanted 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.
“I saw no reason why her concern about my lack of objectivity was not something that could be fixed by her own edits or rewriting. So I cut short the conversation: I said I no longer wished to discuss this report, that she should take it down if she wanted.”
He added that he was then fired without reason.
He continued: “Removing me from Brittle Paper is part of the political agenda to subsume Nigerian literature and make it difficult to be an honest writer here. Their takeover is now complete.”
Otosirieze’s statement had a far-reaching effect as Nigerian writers took to various platforms to call out Brittle Paper, known to be one of Africa’s leading literary platforms that encourages writers to express themselves freely.
They accused BP of silencing and censoring writers in Nigeria. Nigerian writers then indicated that they were boycotting Brittle Paper and some asked that their articles published on the platform be pulled down.
Chibuihe Obi, a contributor to Brittle Paper who also won the platform’s anniversary award, also released a statement stating that he was rescinding the award BP gave him and asked that his works be pulled down from the platform.
“I am publicly rescinding the award Brittle Paper gave me in 2017 and will forthwith return the cash that came with the prize. i have written to ainehi edoro to demand that my works be pulled from their site.” Chibuihe wrote on Facebook.
US-based Nigerian literary critique, Pa Ikhide Roland Ikheloa, also condemned BP, writing: “?Let me suggest this to readers of conscience: Boycott Brittle Paper until its “high” editorial standards stand up for justice and the truth, and do not coddle despots, genocide enablers and rapists. Do not read Brittle Paper until it apologizes for protecting thugs like Elrufai.?”
Elnathan John, author of Born on a Tuesday, who once wrote that some members of the Nigerian literary community have been bought over by the Kaduna State Government, also condemned Brittle Paper, writing: “My final word on Brittle Paper shame… In the words of Lagos philosopher Brymo: Person wey befriend rat e go chop shit.”
A number of other people also called out the platform, leading the publisher of BP to respond.
Ainehi Edoro, who is the founder/publisher of Brittle Paper explained in her statement that Otosirieze flouted editorial guidelines of the company “and was unwilling to make changes in the report.”
She said her problem with Otosirieze’s article was that she “found the title inflammatory and unnecessarily incendiary”.
She added that the report seemed fine “until I got to the last paragraph. It was then that alarms rang in my mind.”
She said Otosirieze’s last paragraph which “did not only sound strong but also criticised other Nigerian papers.”
The last paragraph of the article in question reads:
Interestingly, four hours after backlash began to her response, an article appeared on ThisDay titled “Endearing Qualities of Kaduna First Lady, Hadiza El Rufai.” It is exactly as shabbily-written as you would expect of a hastily assembled, face-washing gimmick. But it is not as unintelligent as the one on OperaNews.
There must be a name for this feminism whose reply to “Tell your mother I’m passing her to my friends tonight” is “I didn’t see any threats of rape.” A feminism that agrees to raise men to be better but says “All is fair in love and war” when their ethnic-bigoted men-children threaten violence on women’s bodies.
Shame. Shame. Shame. Shame.
Do better.