Kaduna: Carefronting Nigeria Trains 25 On Strategic Communication- Countering Hate, Dangerous Speech

By Frederick Peters, KADUNA

NEWSDAILYNIGERIA: Carefronting Nigeria, a Kaduna-based Non governmental organization, (NGO) has on Tuesday trained 25 stakeholders on strategic communication, aimed at countering hate and dangerous Speeches focusing on the 2023 general elections as case study.

Speaking the Program Manager, Mrs Tesy Gusim, said the need to create awareness informed the training” we have realized that hate speeches seem to be gaining a lot of grounds particularly, with the elections coming up; with the electioneering campaigns, you find out that there is a lot hate speeches, adding that some of those narratives are really not true and they have a way of being spread and it has a way of inciting violence”

While emphasizing the importance of strategic communication, she noted the need to be guided by the right motive behind the messages we send out ” what are those things you see, how do people receive them, what is the motive behind sending some of those messages” she added.

According to her, as much as communication is strategic, ” you have to weigh what are those things you want to say , because if you are sending an information there’s something you want to achieve, but that thing you want to achieve, it is positive or negative”?

She however frowned at most things we see these days ” you see that most of those things that are coming out are negative speeches, hate speeches and not just hate speeches, but even dangerous speeches that can go as far as inciting violence and that is not good for us and that’s why we felt there’s a need to hold this workshop so that we can create awareness on that”she maintained.

Similarly, the training Facilitator, Dr Maji Peterx, while commending the sponsors Peace Tech Lab for the timely intervention, said the essence is ” to ensure that now that tension is mounting as we move towards elections, there are a lot of hate speeches and dangerous speeches been speculated that could lead to election violence and that could lead to violence within the system

” so they felt that there’s the need for them to bring in stakeholders and other people that could form a fulcrum of those that will be countering hate and dangerous speeches to ensure that we build relationship instead of creating violence that make people more antagnostic of the system”

He further said, the expectation is that” every body will be media literate and we are able to see people promote the idea of respect to each other, respect for one another and ensuring that when there are issues like around hate speeches we are able to see what we can do to soften it”. He further shared strategies for countering hate speech.

According to him, political office seekers don’t really make trouble or fight or make hate speeches but rather their followers or foot soldiers who do their bidding ” politicians don’t make trouble, politicians don’t fight, politicians don’t make hate speeches, it is the people that they put on the ground, it is the people that follow them that do all of these” with a charge to all and sundry “to ensure one person doesn’t do what is wrong, I think it will go a long way” he averred.

He further called for caution on issues of hate speeches from both politicians and followers, saying” I think we should all be cautious of what we say , how we say them and who we target with what we say because it could lead to more devastating situation that we can deal with; so it very important for us to realize that after the election there’s going to be many more” he added.

He pointed out how unbated hate and dangerous speeches led to genocide, ” we have seen it happen in alot of places, a lot of hate speeches have led to entire communities being razed down, hate speeches have caused a lot of generation of people being maimed, killed and attacked, adding that it’s because sometimes, we don’t say anything; so we condoned it, so we should stop condoning it” he stressed

On her part, one of the participants, Anita Nchat Kelvin” while describing the workshop as very educative and infomative” said, there’s the need to continue the process, there’s the need to dessiminate the information, because we are a group of just 25 people, I think if each and every one of us going out and telling one more person, that makes it 50 people knowing about how to deal with hate speech and how to be accountable for what we say”

Speaking further on how to stepdown the message,” We also need to individually, in our organisations organise and design programs that speak about strategic commmunication, I work with children, I don’t think that they are being left out,

” because the earlier, you catch the information, the farther it goes, so children are very instrumental, I will speak to my children about it, we are going to design activities around strategic communication with the children and I believe that it will support them in their upbringing, and making them better citizens” she stated.