Anybody who ever sat in a Literature class under an impactful teacher even at the Secondary school level will most likely be abreast of the conventional use of figures of speech including metaphor, simile, euphemism, alliteration, metonymy, personification, synecdoche, irony, onomatopoeia, hyperbole and the rest of them. They have been, and remain core to the understanding of basic literary use of language as against rudimentary application for everyday communication purposes. How they are creatively deployed in writings and speech deliveries help to categorize a text either as literature or just any other kind of writing. Hyperbole’s etymology is traceable to Greek, where it signifies overshooting, a bold overstatement, extravagant exaggeration of fact or of a possibility. It can also be used either for serious, ironic or comic effect. The contrary figure to it or antonym is clearly understatement.
I was virtually taken aback to one of such classes penultimate Friday when while in a routine media chat, the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory Nyeson Wike said he was so irked by a Channel’s television presenter, Seun Okinbaloye’s take on the trajectory of the nation’s democracy while watching ‘Politics Today’ that he wished the television could be opened for him to shoot the presenter.
His words: ‘If there was any way to break the screen, I would have shot him’. In the study of Semantics and the dynamics of communication, what Wike’s statement signified remains very clear, devoid of any form of ambiguity, the presenter deserved to die for holding an opinion about democracy in his country. However, with growing outrage over the implications of his statement on freedom of the press in a clime already suffocated with deepened, dramatised violence and the right to life, his media aide, Lere Olayinka has come up to hang delicately on a figure of speech, hyperbole, as a defense. What form of poetic license towards public communication debauchery does that amount to?
Following sustained outrage over the minister’s comment with Broadcasters asking for a public apology, threatening to boycott his briefings, the defense had become necessary. Rather instructively however, many Nigerians have been sent back to Basic Literature class on the use of hyperbole to wriggle out of a tight corner of obvious and intentional circumlocution.
Wike has tried to clarify that his brief monologue did not literally translate to pulling the trigger on Okinbaloye. That however was the message that anyone who listened to him would naturally deduce. Both in the context of the delivery of the statement, the state of the nation and the precedence of what is known about the issuer of the statement, the danger intended was so clear, it could not be so easily swept under the carpet of devious and diabolic resort to hyperbole as a figure of speech.
The minister’s media aide had come up with an explanation that his principal’s comment on Okinbaloye was ‘hyperbolic’ and had been taken out of context by political propagandists.
Independent Broadcasters Union (IBAN) has however maintained that even though the minister later shared that he did not intend physical harm on the journalist, the utterance was most inappropriate especially coming from a public official in a nation already overwhelmed with sustained multi-dimensional violence.
The association said expressions suggesting violence could be interpreted as intimidation of journalists, a step not good enough for the entrenchment of the ever valued principles of democracy to which press freedom is core.
IBAN had further expressed concern that such remarks coming from high profile public officers could smack off political intolerance which can further contribute to a hostile environment for media practitioners.
Nigeria currently ranks 122 out of 180 countries on the press freedom index.
It therefore remains a most regrettable development that such a statement bordering on hate, violence and intolerance could come from a public officer in a supposed democratic dispensation.
Journalists in the country are already faced with several challenges, including surveillance, attacks, arbitrary arrests and the weaponisation of poverty. Also embedded in the Minister’s shooting comment is the innuendo that some individuals now ‘own’ Nigeria as a country and have the sole right to determine the political direction, including of course whose voice is to heard and whose views are to be muted. This indeed can be a very dangerous stage in the nurturing of democracy for any nation for democracy is about the people and not a select few.
The journalist had spoken the minds of many Nigerians when he noted that competitive politics strengthens democracy and warned against a situation where only one dominant party remains viable. The people are denied the right to choose. That, however, is the truth that the Wikes of this world are not prepared to hear. Democracy is about choices presented to the people, of course, in a multi-party setting. Anything outside that is a shortchanged contraption that cannot pass for democracy.
In the context of 2027 elections, the journalist had added that ‘What makes the race very interesting is when it’s competitive and not when only one party stands… If this hope is dashed, we are doomed democratically speaking’.
In Wike’s Literature class, shooting becomes a hyperbolic expression for disgust. That is to say the least, a misleading lecture in Literature. Wike also took me back to Journalism/Mass communication class when he insisted that a presenter’s responsibility is merely to ask questions that will elicit responses from interviewees and not to hold any views or opinions. Beyond their rights as citizens, Journalists also have their responsibility towards agenda setting. The media constitutes the fourth estate of the realm and every concerned practitioner in that estate should demonstrate concern over the trials, turns, twists and travails in Nigeria’s democratic experience.
The critical place of viable opposition in a democracy is a truth validly etched in the conscience of the nation. It is so centrally located that shooting down presenters and Journalists, whether literarily or figuratively does not in any way obliterate it. Nothing justifies the level of intolerance currently being displayed in the nation’s political space. Let’s halt the endangering of Nigeria’s democracy through the diverse and devious ways we have been shooting down and shutting up the voices of opposition be it in the media or in the political parties. Resort to the use of hyperbole as a defense cannot suffice should our democracy be shot down by unrestrained greed, intolerance and despicable resort to violence. The time to save Nigeria’s democracy is now. The assignment appears urgent, that Nigeria be not doomed.
