Outrage as Nigerian editor loses job for criticising El-Rufai’s wife over her son’s rape threat

A Nigerian editor, Otosirieze Obi-Young, has lost his job after criticising Mrs. Hadiza Isma El-Rufai, wife of Kaduna State governor, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai.

The shocking exit of Obi-Young as the deputy editor of Brittle Paper, a digital literary journal, has stirred outrage online, after he said in a statement he was forced to leave Brittle Paper because of its “censorship” and lack of “freedom”.

The controversies began after Obi-Young wrote an article that was critical of Hadiza Isma El-Rufai, who is also a novelist.

Trouble began after Mrs El-Rufai’s son Bello, had threatened sexual violence against the mother of a Twitter user @thanos_zer’s who disagreed with him on Sunday over the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Moments later, @thanos_zer posted a screenshot of a direct message he said Bello El-Rufai sent to him in which he (Bello) threatened to ‘rape his mother’ and other ethnic slur.

Although she later denounced her son’s tweets, Mrs El-Rufai’s initial failure to condemn her son’s tirade left many disappointed, including Obi-Young.

“Don’t @ me. Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind,” Mrs El-Rufai wrote on Twitter on April 12. “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.”

But shockingly, Obi-Young’s criticism of Mrs El-Rufai initial failure to repudiate her son’s tweets was deemed below the editorial standard of Brittle Paper’s founder Ainehi Edoro.

Obi-Young’s 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” has been pulled from BP’s website.

“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,” Obi-Young said in a statement posted to his personal website.

“I edited the post, removing the relevant sections. The Founder called back a few minutes later and said she wanted me 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.”

But Obi-Young insisted he was “factual”. Without being informed, he was logged out of Brittle Paper, its social media accounts, and its WhatsApp group – the primary work communication space.

Meanwhile, Edoro said on Wednesday evening that Brittle Paper did not do anything wrong. She said in a statement that the former deputy editor, whom she referred to as “a trusted friend,” defied editorial guidelines.

Edoro condemned Mrs El-Rufai’s comments about her son’s “odious” tweets as “reprehensible”. But she insisted that her former deputy editor’s article was “impassioned, deeply personal piece reporting”.

“I found the title inflammatory and unnecessarily incendiary,” Edoro said. She said she was “fine” with the article until she got to the end, where she found a couple of paragraphs she found offensive and libellous.

Critics have lashed out at Brittle Paper for the decision to lay off Obi-Young following the article, with many citing the patronage of the El-Rufai’s as the reason for the move.