Following the North Central Sensitization on Hate and Dangerous Speech which took place on 15th October in Jos, on Sunday 16th October, 2016 the Centre for Information Technology and Development (CITAD) which has been monitoring and countering Hate and Dangerous Speeches has paid an advocacy visit to Jama’atul Nasarul Islam (JNI) at its national secretariat in Jos, the Plateau State capital.

The advocacy visit team led by Isah Garba, (Senior Programmes Officer, Peace and Conflict) was received by Umar Faruk Musa, the Public Relations Officer of JNI, after self introduction and welcome remarks Umar expressed happiness for the advocacy and demanded that Mr. Nelson Ananze who is a contact person of CITAD elaborate on the purpose of the visit.

Mr. Nelson Ananze gave a preface about the visiting organization and purpose of the visit, “CITAD is our guest, they came and conducted a programme on Hate and Dangerous Speech and paid courtesy visits to influential people in our communities such as traditional and religious leaders, all in effort to solicit their support towards achieving a sustainable peace, that is why we are here today”.  

Expatiating, the Hate and Dangerous Speech Project Coordinator of CITAD, Isah Garba said “during the 2015 election we noticed that the percentage of online hate speech went up but after the peace accord by presidential aspirants was signed the level of hate speech came down, but unfortunately after election the online hate speech kept rising again with 97.4% falling within religious domain, and we believed religious leaders and bodies like you have an important role to play by educating people on the danger of violence and significance of peace as well encouraging them to desist from making hate utterances. We particularly want this blessed religious body to also make inputs that will help curb the menace”.

Also commenting, the Vice Chairman of JNI, Alhaji Danjuma Khalil regrets the level hatred being spread on social media which he said is unbecoming, “hate and dangerous speech is a reality and physical thing that circulate on social media or online, that is why I do not register with any social media. The level of abusive language and hatred actually stop me from joining. Jama’atul Nasril Islam will call the attention of all Imams, leaders of all CBOs and their platforms and all preachers to sensitize them on the topic so that they can also preach and sensitize against hate and dangerous speech. We are going to organize seminars for all our members on the topic and if there is need for you to be engaged we will contact you about it”, Danjuma Khalil added.

Also making input during the advocacy visit, Deputy Secretary Youth Group of JNI, Alhaji Garzali said Jos has suffered a lot from conflict which has stagnated development and displaced people, therefore any effort to boost peace of whatever kind will be warmly embraced by JNI, and social media now attracts mostly young people who need to be couched on how they can maintain lasting peace, therefore this course will have the maximum cooperation of all.  Garzali further added that the point on social media followers is funny, most of them are not after what is posted but who posted it, if you follow the comments you will notice that there is clear division into two categories, that is supporting and opposing, both categories are made based on tribe, religion, ethnicity or political party of the person who made the post.  He asked a question: if you come across hate speech, what are you supposed to do?

Isah Garba responded with relevant example of categories of hate speeches and urged the inquirer to counter by politely advising the speech maker to stop it. As part of their support to curb hate speeches, Garba urged all the imams and preachers to create accounts on social media so that they get to know what is happening and will be able to make vital inputs that will eventually reduce the quantity of hate speeches circulated online because of the wisdom and knowledge they have. He cited a reference to Amir of Kazaure who is now functional and even has a Facebook group.

The advocacy team of CITAD included Isah Garba, Abubakar Yusuf Auyo, Ibrahim Nuhu, Mr. Nelson Ananze, Zahra Yunusa Yau and Shazali Sunusi Sulaiman.

On 15th October, 2016 Monitoring and Countering of Hate and Dangerous Speech team of the Centre for Information Technology and Development (CITAD), paid an advocacy visit to the emir of Bukuru in Plateau State.

After opening prayer, Leader of the advocacy delegation who is the Hate and Dangerous Speech Coordinator, Isah Garba briefed the emirate on the purpose of the visit and solicited the support of the emirate saying “traditional leaders are important in any activity that deals with people, and especially this that has to do with campaign against hate speech, hate speeches have been the sources of so many unfortunate incidences which do nothing but always break the bond of mutual coexistence among people, as such people need to be highly sensitized on the dangers of hate speeches, in place of it they can be sharing peace messages among themselves which will enhance respect for one another and unity”.    

Representative of the emir, Alh Ali S. Muhammed welcomed the advocacy team and said the emir is away and has asked him to convey his esteem regards to the team and pledge his support for the timely and vital project, social media is now everybody’s business, almost every category of people use it but unfortunately not as expected, instead of harvesting its true potentials some people misuse it for misguided reasons, but it is commendable that a project called “Monitoring and Countering Hate Speech” is initiated to check dangerous speeches online because if you look at what is going on online you will understand that something needs to be done to make people know the consequences of what they do and educate them on it so that they stop, otherwise the speeches may be posing danger to our peace, I assure you of our continued support to this project. We will subsequently sensitize our community leaders, youth groups and religious leaders on this, said Muhammed.

Alh Ali S. Muhammed requests that when next CITAD is visiting the palace it should please notify the palace at least one week before the visit so that they can invite relevant leaders and youth groups to also be present so that the advocacy becomes more interactive. CITAD advocacy team included Isah A. Garba, Abubakar Yusuf Auyo, Ibrahim Nuhu, Abdullahi Balarabe Yakubu Dotsa, Zahra Y. Z Ya’u and Ashshaza Sunusi Shazali Sulaiman

On 15th October, 2016 the Centre for Information Technology and Development (CITAD) organized a one day Public Sensitization Workshop on Monitoring and Countering of Hate and Dangerous Speech in Country Home Hotel, Jos, Plateau State.  The event started at 9:00am with registration of the participants, self introduction and then pretest session aimed at assessing the knowledge level of the participants about the concept of Hate and Dangerous Speech as well as Countering segment of it.  

As scheduled on the agenda,  Understanding Hate and Dangerous Speech session took the stage with Isah Garba, the Project Coordinator as facilitator who began by displaying images of what happed in Rwanda and gave a detailed background of the conflict to make audience understand the concept and danger of hate speech in order to clearly draw lessons that can be learned by the participants especially in a state that has experienced conflict between people of different tribal and religious backgrounds who lived for years in peace and harmony. Isah Garba said there is no single definition of hate speech which is accepted globally by all scholars but, any speech that fall under one of these baselines: discriminate, loot, riot, beat, forcefully evict or kill or put people to action against a particular group of people or person because of their tribe, religion, ethnicity, region, political party, gender, disability or resources, that can be regarded as hate speech.

During the presentation Garba called on all the participants to nurture and fully consider their historical and traditional methodology of maintaining peace by cracking jokes among themselves, such jokes that exist between FULANI and BAREBARI, KANAWA and ZAZZAGAWA, KATSINAWA and GOBIRAWA/HADEJAWA or among occupations like BUTCHERS and CATTLE REARERS etc, that will further strengthen understanding and promote cohesion. After his presentation, the Project Coordinator entertained questions and the need for clarification on various points raised as can be seen below:

• A participant Umar Farouq Musa asked: is it possible to have intra-religion hate speech?

Yes there are, hate speech within the Christian communities just because of different perspectives as far as Christianity is concerned with other groups. For example, it happened to me, a friend of mine who is a Christian invited me to an occasion, when we arrived there he saw another man who was also a Christian but he sent him away, and I told him that the man was a Christian also but he said he doesn’t regard him as a Christian at all, and the reason is because of their difference in perspective. So also among the Muslims, we have seen what happened recently with Shiites, they have been discriminated, injured, and even killed because of their difference with other Islamic sects. That is why in the definition we said a group and group can be inter or intra. So, there is no limitation in as much as segment of the people have been discriminated, degraded, subjugated, and considered as subject of humiliation, any speech against them can be considered as hate speech, I hope that is understood, Isah Garba emphasized.

• How can you relate the earlier mentioned words with hate speech, Pem Stepen asked. When the speaker uses one of these words: discriminate, loot, riot, beat, forcefully evict, kill or call to action against a particular group of people because of their  membership of a particular tribe, religion, ethnicity, region, political party, gender, disability or resources, that is a hate speech, said Isah Garba.
• Is criticizing government policy or programs, also a hate speech? Jirituwa Goyit asked. Let us be clear about criticism, criticism does not mean call to action but if the speaker uses a phrase or words that call people to action on other groups that is regarded as hate speech, Isah Garba responded.  
• The politicians use the slogan of vote, wait, guard and escort to the collation centre till final announcement of result (a kasa, a tsare, a raka, a jira), can that be part of hate speech? Epraim  Emah asked.
• Samuel Doris asked, is there any law that provide punishment against hate speech?

The next session focused on Countering Hate Speech and was facilitated by Ibrahim Nuhu, it mainly elaborated on countering mechanism and how countering can help douse the frequency of hate speech. Countering is differing from peace campaign but they have the same goal, vision and mission, i.e promoting and maintaining peace and harmony. We should also be careful using ambiguous phrases, statements or words. We believed in destiny  and we are Nigerians, so we don’t have any place better to live than Nigerian as such we have to respect our traditions, tribes, ethnicity and gender no matter what.

The event ended at 3:30pm. The Public Sensitization on Hate and Dangerous Speech team included Isah Garba, the Senior Program Officer and Project coordinator Hate and Dangerous Speech, Ibrahim Nuhu, Shazali Sunusi, Abubakar Yusuf Auyo Zahra Yunusa and Balarabe Yakubu.