Lai schools The Economist on use of English over ‘change begins with me’

Lai Mohammed, minister of information and culture, has offered The Economist, a UK newspaper, some lessons in article writing.

Mohammed criticised the paper for reporting that President Muhammadu Buhari wanted to “tame” Nigerians by launching the “Change Begins with Me” campaign.

The minister described the article as pejorative and racist. He also described the use of the word in it as unpardonable.

“Our attention has been drawn to a story by The Economist, datelined Lagos and featured in the paper’s print edition of Sept 24th 2016, entitled: ‘Nigeria’s war against indiscipline, behave or be whipped,’” he said.

“Contrary to the newspaper’s self-professed belief in ‘plain language,’ the article in question, from the headline to the body, is a masterpiece of embellishment or dressed-up language. It is loaded with innuendos and decidedly pejorative at best, and downright racist at worst.

“The Economist wrote that President Buhari wants to ‘tame’ Nigerians with the ‘Change Begins With Me’ Campaign. For those who are the owners of the English language, the use of that word is unpardonable.

“The verb ‘tame’ suggests that Nigerians are some kind of wild animals that must be domesticated, and the usage reveals the mindset of the authors of the article: a deliberate put-down of a whole people under the guise of criticising a government policy.

“The paper, in striving to reach a preconceived conclusion, also insinuated that some 150,000 volunteers are being trained as enforcers of the ‘Change Begins With Me’ Campaign. This is not true.

“In its rush to discredit the ‘Change Begins With Me’ Campaign, The Economist, a widely respected newspaper, fell below its own standards by choosing to be economical with the truth. Enforcement is not part of the strategies to be employed under the Campaign, and nowhere has it been said that the ‘moral police’ will be unleashed, as reported by the newspaper. In writing the story, the paper did not even deem it necessary to speak with any official of the government, thus breaching one of the codes of journalism, which is fairness. It chose instead to quote a ‘critic’ of Mr President in a perfunctory manner.

“Change Begins With Me was designed to start from the president, then trickle down to the vice president, ministers, other top government officials and to all citizens.”