Paul Orude, Bauchi

Ahead of next Saturday’s presidential election, the Catholic Bishop of Bauchi Diocese, Most Rev. Dr Hilary Newman Dachelem, has warned against hate speech, saying it is one of the major causes of election violence in Nigeria.   Bishop Dachelem gave the warning during a public lecture organised by the National Council of Muslim Youths Organisations (NACOMYO) with the theme ‘The Role of Religious Bodies in Violence Free elections’, held at the Multi-Purpose Indoors Sports Auditorium, Bauchi, yesterday.

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  “Today the social media is full of hate speeches. On the social media such as WhatsApp, Tweeter, Facebook and so on, we read a lot of hate speeches. Nigerians insult one another in the media and the world is looking at us as enemies. This mentality is against our unity and mutual co-existence,” he observed.   He also identified inadequate voter education, failure of the justice system, unemployment, corruption and lack of internal democracy in political parties as causes of electoral violence in the county.

  Dachelem warned that inadequate security, poverty, lack of a democratic culture and lack of integrity by the electoral umpire were also fertile grounds for electoral violence.   He called on religious leaders from all divides in the country to raise awareness and influence attitudes, behaviour and practices in order to curtail electoral violence in the forthcoming general election.   He added: “We have the power to promote and support public policy, and to promote the well being of our members such as re-echoing to the authorities the voices of the poor. It is the moral duty of religious bodies to encourage members to see opponents as fellow human beings as it is evident in the teachings of the two major religions in Nigeria.”     In his welcome address, the Bauchi State Coordinator of NACOMYO, Abubakar Sadiq Abdullahi, said that NACOMYO is an umbrella body of Muslim youths meant to provide lasting solution to electoral violence and thuggery in the country.