A new campaign calling for the re-election of Nigeria’s current president while simultaneously pastiching the #bringbackourgirls campaign, which urged the Nigerian government to find the 200 girls kidnapped by Boko Haram, has come under fire this week, after being described by critics as ‘insensitive’.
The posters, flyers, and banners, reportedly provided by the Goodluck Initiative for Transformation, emerged across Nigeria’s capital Abuja last weekend, boldly proclaiming that Nigeria should #bringbackgoodluck, at Nigeria’s election next year, despite the fact that after nearly four months, Jonathan has failed to find the missing Chibok girls.
Angry Nigerians took to twitter apparently disturbed by the audacity that Goodluck’s campaign team had to even consider using the plight of the missing girls to endorse themselves.
“They are using a variation of our hashtag #BringBackOurGirls to campaign for the president” Japheth Omojuwa, a columnist at Nigerian newspaper Punch, told the BBC. “These are people that failed to secure the release of these girls over 150 days since their kidnap.”
President Jonathan has since put a stop to the tactless campaign strategy, following an article published by Washington Post describing the slogan as ‘the most inappropriate political hashtag of the year.’ He claims in a statement released by his special adviser on media and publicity Reuben Abati that he had no knowledge of the slogan.
“President Jonathan wholly shares the widely expressed view that the signs which were put up without his knowledge or approval are a highly insensitive parody of the #BringBackOurGirls hash tag,” the statement reads.
“While President Jonathan appreciates the enthusiastic show of support for his administration by a broad range of stakeholders, he condemns the #Bring Back Jonathan 2015 signs which appear to make light of the very serious national and global concern for the abducted Chibok girls”.
