Goodluck Jonathan rejects controversial slogan

Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan
has asked his supporters to stop using
an adapted version of the #
BringBackOurGirls hashtag to campaign
for his re-election.
In one sense you can understand what
the president’s supporters were thinking.
The #BringBackOurGirls hashtag, calling
for 200 school girls abducted by Boko
Haram militants in April, became one of
the world’s biggest ever social media
campaigns. So why not borrow the
slogan for the president’s re-election
campaign?
The hashtag #BringBackGoodluck2015
seems to have first been used on Twitter
by a group campaigning on behalf of the
president. On 30th August, they tweeted:
“There is no vacancy in Aso rock [the
president's palace]we want Goodluck
Jonathan again #NigeriansDemand #
BringBackJonathan2015.”
It was never an officially endorsed
slogan, despite appearing on signs and
banners around the capital city of Abuja,
but now the president has reacted to try
and quash it. A press release issued by
the president’s office this morning says
the campaign is “offensive and
repugnant”, and that signs and banners
carrying the slogan should be removed
immediately.
The slogan was widely criticised because
it seemed to dramatically misread the
public mood in the country. The
abducted school girls are still held
captive, despite repeated promises by
the government – and President
Jonathan himself – to secure their
release. So far, the government has not
taken military steps to rescue the girls,
arguing that if force is used, they may
end up being killed by the militants.
A major backlash against the hashtag
soon emerged, as people took to Twitter
to label it as insensitive. It has appeared
more than 2,800 times in the last 24
hours, and the vast majority been used
to criticise the slogan.
“That hashtag is not only inappropriate
but it is insultingly silly. And it is bereft of
any political tact,” said one . Another said
the slogan’s inventor “has the combined
IQ of 500 frogs. Why not coin another
hashtag?”. “I didn’t realize Boko Haram
had kidnapped the President!” said a
third .
Japheth Omojuwa, a columnist at
Nigerian newspaper Punch, told BBC
Trending that he felt the decision to use
the slogan was “absurd”.
“They are using variation of our hashtag
#BringBackOurGirls to campaign for the
president,” he said. “These are people
that failed to secure the release of these
girls over 150 days since their kidnap.”
Terrorist attacks carried out by Boko
Haram are still rife in the country.
Research by Amnesty International
suggests at least 2,000 people have been
killed as a result of the conflict this year.