TITLE: MEDIA NARRATIVES OF MUSLIMS IN NIGERIA: FACTS AND FALLACIES
AUTHOR: RASHEED ABUBAKAR
PUBLISHER: RASHIELD COMPANY, LAGOS, NIGERIA
YEAR OF PUBLICATION: 2018
REVIEWER: PROF TAOFEEQ ABDULAZEEZ
PAGES: 120
SUMMARY
I cannot explain my pains as I proceed to write a brief view (not a review) to this wonderful work of a wonderful brother. The pains came from the awareness of the tragic situation the media has sank us Muslims, unfortunately with our active connivance and reckless carelessness.
My pains increased further because Muslims are not likely to read this book, as they hardly read and I cannot explain to myself why the book may not be patronized, as the author is neither a European nor a Politician.
I will however present my views about the book across three prisms: The Book, The Implicature and The Author.
The Book
The Book is an interrogation of the narratives of tragic events in Nigeria as orchestrated attacks on Islam and Muslims. This commendable work, presented in 14 chapters, chronicles some of the most ruthless of such pragmatic attacks, which are foregrounded in terms of threats and actions of Ideological Discursive Formation.
In all these, over-reportage, sensationalisation and hateful stereotyping and spotlighting of depressing news about the Muslims are foregrounded and lamented.
In the same vein, the book, sadly, protests under-reportage, gate-keeping and agenda setting against Muslims’ predicaments, even in the hands of the stereotyped Muslim “jihadists”, and complete media black-out on the merits, successes and strides of Muslims in the Commonwealth.
The book is therefore a protest against both the enemies of Islam and Muslims and the nonchalant Muslims, who are naturally so due to ignorance, poverty and their concomitant conflicts.
In my view, this book is a soft research framed on Content Analysis and grounded on frail Pragmatic and Discourse Analysis.
The Implicature:
This work is a strong statement against the Muslims and their enemies. Members of each party DO THINGS WITH WORDS. The careless and virtually meaningless words used by Muslims in their crises-ridden lives are indicative of the emptiness of their lives, minds and spirits.
Their silence and parodying suggest pandemic ignorance and epidemic intellectual poverty and vulnerability to violence. The manipulation of all these by their enemies on the media war theatre results in what Abdur-Rasheed attempted to fight in this work.
This book reads to me as a silent call to the intelligent members of the Ummah to wake others up if they, themselves, are awake. It is therefore a commendable effort to be complimented by all Muslims of good will.
The Author
The Author is a committed, promising and certainly brilliant young man who needs all the encouragement and patronage as one of the foot soldiers on the media theatre, and a veritable hope of the Ummah.
The sky is definitely the take-off point for his contributions on the media field, as he is not just a bundle of talent in his own field but a human capital that needs to be invested in, grown and mined for the benefit of the Ummah, relative to the sincerity, moral and personality strength of his MENTOR(S).
Professor Taofiq Adesina AbdulAzeez
Abuja, Nigeria
17 Rabiul Awwal, 1440 (25 November, 2018)
