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General News of Thursday, 16 April 2020

Source: www.mynigeria.com

Brittle Paper's founder, Ainehi Edoro responds to Otosirieze's sack

Brittle Paper's founder, Ainehi Edoro Brittle Paper's founder, Ainehi Edoro

Brittle Paper's founder, Ainehi Edoro has responded to the widespread clamour of censorship that has trailed her platform after she sacked deputy editor, Otosirieze Obi-Young, on Wednesday.

Recall that Obi-Young was sacked for calling out rape culture.

Giving her own side of the narrative, she identified the brief report of the Kaduna's state First Lady’s supportive comments on a gang-rape as the cause of the stir.



She said Otosirieze’s post was flawed on the basis of emotion hence the decision to pull the post down.



"Otosirieze’s post was an impassioned, deeply personal piece reporting on the reprehensible statement made by Hadiza El Rufai about her son’s equally odious statement. I found the title inflammatory and unnecessarily incendiary, but everything seemed fine until I got to the last paragraph. It was then that alarms rang in my mind," Edoro said.

Holding onto excerpts of the deputy's editor's writing which she labelled libellous, she dismissed the writeup as unethical.

"I felt, and feel, Otosirieze’s outrage. I am both a woman and the mother of a daughter. Suggesting that a woman should be sexually assaulted is unconscionable and needs a hard and swift response. But in condemning such statements, it is important that we ourselves do not stoop to the level of those making them. It is important that we do not abandon completely all principles and ethics in how we write."



Deciding to clear her name and mourn her friendship with Young, the Founder explained that the online literary journal is non-partisan.

"I am particularly disappointed that he has chosen not to correct several allegations that he knows for certain to be falsehoods. For instance, Brittle Paper has never been funded by the Kaduna state government. Further, I am not a misogynist. Nor by any stretch of the imagination could I ever be called a supporter of rapists.

"More than anyone, Otosirieze knows that I run Brittle Paper on my personal income. He knows that I have never taken a kickback, or any dime from any foundation, individual, or corporation. He knows the sacrifice that has gone into building Brittle Paper," she stressed.



She ended the long letter praising the award-winner as she wished him well in the process.

"Nonetheless, I deeply appreciate all the work that Otosirieze committed to Brittle Paper over the last four years. I am sorry that we have had to part with this bad blood between us and wish him the very best in what is certain to be a stellar writing career," she concluded.

Several reactions have flooded the post. Here are some of them: