By Mahfuz Mundadu
On the eve of Christmas, when public nerves are already stretched thin and communal anxieties run high, a bomb ripped through a gathering of Muslim worshippers *IN A MOSQUE! IN BORNO STATE!!* Borno State. Men had assembled for salat. Some did not return home. Others will carry metal in their flesh and grief in their houses for years. This is the raw fact. Anything that distracts from it is not a mistake. It is a choice.
Yet a media outlet chose to caption the incident as “Many Feared Dead as Bomb Blast Rocks Maiduguri on Chrismas Eve.” Whatelse can be more callous? Those four words were not neutral. They were loaded, suggestive, and reckless. They nudged the casual reader toward a poisonous inference: that this was a Christmas-related attack, that Christians were the targets, and by extension that Muslims in a Muslim-majority state were the aggressors. In a country where rumours have killed faster than bullets, such framing is not journalism. It is a tinder.
A seasoned reporter learns early that headlines are not decoration. They are signals. Most readers will never go beyond them. In a crowded bus, on a phone screen, in the heat of an argument, a headline becomes the story. That is why editors are taught to weigh every word, to ask what it says and what it quietly implies. “On Christmas Day” does not merely locate an event in time. It drags in religion, identity, and blame. When the victims were Muslim worshippers attacked during prayer, that choice crosses from carelessness into mischief, rascality, callousness and gangsterism.
Nigeria’s history offers enough cautionary tales. We have seen how a badly worded report can ignite a riot, how a half-truth can harden into a slogan, how a whisper can turn neighbours into enemies. Borno State itself has bled for over a decade from terrorism that recognizes no faith except cruelty. Boko Haram has bombed mosques and churches, markets and motor parks, weddings and funerals. To frame one more atrocity in a way that pits faith against faith is to lie about the nature of the violence and to insult the memory of its victims.
Let us be clear. Terrorism thrives on distortion. It wants communities to mistrust each other. It wants Christians to fear Muslims, Muslims to fear Christians, and both to turn away from the real enemy. When a media house echoes that distortion, even inadvertently, it becomes an accessory to the terrorist’s aim. No bomb needs to be planted in a newsroom for a damage to be done. A headline can do the work.
Some will defend the caption as a harmless reference to the calendar. That defence collapses under scrutiny. Journalists know the difference between temporal context and narrative framing. If the attack had occurred on a Tuesday, would “Bomb blast on Tuesday” have been worth a headline? Of course not. The word Christmas was chosen because it carries emotional weight. It was chosen because it would travel faster. It was chosen because outrage is a currency. That is the uncomfortable truth.
Professional journalism is not allergic to speed, but it is anchored in accuracy and restraint. The first obligation is to the facts: who was attacked, where, and in what circumstances. The second is to context: what this fits into and what it does not. In this case, the facts were plain. Muslim worshippers were targeted in a place of prayer. A MOSQUE! In Borno State! A muslim majority State. The context was equally plain. This was another act in a long campaign of terror against civilians, many of whom are Muslim, in the northeast. Any framing that obscures those realities is false, mischivious and worst of all, CRIMINAL.
There is also a moral dimension that cannot be brushed aside. Victims are not abstractions. They have names, families, and beliefs. To erase their identity while insinuating harm against another group is a double injury. It steals their story and hands it to a manufactured narrative. Imagine being a bereaved family member, opening a phone, and seeing the death of your loved one repackaged as a provocation against others. That is cruelty layered on cruelty.
Media power is real. It shapes what people *think about* before it shapes what they *think*. In a plural society, that power demands discipline. Editors must ask not only “Is this true?” but also “What will this do?” A headline that nudges readers toward a sectarian reading of a terror attack in Nigeria is not innocent. It plays with live wires. Those who work in newsrooms know this. Pretending otherwise insults the intelligence of the public.
There is a broader rot here that deserves attention. Sensationalism has crept into our media culture under the guise of competitiveness. Clicks have replaced credibility. Speed has eclipsed judgment. The result is a steady erosion of trust. When audiences begin to suspect that headlines are designed to inflame rather than inform, they turn elsewhere. Into rumours. Into partisan echo chambers. Into the arms of those who shout loudest. That is how societies slide.
A seasoned journalist does not confuse provocation with courage. Courage is telling an uncomfortable truth clearly. Provocation is bending a story to spark reaction. The former serves the public. The latter serves metrics. In a fragile country, the difference matters.
This is also about accountability. Media houses demand transparency from government, honesty from politicians, and responsibility from citizens. They must accept the same standards. When a caption misleads and endangers, a correction is not enough. There must be reflection, apology, and reform. Not a defensive press statement, but a clear admission that words were chosen badly and that harm could follow.
Training matters. Newsrooms need editors who understand Nigeria’s fault lines, reporters who grasp the weight of religious language, and policies that privilege accuracy over virality. Style guides should not be dusty documents. They should be lived. If a junior reporter filed that caption, a senior editor should have caught it. If a senior editor approved it, then leadership has questions to answer.
Some may argue that calling out such lapses is an attack on press freedom. It is not. Press freedom is not a licence to mislead or be reckless. It is a responsibility to inform. The freest press traditions in the world pair liberty with ethics. They recognize that with reach comes duty. Nigeria deserves no less.
There is also a lesson here for readers. We must learn to pause, to ask basic questions, to resist the pull of instant outrage. But that lesson cannot excuse professional failure. The burden lies heavier on those who publish than on those who consume.
What should have been done? The answer is simple. “Bomb blast kills Muslim worshippers in Borno” tells the truth. “Terrorist attack during salat in Borno State” tells the truth. These headlines do not erase Christmas. They simply refuse to weaponize it. They respect victims and readers alike.
Words either clarify or confuse. In times like these, confusion is not neutral. It feeds fear. It sharpens divides. It does the terrorist’s work at a distance. That is why this rejoinder matters. Silence would be read as consent.
Nigeria has enough enemies without turning our media into one. We cannot afford headlines that trade precision for provocation. We cannot afford narratives that pit faith against faith when the blood on the ground belongs to all of us. Journalism, at its best, steadies a shaken society. At its worst, it shoves it closer to the edge.
The choice facing every editor is stark. Be a witness to truth or a megaphone for mischief. On that Christmas eve in Borno State, innocent people paid with their lives. The least the rest of us can do is tell their story straight.