"There's a distinction between calling President Buhari a dog, and naming a pet dog Buhari."
Thirty-year-old Nigerian trader Joachim Chinakwe is a big fan of his country's current head of state, Muhammadu Buhari. So much so that, he says, he recently decided to name his pet dog after the president.
Pool / Reuters
"After reading [about] his dogged fight against corruption…[I] decided to rename my beloved dog which I called Buhari, after him. I did not know that I was committing an offense for admiring Buhari," Chinakwe told Vanguard Newspaper.
Putting Chinakwe back in prison was "to save the suspect's life" and avoid triggering ethnic violence from his northern neighbors, police spokesperson Abimbola Oyeyemi said. Nigeria often has to perform a delicate balancing act between its 250-plus ethnicities. Tensions frequently erupt in both the Muslim-majority north and Christian-dominated south, despite both religions being spread across the country.
"The average Northerner will feel bad over such a thing. It can cause serious ethnic crisis or religious confrontation because when you are relegating such a name to a certain person, you are indirectly insulting him," Oyeyemi told reporters.
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