By Tosin Olatokunbo
Sterling Bank Plc has told Christians all over the world and others angry with the commercial bank for insulting Jesus, to ‘cast the first stone’. There are estimated two billion Christians worldwide.
Critics of the blasphemy insist that the bank has failed to show enough rectitude after comparing the Lord Jesus Christ with ‘Agege Bread, a low-quality bread that has gained infamy among many Nigerians.
The Abubakar Suleman-led commercial bank, in celebration of Easter, had posted an Easter advert on social media platforms and also sent its customers via email. The chief executive of the bank is a Muslim.
The message which contained a picture of a golden-brown bread divided into two was captioned “Like Agege Bread, He Rose!” referring to the resurrection of Jesus Christ, usually marked worldwide on Easter Monday by billions of adherents of the Christian faith.
The advert has been greeted with serious backlash from Nigeria Christians and other well-meaning people across the world who demanded an immediate apology from the bank.
But, rather than apologise profusely, for insulting the faith and its adherents, the bank appears to have added more salt to injury after it described those criticizing the advert as sinners, saying ‘Let he who has never sin cast the first stone.”
Many have described the terse apology as half-hearted and unrepentant, pointing out that the bank has not indicated enough that it regretted its action.
“Why did it take the bank so long to respond to the criticism despite the angry reactions of Nigerians to the advert? It took the Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria, APCON to issue a threat to sanction the bank before the management deemed it fit to issue a terse apology, which also ended up adding more fire to the issue.
APCON had condemned the advert describing it as blasphemous to the Christin faith.
The Council said in a statement signed by Olalekan Fadolapo, its registrar/chief executive titled, ‘Sterling Bank Agege Bread Easter Advertisement’ that the advert is malicious and that the bank has shown that it’s insensitive to the religious plurality of the country, that its action was capable of causing religious tension in the country.
According to APCON, “The Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria has observed with displeasure the insensitive and provocative Easter celebration advertisement by Sterling Bank Plc which compared the resurrection of Christ with Agege Bread.
“The distasteful advertisement was neither submitted nor approved for exposure by the Advertising Standards Panel, the statutory Panel charged with the responsibility of ensuring that advertisements conform with the prevailing laws of the federation as well as the code of ethics of Advertising in Nigeria.
“APCON will take necessary actions to ensure that Sterling Bank is sanctioned for the exposure of such offensive advertisement according to law and that no religious belief or faith is ridiculed or any blasphemous advertisement exposed in any guise.”
For a country like Nigeria that has witnessed religious tensions in the past due to the careless behaviors of certain individuals, not a few insist that the bank has proved to be very insensitive to the business environment where it operates.
“Normally, the advert was supposed to have been vetted by the management before it was made public. Whether those responsible for that actually did or not, no one can tell considering the outbursts that have greeted the advert, and the fact that the advert was done in bad taste. It could also be that the bank also wanted to use the notorious advert to gain social media mileage by insulting ‘the Lord Jesus Christ,” an analyst said.
“But, no matter the intention for allowing such distasteful advert to run, the authors had almost thrown the country into another religious chaos,” he said further.
In 2002, riot broke out in Kano and some other Northern states after an article referencing Prophet Mohammed was published in This Day Newspaper ahead of the World Beauty Pageant to be held in the country that year.
Nigeria had been picked to host the contest after a Nigerian, Agbani Darego, won the competition the previous year but many Nigerian Muslims had condemned the move, describing it as promoting promiscuity and offending female modesty and sexual morality.
The violent protests started after the article published on November 16, 2002 and written by Isioma Daniel, a 22-year-old Christian fashion journalist, made reference to Muhammad, because many Muslims did not support the beauty pageant was accused of making light of the objection of many Muslims to the contest.
In 2006, the country was thrown into yet another religious crisis after Muslims rioters in Kano, protesting the controversial cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad killed 16 people and burnt many churches.
Considering the negative reactions that greeted the advert, many insist that the government should investigate the issue before it degenerates into another religious crisis in the country.
“Only God knows what would have happened if the said advert attacked Muslims or Prophet Mohammed. By now everybody will be calling on the managing director and his management to resign. In fact, people would have called for their immediate arrest for trying to cause another religious bloodshed in the country,” Kenneth Audu said.
He said the bank should make a formal apology to “the 4 billion Christians across the world and promise that it will never insult the religion and its symbol, Jesus Christ again. Anything short of this would mean that the commercial bank intentionally used the advert to insult Nigerian Christians thinking that ‘nothing will happen’.
