Shocking! ‘Buhari dog’ gains international recognition” Foreign media tag arrest of man in Buhari dog saga 'weird'”

• – The international media has given its version of the arrest of the man who named his dog after President Muhammadu Buhari because he admires him a lot.
•  – Some of them claim that the police was overzealous in its handling of the case while others say that Chinakwe committed the act in a place where the president was popular
•  – The police says it arrested and charged Chinakwe for a provocative action that could disturb the peace.

The international media have reacted to reports about Joachim Chinakwe, who was arrested after naming his dog Buhari. Buzzfeed reports that the ‘Buhari dog’ saga deteriorated into what it presently is because of Chinakwe’s feud with a neighbour and the police’s overzealousness. It wrote: “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. “Unfortunately, things got weird for Chinakwe after a feud with a neighbor and the police’s overzealousness.”

To Reuters, the police is holding Chinakwe because it believes that his action could breach the peace of the nation. “His action is provocative and capable of breaching the peace, as you know the volatility of Nigeria now,” Reuters quoted Ogun police spokesperson, Abimbola Oyeyemi as saying. The international news agency rounded of its report with the remark that “tensions sometimes erupt between northerners, who are Muslims, and people from the predominantly Christian south. Buhari is a Muslim from the north.”

 

 

On its part, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) analysed Twitter reactions to the report and noted that “Twitters users reacted to the arrest with a mixture of amusement and concern.” It then went on to quote a tweet from former aide to ex-president, Goodluck Jonathan, Reno Omokri, which queried, “If we keep quiet when they arrest the man who named his dog Buhari who will talk for us when they arrest us for criticizing the real Buhari?”

On its own part, New York Times hinted in its report that Chinakwe got into trouble for doing what he did in a place where the president is popular. “A man who wrote the name of Nigeria’s president on his dog and paraded the pet in an area where the leader is popular has been charged with breaking the peace. “Police said they arrested Joachim Chinakwe after a neighbor complained that the display in southwestern Ogun state was provocative.” 

NAIJ.com recalls that Joachim Fortemose Chinakwe, a trader in Ogun state was arrested on Tuesday, August 16 for naming his dog Buhari. Chinakwe was arrested after one of his neighbours of Northern extraction complained bitterly that he named his dog after his father, Alhaji Buhari.