Let me begin this piece by extending my condolences to those who lost their loved ones to the many bomb blasts and gun shots across the country and also congratulate the remaining living on the unprecedented new year gift by our shoe-less president – the doubling of the price of petrol. This gift is from a president who we were told we can trust with our lives; a man that was touted as a listening man because of his humble background. We can now definitely wait for the rest of the gift from fellow Nigerians who provide services and goods to take a cue from Goodluck Jonathan. For sure, the rest of us will be transformed into the living dead.
I had always hesitated to comment on issues that border on religion or ethnicity but this government is sure to make the deaf talk. Though the government came to office illegally, but I thought they would use the dubious legitimacy conferred on them by the courts to be just and fair to all. It has become clear to all that the government is not ready to be a government for all but for a select few. Emerging events like the government’s actions, pronouncements and those it associates with doesn’t give one the confidence that a better Nigeria will be realised in this eon. I am now scared that the promised “fresh air” may after all may turn to be asthmatic. The symptoms for a fragmented Nigeria are emerging daily, though we appear to be playing the ostrich. The result of the divisive campaign of the PDP is gradually coming home to roost. With political turning a blind eye to atrocities committed by their “supporters”, while religious stoke the embers of hatred in the name of ‘protecting’ their herd.
The spate of killings that ushered in the Jonathan government graduated into bombings and indiscriminate destruction of lives and properties by faceless groups loosely called Boko Haram. No one as yet has claimed meeting the leadership or representative of this killer group, therefore for all we know it can be anybody or any group from any part of the country. The bombings and killings are mostly concentrated in the North East corner of the country, with Maiduguri and Damaturu, predominantly populated by Muslims, bearing the brunt of the group. Political, religious and even traditional leaders in these two cities and environs were targeted, mostly in broad daylight and killed while our security men looked on helplessly. The deployment of soldiers to these areas only heightened the spate of killings and insecurity. No one is safe in these two cities. While the killings were going on, nobody deemed it worth his trouble to either condemn the killers or compel the government to act decisively with a view to bringing to an end the massacres talking place around the north east and to some extent, Plateau state, another theatre of war that refused to end since 2001. Through all these years, not one person was arrested, prosecuted and punished according to the laws of the land. This attitude from the government emboldened the killers to start killing people in worship places like what happen at the Eid praying ground in Jos when Muslim faithful were massacred while praying. Nobody of substance came out to condemn this dastardly act. Again they struck at the St. Theresa Catholic Church, Madalla. This time around the cacophony it generated in terms of condemnation was unprecedented. The Sultan of Sokoto, the Jama’atu Nasrul Islam (JNI), the National Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA) all came out to condemn the reprehensible act in no uncertain terms with the Sultan going to Abuja to restate his fealty to Jonathan.
Then came Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor, the President of Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN). When the pastor visited Jonathan, he was practically frothing at the mouth while threatening the nation with a retaliatory act against the Muslims for an act that was universally condemned by all and sundry, irrespective of religious affiliation. The pastor’s logic for holding the Muslim community responsible for what happened in Madalla left me wondering if the spate of killings in the North East had his imprimatur. I cannot remember him coming out to condemn the killings, maiming and wanton destruction of properties in the northeast or condemning the Niger Delta militants when they held the country hostage before the amnesty programme extended to them by ‘Yar Adu’a. Another thing was that right after Oritsejafor made his threat, two explosives were thrown into an Islamic School in Sapele, in Oritsejafor’s state of origin. Will Muslims then be right to hold him responsible for this barbaric act, going by his reasoning? What are we to assume from the arrest of a man from Delta State dressed in kaftan and turban, a dress code associated with the northern Muslim, attempting to bomb a church in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State? Are Muslims, Oritsejafor’s subjects of hatred, to assume the would-be bomber is one of the pastor’s soldiers?
It may appear that Oritsejafor’s threats worked because a day after his tirade, Jonathan declared a state emergency in four northern states. Ironically, on the day the emergency was declared two communities in Ebonyi went to war with each other purportedly over land dispute where at least sixty people lost their lives while properties worth millions of naira were destroyed. Mum was the word from the CAN president. I thought we would hear the now well-known acceptance of responsibility from the Boko Haram.
As long as our leaders can give tribal marks or religious affiliation to violence in whatever form, then Nigerians will continue to be in trouble. The 2011 elections begot the violence that we are condemned to today with all Nigerians sleeping with one eye open or not sleeping at all. The recent violence unleashed on the populace is the increment in petrol prices, which is threatening to snuff the life out of our living dead. Am yet to hear Oritsejafor condemn this inhuman act that may put over 90% of his constituents into a life of penury and servitude. And if his statistics are to be believed, then majority of Nigerians will bear the brunt of Jonathan’s provocative act.
Before I am verbally lynched, I want us to ponder certain questions and give ourselves honest answers. Does the fact that Jonathan, Azazi the National Security Adviser (NSA) and Oritsejafor all come from the Niger Delta, has anything to do with the exponential rise in violence in the country? Does this fact confer immunity on the perpetrators and therefore their impunity? Lest we forget, Azazi was the one indicted by an Investigative Panel set up to unravel how weapons got missing from the Armoury of 1 Division, Nigerian Army, Kaduna while he was the General Officer Commanding (GOC) of the Division. It was the biggest theft ever of arms and ammunition in the military and all the weapons were traced to the Niger Delta militants. The man resurfaced as the NSA without answering questions raised by the findings of the Panel under his kinsman. To complete the troika, Oritsejafor emerged the leader of the Christian faithful in the country.
The demographic configuration of northern Nigeria is drastically different from the southern part. Of the fabled 250 ethnic groups in the country, over 240 should be found in the north, with practically every tribe having adherents of either Islam or Christianity. It is not unusual to see siblings belonging to different religions. This therefore calls for restraint among and between us. It is on record that a month after the convocation of a conference of “ethnic minorities” in Jos in 2001, communal violence broke out and ten after, peace is yet to return to this once destination of choice. If some people succeed in igniting a religious war between adherents of the different religions in the north, only God knows when, how or where it will come to an end. Retreating to either our ethnic or religious shells won’t help us out of the material poverty we find ourselves in. let us tarry awhile, think deep and try to unravel in whose interests these killings are taking place.
We should all come together to fight the poverty elevation of the Jonathan administration, its educational apartheid policy where you have over six thousand people from the Niger Delta are currently in various countries undergoing one training or the other while not a single person from all the three political zones in the north, Muslim or Christian, is considered worthy of being trained or educated. The unemployment and lack of opportunities ravaging the north does not discriminate religion or ethnicity. If you go through the list of projects the Jonathan said they will execute with the ‘windfall’ from the petrol price increase, you realise 90% of the projects are to be located outside the north.
How does fighting each other improve our educational level or employment opportunities or even reduce our poverty situation? It is time we sit up and realise we are in this for the long haul. Our common enemy is the government and not Muslims or Christians among us.
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