In deference to the current mood of the nation, I beg to suspend the series I started on letting go to comment on the recent developments in the Northern part of our beloved country. I am outraged like most people at the senseless killings that have been a signature of post-election realities in the North.My heartfelt sympathy goes to the victims.Unfortunately, innocent NYSC members have been massacredsix of them were roasted alive inside a Police station where they had run for refuge. Fifty managed to escape from a house where they were herded into while the house was set ablaze. Giade Local Government council in Bauchi State where the six served was the same place where my son finished his service last year. The day before he was murdered, one of the corpers, Ukeoma Aikfavour had posted on his Facebook page about intimidation from a particular party. According to him, Even after forcing underaged voters on me they wanted me to give them the remaining ballot paper to thumb print. Thank God for the police and am happy I could stand for God and my nation. To all corps members who stood despite these threats especially in the North bravo! Nigeria! Our change has come. Twenty four hours later, he was dead. My ire is not about who or what started this pogrom because in reality, that is what it is. This has gone beyond a protest about electoral loss. If it was about electoral loss, why turn the heat on corpers and places of worship as well as Southerners as if many of them did not vote for the party in questionWho are the real losers as this drama cascades from its crescendo to its abnormal denouement Is it those whose lives are prematurely snuffed out and sacrificed on the altar of a collective mindlessness because they are unfortunate to serve the wrong God or belong to the wrong tribe Is it the unfortunate almajri who, programmed to kill like a robot, merely serve as the executors of an agenda they understand nothing about, while they are nothing but a comical mascot of our collective povertyOr is it the religious head that systematically programmes his followers to snuff life out of every unbeliever as a way to guarantee a place in heaven Or perhaps, the political demagogue who in one breath speaks about national unity but clandestinely programmes his followers to recognise the supremacy of the selfish ethnic agenda To my mind, we are all losers in this tragic game that brooks no rules and no umpires.You may not have lost anyone to the crisis but as the Yoruba proverb says, When a hen perches on a rope, neither the rope nor the hen is at ease. If this all sounds like a distant thunder to you, put yourself in the position of the victims and their families. My own son was serving in that same local government until October last year. Any of them could have been him! In saner climes, the death of one corper should have necessitated an IMMEDIATE evacuation of all corpers from that region. But not so in Nigeria.God made no mistake allowing us to live together. In a multi-ethnic entity, the rule of law is the balancing factor. But where is no sanction, there is no deterrent and where there is no deterrent, there is defiance and a resolute commitment to evil. When I went to visit my son in Giade, we drove through the entire LG in less than ten minutes, so with good intelligence work, fishing out the perpetrators of the heinous murder should not be much of a task. But will it ever happenMy outrage is therefore with a system that continues to give room for repeat performances of this macabre cycle of mindless psychosomatic angst that finds no clear definition of purpose except in its misguided my religion is better than yours stance and manifestation. I wish I could say NEVER AGAIN but unfortunately, I am tongue-tied by the Yoruba proverb that says that until you deal with lice on your clothes, you will always have blood on your fingernails. Lets stop reducing this to political rhetoric.The system that keeps reproducing this needs drastic reengineering!We have been through this route before. We have watched this gory drama ad nauseam. We have been regaled with the attendant rhetoric of how perpetrators will be fished out and dealt with. Commissions of enquiry have been set up. From the days of the beheading of Gideon Akaluka to the more recent massacres in Jos, we have all watched helplessly as the dramatis personae shoved their barbaric acts down our throats while we wonder when someone would deliver us from our torment by drawing a definitive curtain on this drama once and for all. Unfortunately, as long as the government continues to pander to the whims of sacred cows in this society in spite of the plethora of security reports on their undercover misdemeanours, we will all remain prisoners of this perpetual cycle of pristine nihilism.Remember, the sky is not your limit, God is!
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