Plateau? Katsina? Kaduna? Benue? Nasarawa?
The hashtag, "#XYZmassacre" has become the
inevitably appropriate marker for the
Nigerian holocaust. 50 here, 250 there, death
comes easy in the north these days.
Conservative United States estimates put
figures at over 20,000 dead in violence
predominantly in the north since Jonathan
came to power. And the millions of dollars
worth of damages in property loses cannot be
quantified.
Revolution has been on the lips of most
Nigerians, though with a resignation to the
reality that the suffering masses are too
hungry, fragmented and embroiled in ethnic
fracas to. But while the masses have been
figuring themselves out and patiently,
prayerfully watching how things pan out,
hoping some miracle happens; the political
elite and government of Nigeria has been so
thoroughly engulfed in corruption and looting
of the commonwealth, they are aggressively
pushing and promoting a war in Nigeria; a
war between perceived ethnic groups,
religious groups or peasant professionals —
the farmers and cattle rearers.
The actions and inactions of our political elite
are directly responsible for the state of war
in the northeast and the middle belt; and the
terror in the creeks. Their stolen money,
their stealing money, their silence, their
actions and their investment in 2015 have
engraved a strong path being towed toward
full blown war among the nation's people.
An angry man does not become a killer, and a
killer may not be angry. This is the reality...
When we see people, mercenaries dressed in
uniforms and being capable of using
sophisticated weapons to make coordinated
attacks, there is a fire behind that smoke.
Ordinary Nigerians get arrested wearing
camouflage. When you hear of hundreds
riding around towns and operating with
impunity in army uniform, for years, you
know they are either the army or with the
army. Many of the so-called Fulani marauders
have been caught and found to speak foreign
languages; chartered mercenaries in the
country, doused in Fulani attire or army
uniform. Of course it is a conspiracy. And we
have done nothing. Our borders are open;
guns flow freely, no culprit or conspirator
goes to jail. It's impunity galore for all. Or
are the terrorists ghosts… that our 'rapid
response' team has never had an upper hand
on them?
The fourth republic politics and democracy
has sponsored and created monsters in the
nation; none of the sponsors—those who
imported the guns into the country and gave
it to youth and militia—has yet been arrested
and as Nigeria fools itself, thinking an
election will hold in 2015 with the climaxing
state of conflict and chaos, more guns are
being imported into the nation and fed into
the hands of killers. These elite politicians
with the private jets who sponsor the parties
today, free from jail where they belong,
created Boko Haram and MEND the last time,
and we are watching them again making 20
more, 100 times more deadly terror menaces.
We are watching. Shebi (don't) we like and
believe in the colonialists' politics? We do, we
love it to the death.
Each state government and the federal have
been involved in the evolution of these terror
menaces, killing and burning. Few in this
political dispensation are without blame. Not
all have shouted like the governor of
Adamawa. What have they been watching and
waiting for? 2015? Because they are still alive
and think they will escape the gangs? Does
their pledge to Nigeria and their faith by God
command them to wait for a so-called
election of 2015 before acting and protesting
to the world that all is not right when
unknown soldier armies kill hundreds in their
states, set villages on fire and live free from
justice?
The economy of north Nigeria has been
irreversibly destroyed. Farming has collapsed
in the northeast. Millions worth of cattle have
been eliminated; if they escaped the
encroaching desert, they did not escape the
bullets of the cycle of violence and if they
escaped the bullets, they did not escape the
armed rustlers who steal and cart them away
in trucks. Nigeria is facing a food shortage,
the full effect of which is yet to be realized.
While billions of dollars are looted in Abuja,
poverty has peaked most especially in the
poor north of Nigeria and with it has
frustration. The people have become zombies.
Death is now a normal event. People casually
describe how the other day, yesterday to be
precise, their children were bound up and
shot dead by unknown gunmen in military
uniform, as helicopters flew above and how
their entire living abode and businesses were
burned to the ground. That's every day
business now in the states of the north. Few
have not been directly affected.
In the creeks, the people and hooligans
interact freely. The people know the
kidnappers and the kidnappers know the
people. It's an advertised, lucrative
employment that brings revenue to the
community. It is the way of life. An amnesty
trained youth the other day called his friend
earning a good livelihood of hard work in
Togo and invited him to join them. The friend
told me that his colleague in the Niger Delta
tried to tease him into coming down and
being part of the lucrative career. "Ol'boy,
why you dey suffer yourself, this kidnapping
business dey pay seriously here. Come join us
oh!" He had said.
The nation rests on a precarious balance right
now. A little tip and it will tumble down.
*God forbid. The unknown soldiers have not
yet crossed out of the north. They are so
close. What will happen if they do? What will
happen if some mad mullah decides to direct
his followers, not at the government and
cabal (North and South), the true culprits and
'infidels' (does not mean Christians, but
means corrupt miscreants and scum of the
earth, the 'in our government, they eat with
us' Boko Haram sponsors-Wendell Simlins and
the like) behind our predicament, but at
innocent people of the other faith, of the
brotherly Abrahamic faiths? We would end up
with the war they want rather than the
revolution we need.
My prediction is that if Nigeria does not
enter a state of emergency soon, there will be
no Nigeria by the elections in 2015. And if by
some miracle Nigeria makes it to the
elections, there will be no Nigeria after. Some
want this and this is why some say the some
actually sponsor this. But can't we do it a
better way? Everyone has called for True
Federalism. Buhari, Tinubu, they all declared
this—google it—to be done without a N12m
sleeping conference. Can we get up now, get
together now and declare a new Nigeria?
Many more of us will be dead (young) before
2015! Jonathan cannot lead a nation. It's no
APC talk, it is no hate, and there is no
personal vendetta. Perhaps it is not even his
fault, maybe he can lead something, but the
political clime just will not allow us test this.
So why wait, why anticipate and why die?
Again I ask—how many more must die?
Yeah, seriously, the largest economy in Africa:
Add that to the world leader in youth without
hope as the recent Global Youth Wellbeing
Index ranked us; and to the world's most
terrorized nation with the leading number of
deaths; and to the African nation with the
largest number of poor; and to the worst
nation to be born, and to the nation with the
biggest numbers for government looting and
corruption in the history of earth; and to the
world leading nation in impunity for terror
sponsors and administrative thieves; and to
the world #1 in dangerous high sea
terrorism; and to the world's newest kidnap
capital; and to the world leader in oil spill
pollution; and to the only nation in the world
that fights over rotation of presidency and
religion of president; and then write it all on
the tombs of the 20,000+ who have died
around the country since 2011, from the
elites and politicians-created and condoned
violence, starting with the 1000 of us who
were killed across Nigeria last week, all
deaths, due credit to the cumulative great
'achievements' of our fourth republic.
by Dr. Peregrino Brimah
http://ENDS.ng [Every Nigerian Do Something]
Email: drbrimah@ends.ng Twitter:
@EveryNigerian
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