By Ikechukwu Amaechi
I am worried. Very worried about Nigeria. I am worried that many compatriots do not see what I see – the looming catastrophe. Even those that perceive the danger seem not to share in my worry.
They are behaving as if Nigeria is immune to upheavals even with its litany of crisis, including a debilitating civil war.
Why have we thrown all the values that underprop and reinforce our humanity to the dogs? How can a society that lays claim to civilisation have scant regards for human life?
What is happening in Nigeria today beggars belief. Nigerians are being slaughtered in the most gruesome ways imaginable and our leaders are carrying on as if it does not matter.
Our president, the self-same all-conquering general of the Nigerian army, is sitting on his palm drooling when Nigerians, law-abiding citizens, are being butchered in their numbers. The governors are carrying on as if all is well. The only thing that matters to them is 2019. They are all jockeying for power at our expense.
The attitude of our leaders worries me as much as that of ordinary Nigerians. Why is there no national outrage over what is happening in the country? If the leaders are contemptuous of the masses, must we also despise ourselves?
Tuesday’s bloodbath in beleaguered Benue State is one carnage too many.
In the early hours of that fateful day, “fellow countrymen” (apologies to President Buhari) invaded Ukpor-Mbalom, a community in Gwer East council area and attacked a Catholic Church.
By the time the din of their AK47 rifles quietened, 19 people, including two Catholic priests serving at St. Ignatius Catholic Church, Joseph Gor and Felix Tyolaha, lay dead. Over 50 houses were razed and the entire community left desolate as survivors swelled the ever-growing numbers of internally displaced people taking refuge in IDP camps.
What did the President and Commander-in Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria do?
He extended his “sincere condolences” not personally through a national broadcast but through his media aide, Femi Adesina.
Adesina said his principal described the killings as “vile and satanic” and extended his “sincere condolences to the government and people of Benue State, the Mbalom community, and especially the Bishop, priests and members of the St Ignatius Catholic Church, whose premises was the unfortunate venue of the heinous killings by gunmen.”
“This latest assault on innocent persons is particularly despicable. Violating a place of worship, killing priests and worshippers is not only vile, evil and satanic, it is clearly calculated to stoke up religious conflict and plunge our communities into endless bloodletting,” Buhari reportedly said.
Stressing that the country will not bow to the machinations of evildoers, Adesina said his principal vowed that the assailants would be hunted down and made to pay for their sacrilege.
There are some Nigerians who will swear that Buhari neither wrote that statement nor even aware of it. Adesina, the effective and hardworking spin doctor, was just doing his job.
To the uninformed, such characterisation of the president as unfeeling, uncaring and mean-spirited may seem uncharitable.
But is it? In any other country where protection of lives and property is the reason for government and the sanctity of human life is a governance creed, Tuesday’s killings in Benue is enough for the president, the nation’s consoler-in-chief, to cancel all activities for the day particularly political undertakings.
But that was the day governors elected on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC) chose to endorse Buhari’s second term aspiration. There wasn’t even the tokenistic act of one minute silence in honour of the dead.
That was the same thing that happened on Friday, January 12, when Governor Nasir el-Rufai of Kaduna State led six other APC governors from the north to Aso Rock to ask Buhari to run for a second term, just a day after 75 indigenes of Benue State who were killed by Fulani herdsman were given mass burial in Makurdi.
While Buhari was in Abuja vowing to deal with the killers, a vow that will never be kept, the Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo, a professor of law and Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), was in Lagos proffering his own solution to the spectre haunting the Nigerian state.
And what was it? He exhorted churches on the importance of religious tolerance and to pray for those of them in government to overcome numerous challenges facing the nation because governance is a spiritual warfare.
“It is the duty of the church, as we are, that the church prays for the government; that the church upholds the hands of those in government, not by complaining but by supporting us with prayers.
“Governance is a spiritual warfare, if anyone does not know that, I know. I ask the church to pray for everyone of us in the position of authority in this land,” Osinbajo said.
What a great insight. So, those whose loved ones have been sent to their early graves should not complain but pray for those in government. Pray for them to do what?
Of course, Osinbajo’s admonition agrees with Buhari’s accommodate your “fellow countrymen” charge to Benue elders in January. Birds of the same plummage!
How on earth did we get here? What has spiritual warfare got to do with governance? Why has Buhari refused to declare killer herdsmen terrorists? Is it the spirits that are stopping him from doing the needful?
Our leaders are soulless. They have sold their conscience to the devil. And the blood of Nigerians that are killed everyday is on their hands because their inaction is an act of collusion.
Tuesday’s attack came barely four days after the murder of 10 persons by herdsmen in Guma, which has been one of the major scenes of carnage since January and a few days after Nigerian soldiers on reprisal attack over the alleged killing of their colleague stormed Naka town in Gwer West local government area of Benue State and burnt dozens of houses. At least one person was burnt to death.
I have heard some people talk about the politicisation of the tragedy. Perhaps that was what Buhari meant when he talked about irresponsible leaders who he accused of fanning the embers of the crisis.
But what does politicisation mean in this context? Does it mean that contrary to claims, people are not being killed? Or could it be that the casualty figures are not as high as some are claiming? Or does it mean that Nigerians should stop talking about the killings and the bereaved should neither mourn their dead nor bury them?
Why is Buhari lacking the moral will to solve this problem? How long will these killings go on before he wakes up from his lethargic slumber? How many more people will have to die? How many more orphans, widows and widowers do we need to have before Buhari does the needful?
Truth be told, Buhari’s lack of action is a classical abdication of responsibility to protect lives and property of Nigerians. His lack of empathy confounds.
How many more Nigerians will have to be dislocated from their ancestral homes and thrown into IDP camps before the president says enough is enough?
Is President Buhari really telling Nigerians that this is beyond him?
If the protection of lives and property of the citizens is way beyond his capacity, why is he seeking a second term?
It is encouraging that the House of Representatives on Wednesday resolved to summon the president over the killings.
It is also reassuring that they passed a vote of no confidence in the service chiefs and called for their immediate removal.
But at least, the lawmakers have done their bit no-matter how symbolic. It is left for Nigerians to decide what to do with their country come 2019.
