By Emeka Alex Duru
The Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, may have scored a diplomatic victory for Nigeria in his speech in Kigali, the Rwandan capital on Sunday, April 7, when he remarked; “never again” would the World witness a genocide. The Vice President made the expression at the 25th remembrance ceremony of Rwandans killed in the 1994 genocide in the country.
‘Never again’, as a slogan, began to assume form following the pledge of the Jews who survived the holocaust, during the Second World War, not to give in to any bestial treatment from anybody again, given their sordid experience from the late German dictator, Adolf Hitler.
In 2018, the expression came up again, following agitations for tighter arms regulation by traumatised American College students, mourning seventeen of their colleagues and staff members, massacred by an ex-student. So, each time the slogan comes up, it denotes a call to action, a commitment to ensure that a particular ugly act does not rear its head. It usually evokes sobriety.
The Rwandan genocide, also known as the genocide against the Tutsi, was a genocidal mass slaughter of Tutsi in Rwanda by members of the Hutu majority government. An estimated 500,000–1,000,000 Rwandans were killed during the 100-day period from April 7 to mid-July 1994. The genocide and widespread slaughter of Rwandans ended when the Tutsi-backed and heavily armed Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) led by Paul Kagame took control of the country. The country has since, been on commendable healing process that is characterised by uncommon strides in infrastructure and human capital development.
When therefore, Osinbajo went that caring lane in Rwanda, he was naturally expressing the humanity in him. And he made a good posture of Nigeria. But that was where it all ended. For, while Osinbajo pontificated in Kigali, his country, Nigeria, was not in good shape; and has not been, lately. Osinbajo knows this as of fact.
What Rwanda went through in 1994 was more of mayhem between the Hutus and Tutsis. But in Nigeria, the crisis of confidence, the mutual distrust among the component units and the daily flow of blood by agents of darkness and destabilisation, have combined to inflict on the country, a different kind of genocide. In this instance, the litany of killings has gone beyond one ethnic group and another. It also lacks precise explanation. But it is pervasive and persistent, dealing deadly blows to the corporate existence of the nation. It is genocide of monumental proportion.
In the North West, the states of Zamfara, Sokoto and Katsina, are currently bearing the brunt of banditry. In the North East, the Boko Haram insurgents have been on the prowl since 2009, making nonsense of life and property. In the North Central, armed Fulani herdsmen, have made the region, unsafe for habitation, often making incursion in the South East and South West. The Niger Delta states of the South-South, are equally not spared of the regime of insecurity. On the whole, the country is on its knees; and at the mercy of killer elements.
But the leaders have carried on as if all is well. At international forums, managers of the Nigerian nation, have lived a lie, selling the dummy of a country of sound structure, while the foundation, remains faulty. But perhaps, unknown to us, is that while we humour ourselves with the bogus impression of importance, the World knows us for what we are.
Osinbajo’s preachment in Rwanda, would, thus, not have recorded the desired impacts, when his audience knew that back in his home country, has been an unceasing river of blood, drowning his fellow citizens in different parts of the country. Mere participation in the memoriam, was even a bad publicity for Nigeria. That was the height of duplicity and hypocrisy. It rankles, that Rwanda, realising the role of conciliation in nation building, thought it wise to call its citizens together, 25 years after, to reflect on the genocide and make a collective resolve for the future.
But for Nigeria, more than 52 years after the end of the 197-1970 civil war, not even a day has been set aside to remember the innocent victims of the Asaba Massacre, some of them, boys of under 14 years, who were killed by the rampaging Federal soldiers, who lured them out of their homes. This is part of the sad reminders the Osinbajo outing in Kigali, would present to the world. This is the hypocrisy of the Nigerian leadership.