Irrational impulses are not surprising in the stress and
tension that characterize a demented society. In an atmosphere of violence,
reason is sometimes abandoned and humanitarian principles forgotten. The
inflamed passions of the time lead men to commit atrocities. But the concern
here is not with the psychological pathology of those who commit atrocities but
rather with what has turned our nation into a slaughterhouse where human beings
are daily killed with intimidating alacrity. Throughout modern history,
atrocity propaganda has often mesmerized readers thousands of kilometres from
the scene of the crime. Often, the improbability of the actions described
suggests that the stories were little more than fantasies concocted for diverse
reasons from even more diverse sources.
But the reading public in Nigeria has invariably evinced a
morbid absorption with the most nightmarish aspects of this national tragedy.
It is indeed fashionable to observe that material which should create a moral
aversion to the cruelty of our present times often produces a perverse
fascination instead. There is, candidly speaking, an alarming rate of mockery
killings in Nigeria ,
especially under the Buhari administration. There are gruesome stories of
rapes, mutilations, perversities and child and mother murders.
An extremely
partisan and sympathetic public is willing to read and believe almost anything,
if it were tinged with sadism. It is hard to explain why the change promised
Nigerians by Buhari and his yea sayers has come with such enormous burdens
including death. Much of the savagery connected with our current bloodletting
could be explained in the violence inherent in the characters of the buccaneers
who have misruled us for all these miserable years.
If truly democracy is preferred to military rule all
over the world, why are Nigerians going through this hell of experience in a
democratic dispensation? Why is the government turning a blind eye to the
holocaust and pornography of violence going on in some states of the federation,
especially Benue, Southern Kaduna , Plateau and
Taraba? At first, they told the world that the Fulani herdsmen killing
thousands of Nigerians in their homes and farms were from neighbouring West
African countries. When the outrage became unbearable for them, they started
mouthing attenuations that the killings were as a result of inter communal
clashes. Now, almost everybody knows that this is terrorism sponsored and
lavishly funded by highly placed Fulani billionaires both in government and
outside government ostensibly to eliminate the entire Christian population in
the north and impose Islam on all parts of Nigeria . Why are Nigerians objects
of intimidation, genocidal massacre, annihilation, rape and abysmal
extermination in their own country? Why would a sitting president say that the
killings in Taraba were more than the ones in Benue and Zamfara and the
following day more killings became manifest in Benue
before his proposed visit to that state? Who will understand his hyperbole?
What is the primary responsibility of government if not the protection of lives
and property of its citizens?
Why is the Federal Government exonerating itself from
responsibility and complicity in the bestiality in Benue, Taraba, Zamfara,
Plateau, Southern Kaduna and some states in
the Southern parts of the country, while blaming state governors for trying to
curtail the mayhem in their respective states? Why are our security agents
supervising the brutal killings of innocent Nigerians in their homes, farms and
places of worship? What are our elected representatives in the National
Assembly saying to this carnival of lawlessness going on in Nigeria since
Buhari assumed rulership of this misbegotten country? Where are the popular
media, members of the civil societies and human rights community? Where are the
International Community, the Diplomatic Corps, the African Union, the European
Union, and the United Nations? Why are other state governors silent whereas
some states are burying their citizens on a daily basis? Is there any voice
from any part of the world to speak up against this well organized and well
coordinated genocide against armless and defenseless Nigerians? Where is God,
the Defender of the defenseless in all this?
Why are Nigerian youths allowing themselves to be used
in the senseless killings of other Nigerians? When will this madness stop? It
might sound alarming to articulate that all criminals are victims of the
attempt by the ruling class in society to maintain hierarchy. For, any other
conclusion denies original innocence, or, in effect, advances that men are
criminals before they are born. But we are often the unconscious prisoners of
our type of society, of the conflicts occurring in it and of their hegemonic
nature. Yet, we are not able to articulate and state thoughts which would
liberate us and would help our institutions out of their vicious cycle. Where
is that Nigerian who does not know that the real criminals in our midst today
are those who force themselves on us as our rulers? There is no gainsaying the fact
that even the function of our contemporary penal system is to maintain
privilege. A history of the growth and transition of punishment and correction
offers the clearest possible linkage between privilege and the manner in which
societies suppress classes of individuals who are considered threats to the
status quo or the existing social structure.
The dimension of the current spate of killings and
political assassinations shows a high level of greed, complicity and injustice
even among members of the sadistic ruling class itself. Consequently, it is
necessary to strip from the social institution of violence its ethnic,
religious and ideological veils and juristic appearance and to address it in
its real relationship. It is the relationship between crime and privilege. The
Federal Government's arcane theory that the solution to the barbaric killings
of Nigerians by Fulani militias lies in the abrogation of anti open grazing
laws by state governors and in the accommodation of the killers by the victims
needs forensic interrogation. When did cattle rearing which is the private
business of a few wealthy reactionary hegemonists become the responsibility of
all Nigerians? Why would innocent Nigerians bear the brunt of the private
business of a few interlopers?
It would, of course, be absurd to deny that government
is responsible for the carnival of anomie that has enveloped this misbegotten
country. Let me repeat: only demagogues and abstract doctrinaires with limpid
hypocrisy can deny that a great number of abominable crime is daily being
committed by governments across the world. Amidst considerable chaos and
confusion, our predators are still walloping in affluence and under the best
security system one can think of. This APC government is presiding over the worst
form of divide-and-rule system in Nigeria . The National Assembly must
be alive to its responsibility, otherwise, the victims might be forced to
resort to self help. Nigeria
is being pushed to another dangerous precipice. It hardly seems a time for timidity
and restraint!
*Mr. Amor, a public
affairs analyst, writes from Abuja
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