Kaduna Killings And A Silenced Nation

 By Ayo Oyoze Baje

“Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood. Their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; wasting and destruction are in their paths’’     – Isaiah 59:17

The recent heartless, blood-letting attacks of terrorists on the Abuja-Kaduna rail line and train, twice within 72 hours, in addition to the Kaduna airport have brought to mind my opinion essay titled: ‘Southern Kaduna Killings and Our Fragile Unity’. It was published by several newspapers on January 15, 2017. The aim then was to draw the needed attention of the powers that be, that more was being said than done in reining in the rampaging monster of killer herdsmen on innocent citizens. That was precisely so in several Sothern Kaduna villages such as Gad Biyu,  Agwan Ajo as well as  Zango Kataf, Jema’a and Kaura local councils, as perpetrated and escalated from August of the previous year, 2016.

 

Back then, after series of mindless mayhem and attacks on 53 villages, with the razing down to rubbles of 16 churches, 1,422 houses leaving 808 innocent lives wantonly wasted and 57 people injured the state governor, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai publicly claimed that he had paid an undisclosed ransom to some of the suspected killers, so as to sheathe their swords! You can read that again.

 

And  perhaps, get to understand why we are where we are, as a nation with scarce regards for the sanctity of precious and irreplaceable human life. The gnawing pain here is that the life of the killers is being promoted as more important than those of their voiceless victims.  Ever since, the situation has gotten more sordid, more scary and more shameless; in both scope and size. For instance, on March 25, 2022 about 50 people were allegedly killed with an undisclosed number of the victims abducted when bandits (let us call them terrorists) swooped down on nine communities in Giwa local council of the troubled state. They also burnt houses and vehicles, motorcycles and rustled over 100 cows, according to a member of a vigilante group in Dillalai area of the council.

Add these torrid tales to the confirmation by the Kaduna state government of the recovery of 34 corpses, including that of two military personnel from the scene of another attack in other areas such as Tsonge, Agban, Katanga and Kadarko all in Kaura local government area and it should be patently clear to discerning minds that Nigeria is gravitating towards a failed state!   If, as expressly stated in Section 14, sub-section (2b) of the 1999 Constitution (as Amended) that the primary purpose of government is to guarantee security of the citizens and their property, as well as to provide for their welfare and the empirical evidences on ground is the gross failure of both, there is cause for serious concern for our common safety.   Or, how else can we explain the recent attack by some 200 gunmen on ‘runway five’ of Kaduna  Airport, as confirmed by Federal Airport Authorities? They were said to have got there from a nearby forest! Does that mean that the military has knowledge of where they are located but has not taken proactive action long before now? But that is just one of the several questions troubling the minds of peace-loving Nigerians in Kaduna state and beyond.

 

How for instance, do we explain the fact that Kaduna, which is the epicentre of many military institutions and formations, including the Nigeria Defence Academy (NDA) was again in the news for the wrong reasons? What a paradox! According to the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) eight people were confirmed dead and 26 injured, out of the 362 validated passengers. They were allegedly sent to their early graves by AK49-wielding terrorists who stormed the train!

 

Amongst the victims was Musa Lawal Ozigi, who was until his untimely demise the General Secretary of the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria (TUC). What a safe country to live in, if you can understand the explanations of Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the Minister of Information and Culture. With all these anomalies playing themselves out on the fields of morality, security, politics, inter-tribal relations and infrastructural development should we be more concerned about the messy political gambits to grab and retain power come 2023, or to have a safer nation? The answer should be obvious to those who still have an iota of love for, or any allegiance to the quasi-nation called Nigeria.

 

As clearly pointed out in my earlier mentioned essay, this is the time to face the facts and answer the critical questions.  How do we justify the insulting policy of amnesty for blood-thirsty criminals? Why is the government treating them as if their lives are more precious than the thousands of fellow citizens whose precious lives they have wantonly wasted? Who is arming the terrorists with hi-tech and top-notch weapons of war? For what reason is the federal government finding it difficult to deal decisively with the alleged sponsors of terrorism here in the country when their counterparts have been judged and jailed in the United Arab Emirate(UAE)? Only credible answers to these troubling questions would go a long way to finding lasting solutions to the collective injustice against the Nigerian state.

 

From the killing spree of the innocent citizens of Benue plains and valleys, through the farmlands of Plateau, Adamawa, across to Zamfara, Sokoto down to Imo, Anambra, Edo to Ondo fertile fields, the voices of the blood of innocent Nigerians spilled have cried unto God, as it was between Abel and Cain!  From the Biblical Times and over the centuries no nation or part of it that has shed so much innocent blood of its citizens has ever known peace or progress.

 

Let us learn from the history of the ethnic cleansing of the Jie people in China in 350 AD and that of the Silicon Vespers in Italy, in 1282. Let us glean from the pages of the religious persecution of a quarter of a million Jews in Spain between 1492 and 1614. Ditto for the Sudan crisis in 2003 and Uzbeks in 2010.  If these are foreign, we should learn from the Rwanda genocide which occurred between 7th April and 15th July 1994 during the Rwandan Civil War.

 

Or closer home, the religious crisis in the same Kaduna state in 1987, the subsequent unforgettable mindless killings in Zango- Kataf in 1992. What about the post-election violence in 2011 that took away the priceless lives of some helpless youth corps members? All these should teach us all that ethno-religious killings pay no one any good coin. For, like it or not the perpetrators of pure evil will someday die! So, what would they tell their creator on the Judgment Day?

 

One cannot but ask at this point what came out of the call by the Catalysts for Peace and Justice Initiative (CPJI) for the setting up of a panel of inquiry to determine the root causes of the previous killings by the herders.  Truth be told, and as yours truly has consistently canvassed, now is the right time for our lawmakers to see the wisdom in devolving the enormous political and economic powers from the bloated centre to the six geo-political zones. Such will douse the undue and avoidable tension in the land. The time to reverse the nation’s turbulent drift to a state of anomie is now. Tomorrow may be too late! 

*Baje is a commentator on public issues