By Lawrence Nwobu
There is an increasing number of Nigerians who believe there will
never be peace; as far as the nation remains as presently constituted. Those
Nigerians are being vindicated by trends and events that continue to unfold in
this wretched land. At the same time, there is another group of Nigerians—the
status quo leadership elites from sections of the country who continue to
thrive in the pretence that all is well. Even when the reverse is self evident,
the myth of harmony and progress is propagated in the midst of blood, toil
and tears occasioned by the nation’s ethno-religious contradictions. When
groups like IPOB/MASSOB, Niger Delta Avengers (NDA) and other legitimate self
determination groups burst into the scene; having been birthed by decades of
injustice, inequality, marginalisation, internal colonialism, ethno-religious
violence and general misrule with the banner of justice, equality and self
determination, the chief pretenders of Nigeria castigate and shout them down.
When those who mean
well advocate a Sovereign National Conference (SNC) or Conference of Ethnic
Nationalities (CEN) to afford us the opportunity to dialogue and create a
nation in our own image; properly structured to accommodate ethno-religious
inclinations with enough autonomy (federalism) to propel regional development
and prosperity within the overall confines of Nigeria — the chief pretenders
of Nigeria label them enemies of the republic who want to tear down the
nation. Yet curiously in striking down every progressive idea to build a
cohesive, just and properly structured nation, they never offer any alternative
to the existential crisis that is ever growing before their eyes. Preferring
instead to like an Ostrich bury their heads in the sand and pretend that all
is well. So the problem remains and the nation continues to burn with a steep
price in human lives.
The worst lie is the
one a people continually feed themselves thereby shackling themselves to the
eternal vagaries of slavery from which they cannot exit until as was
biblically proclaimed in John 8: 32; they allow “the truth set them free.” Nigeria has an
existential problem; pretending about it or denying it will not solve the
problem, but rather it will fester and grow worse until it consumes all of us
in ways never imagined. On the 2nd of June, the hard truth of Nigeria ’s existential problems confronted us
again with the brutal murder of Mrs Bridget Agbahime, a 74 year old woman from
Imo state who was killed by a mob in Kano
for alleged blasphemy. We later learnt that her only sin was stopping some
people from doing pre-prayer wash in front of her stall in the market. These
people now mobilised the usual mob of blood thirsty barbarians that murdered
her.
As has been reported,
this woman has not visited her home state in the last 30 years. For all intents
and purposes, she is more a citizen of Kano
than anywhere else. Yet she was hacked to death just because of her religion
and possibly her ethnicity and yet we still pretend Nigeria is one. What kind of a people
will be so blinded by religious and ethnic hate that they would so
unconscionably kill a 74 year old woman? As difficult as this question is to
answer, it has been the predicament in Nigeria
since 1945—some 7 decades ago when the first ethnic riots happened in Jos,
followed in succession by the 1953 anti-independence riots in Kano by which time an incipient culture of
violence had been created. In 1966, the existing culture of violence made it
easy to activate pogroms in the North at a scale unprecedented in the
continent, leading to the civil war. Maitsatsine riots broke the brief lull
that occurred after the war. But since then it has been one riot after another
in a ritual of ethno religious violence that not only became routine but
eventually evolved into terrorism.