*Pastor Emmanuel Nuhu Kure- What can you say about the origin of all these crisis in the North? The truth is that crisis is embedded in the culture of the North. The culture and history of the North have always been that of crisis. When they talk about poverty being the reason, they are just giving reason that is notreal. Poverty has always been in the North from time immemorial. In fact, poverty is part of the culture of the North. I don’t think it has its roots in religion; from the beginning, the poor have always depended on the rich to be fed. They were never encouraged to be rich. So, poverty is part of the culture; it’s what makes the North go round. Forgive my choice of language. We may be using it now as a weapon of war, but that is not speaking the whole truth. Go there every Friday, you’ll find the poor lining up along mosque areas waiting for people to come and give them money. It’s the culture of the land. It will not change maybe for another century except the North decides to change that culture. And, of course, culture is established by men. It’s men who set the pattern; it’s menwho can change it. I don’t care how many Almajiri schools the government builds, poverty will remain in the North except the northerners change the culture. I grew up to meet it; I grew up to hear about it. I’m gettingolder now, it’s still there. We are just using it at this hour to bring down a government thatdid not start it. The crisis did not begin with Boko Haram. We’ve had Maitatsine; we’ve had all sorts of crises all over the place. It is this one that has particularly got out of hand and is threatening the whole nation. Before, the crisis was restricted to locales and they were contained. They were just sects fighting against sects; they were not necessarily sects fighting Nigeria. This time around, some political miscalculationsboomeranged. The founder ofBoko Haram, the late Mohammed Yusuf, was involved with politicians at the beginning. Butthe marriage went sour. One thing led to the other and he got killed and his people decided to go for vengeance. From vengeance, a religious component was introduced and, to make it have impact, Christians were dragged into it. They began to hunt and kill Christians because that was the shortest route to get recognition. If they wanted their cause accepted by the world, they needed to burn a lot of churches. Christians are actually easier to kill than Muslims. So it was a matter of easy target untilthe Christians in some areas began to fight back and people were beginning to say that Christians were fighting Muslims. The world never took into cognizance that the Christians have been killed all these while. I think Christians have a right to self-defense where government is not protecting them enough. Christians should not just sit down and die like rabbits on the streets. And there is something people don’t notice. When (elder statesman) Alli Mungono was kidnapped, something came out of it that the world didn’t notice. The people who kidnapped the old man had great respect for him and they treated him with respect. But did you note what they said? They said they were not interested in his person; all they wanted was his contribution to the war effort. Did that not go far enough to let us know that there are very respectable people contributing to their war efforts? The elite in the North that we do not know of andwe pray one day God will reveal them. But most of these people making noise and pressurizing President Goodluck Jonathan government, the truth is that they are the sponsors of this thing. They pay their tithes behind and come to make noise in the open. That is the only way they can keep themselvesalive: by speaking openly against the government like they are doing while paying their tithes behind. How many of themhave not contributed to the Boko Haram war effort? So it’s all hypocrisy. They just heat up the polity in an attempt to destroy this nation. I think we should begin to read between the lines in those matters.
Posted on: Sat, 26 Oct 2013 11:29:29 +0000
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