We have become a land of sorrows, acquainted with grief. Daily, the ground opens its mouth, and swallows the blood of the young, the old, the male, the female, the innocent, the guilty. It is as constant as the Northern Star. Blood must flow in Nigeria, on a daily basis. “To sorrow I bade good morrow. And thought to leave her far away behind, but cheerly, cheerly, she loves me dearly: she is so constant to me, and so kind,” wrote the poet, John Keats. Sorrow is so constant to Nigeria, and pretends to love the land dearly. Chinua Achebe wrote in one of his works: “When suffering knocks at your door, and you say there’s no seat left for him, he tells you not to worry, because he has brought his own stool.” Sorrow has come to abide with Nigeria, bringing his own stool along. He is ready for the long haul, except we find a way of dislodging him, evicting him from the house. Between 2009 and now, when the Boko Haram insurgency started full blast, more than 12,000 Nigerians have been killed in cold blood. That was the figure given to the international community by President Goodluck Jonathan at an international summit held in Paris, France, last May. Between then and now, many hundreds, if not thousands would have been added to the figure, with bombs going off like firecrackers in our cities and villages, and towns being overrun, taken over by the insurgents. In the Boko Haram onslaught, nobody, nothing is sacred. They pretend to be Islamic zealots, but they kill Muslims in their hundreds, nay, thousands. They bomb churches and mosques, kill Christians, kill emirs and Muslim clerics, kill men, women, old, young. Bombs don’t discriminate when they go off. Anyone unfortunate enough to be around gets killed. They either place the bombs at random, indiscriminately, or have special targets, as they did last week in Kaduna city. Former military head of state, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd), and prominent preacher, Sheik Dahiru Bauchi, were to have been bumped off last week. Fortunately, they escaped the bomb attack targeted at them, but not so many other scores of people, who lost their lives rather gruesomely. Are Sheik Bauchi and Muhammadu Buhari not devout Muslims again? Why did they then become targets? It confirms, more than ever, that the Boko Haram insurgency is not strictly about religion. It is plain lawlessness. Anarchy. Rebellion without rhyme or reason! It started as vendetta against the unjust and unlawful killing in cold blood of the leader of the sect, Mohammed Yusuf, in police custody in 2009, but now, it has morphed into pure chaos. Entropy, bedlam, tumult. This week alone, at least four suicide bombings were done by females in Kano, leading to the loss of many lives. A couple of months ago, a female suicide bomber had also attempted to bomb a military formation in Gombe. She died along with a soldier. Oh, the female specie, so soft, so tender, described by the Good Book as “the weaker vessel.” They have now become walking ordnances, mobile arsenals. How is the indoctrination done? It beats me. What grief. Woe. Anguish. Just two days ago, in Katsina, a girl of 10 was caught, reportedly with an explosive belt strapped round her body. At 10 years? She is barely out of diapers! She should still be listening to tales by moonlight, told by her parents or grandparents. How did she then get so radicalised, as to wear an explosive belt, which would have sent her and many others to a violent end? How? Nigeria is in a sorry pass. Sorrow has suffused the land. Yes, every soul is dear in the sight of God. No life is more precious than the other. We have all been given the precious gift the same way by God. But I tell you, if Gen Buhari had been bombed to death last week, we would have seen that when beggars die, truly there are no comets seen, but “the heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes.” If Buhari had died, I probably would not have written this piece, and you would probably not be reading it. We would all have been running helter-skelter, trying to find refuge for ourselves and our families. President Goodluck Jonathan got it right. The country would have been in a turmoil. The President reacted well to the bomb attack. He condemned it in very strong words, and sympathized with Gen Buhari. Few days later, he still expressed thanks to God that the unforeseen did not happen, saying the whole country would have been up in flames. True. If Gen Buhari had died, many more lives would have followed. Hundreds? Thousands? Hundreds of thousands? You never can tell. The more the merrier, as envisaged by the evil workers who conjured the plot. They know the ardent, if not fanatical support that the former head of state and politician has across the country, particularly in the North. That was what they attempted to use as gunpowder. If Buhari was bombed to death, the first finger of suspicion would point at the Federal Government, which he had excoriated only hours before, over the epidemic of impeachments of APC governors. President Jonathan reacted well to the evil bomb attack. So did many other sensible Nigerians. But not everybody is sensible. There are some twerps, nincompoops in our midst. One of them said Gen Buhari arranged the attack against himself. Really fatuous and asinine! Dense. Idiotic. Inane. Such people could utter such folly because they were not running for refuge yet. If the cauldron had exploded underneath them, they would not have had the time for such imbecility. We must be filled with praises to God, who has saved us, lest we have sorrow upon sorrow. The land has enough evil to contend with already. Can the Federal Government be accused of having a hand in the bomb attack? I doubt. Prof Wole Soyinka says the PDP is a “nest of killers,” but I’ll be shocked if the ruling party knew about the bomb plot. That would be suicidal. Crazy. Self-immolating. Which country would they then be ruling over? You jostle to preside over only a country that exists. If Buhari had been killed, Nigeria could have stopped existing, either temporarily or permanently, and so what entity would the PDP be presiding over? I stand to be corrected, but I don’t see the hands of the PDP in this evil. You ask how I know? I don’t know. Just a hunch. And the hunch may be right. Boko Haram has not come out yet to claim responsibility for the attack on Buhari. But whoever did it is an enemy of Nigeria, and wants to cause maximum damage, which may lead to the disintegration of the country. Buhari bombed? God forbid! As my friend, Simon Kolawole, wrote in Thisday, under the title, ‘Buhari must not die;’ “I don’t know of any Nigerian politician today who has a genuine following like Buhari, even if this emotion is not shared nationally. Buhari’s following, in my opinion, ranks next to that enjoyed by politicians such as Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, Sir Ahmadu Bello, and Chief Obafemi Awolowo… Imagine if Buahri had been killed and it was interpreted as a North/ South, Muslim/Christian issue. With the kind of fanatical support Buhari enjoys in the North, we would still be dealing with reprisals and counter- reprisals across the country today. Ethno-religious passions are so inflamed in Nigeria right now that a little spark can lead to months of untold crisis.” True, very true. I join President Jonathan in thanking God that Gen Buhari did not die. I join other well-meaning Nigerians to rejoice with the simple, ramrod straight former head of state. Does anybody deserve to be bombed to death? No. Does Buhari deserve such treatment in a country he has served sincerely with utmost transparency? No. Talk of incorruptibility, Buhari comes to mind. Talk of integrity, you remember the man from Daura. Talk of change for the better in Nigeria, and this reticent gentleman comes out in bold relief. Nigeria needs straightening out. Buhari wanted to do it as a military man, along with his kindred spirit, Tunde Idiagbon, but they were stopped. Now, he aspires to do it through the ballot box, and three times, he has been stopped, maybe unfairly. But it is his right to continue to aspire. Our constitution does not set an upper limit in terms of age, as to who can be president. So, why do some people want to stop Buhari permanently by making mincemeat of him? Evil people! God is greater than them. Buhari has been governor. He was oil minister. He was head of state. He headed the Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF), which had funds in billions, if not trillions, yet he did not steal our money. He remains one of us, simple, straightforward, wanting the best for the country. And bombing is the next thing he deserves? Nigeria has become an absurdity. But God has had mercy on us, lest we should have sorrow upon sorrow. That same God will not forsake us, even as we love the man from Daura, and we can follow him into battle blindfolded. His integrity is unimpeachable. He will not let us down. It will be well with Nigeria, whether evildoers like it or not. Amen. S
Posted on: Fri, 08 Aug 2014 11:36:16 +0000
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