Date Published: 08/06/09
GAMBARI KILLS FULANI IS NO MAN’S BUSINESS
By Farouk Martins Aresa
The incessant killing under the guise of religious command in the Northern part of our Country has gone beyond any form of decency. Probes and committees have been set up several times without holding the real culprits accountable. The fact that intelligence warnings were ignored also point to our reluctance to take preemptive action to avoid a disaster resulting in almost a thousand people killed. Yet, those who have predicted that Nigeria will be the next breeding ground for international terror have failed miserably.
Only charlatans will not understand that the destruction of lives in any part of Nigeria with impunity can lead to recrimination and passive indictment of the whole Country. We have to understand that our Armed forces are commanded by officers of different ethnic backgrounds. Mischievous baiters used that in the past to indict the group-leader to start new mayhem directed to his ethnic group with more loss of lives and properties.
For moral and this reason, anyone satisfied with the way the sect leader was summarily killed does not love peace, harmony and the rule of law taunted so much by this new Government. There is no doubt that many people will congratulate the combined Army and Police efforts to quickly bring the resistance to an end without further blood shed but the jungle justice of one, created doubts that can be easily exploited by miscreants. As for the fear of his release for whatever reason, there are many ways to skin a cat.
The Government may look tough especially after the Joint Task Force invasion of the Delta region and then the infiltration by foreign terrorist groups in the Northern part of Nigeria but these types of adventures must be measure by the resolution achieved on long term basis. Almost all of our leaders have been accused of high handedness in dealing with revolts in various parts of Nigeria. Some cases have been labeled genocide. A country with our past must thread cautiously in putting down revolts.
The amount of corpses on street in Maiduguri and the surrounding cities where the foot soldiers were engaged conveyed the impression that the Government gave orders to kill like no man’s business. If the Government wants to instill in us that, no matter whom, action will be taken swiftly, it must not be at the expense of misguided poor people who have lost faith and being exploited because there are no jobs or caring system for them.
They must go after the Fulani, Hausa, Kanuri or Gambari leaders in the North as well as the Ijaw, Urhobo, Yoruba and Igbo financier in the South who facilitate these thugs. The Warri mayhem is still fresh in our memories where brothers were killing brothers and in-laws went after one another. We hear about some confidential names in possession of the President that were never brought to justice for sponsoring mayhem in Nigeria.
There are rampant speculations that the sect leader and one of his fanacier that were summarily executed hid behind untouchable men. If these people were quarantined and isolated like lepers, Nigeria may be a better place. We must expect rumors without adequate airing of their crime and punishment. After all, we have capital punishment.
Their financiers are the ones who steal us blind and use the money to cause havoc on the disposables man they loot from. Some said they are so powerful if anyone touched them, that government would be overthrown. This was what we heard before Obasanjo retired all the military politicians. The same fabulous crap we heard before Babangida annulled our only free and fair election. It sounded like what we heard before Abacha quarantined Babangida. Dansuki, Sultan of Sokoto was displaced and nothing happened.
However, if some of us were naïve by thinking that not all leaders can get away with all these, that only certain leaders can, fine. Then try, because nothing worse can happen. Heaven has already fallen on so many people in Nigeria anyway. We had a civil war, ethnic war and military takeovers. We can be better off if these influential people are brought to justice instead of killing their misguided recruits we created by neglect and share want of relevance. The fact remains that they can always raise more soldiers.
The religious riots going on in the North must be brought under control, we concurred. Those types of fanatics invite foreign terrorists into fertile ground locally. Reorientation on a grand scale is needed for Africans regarding the use of adulterate education from the West or East. It is a means of communication with the outside world, not a doctrine that must be fought for or against amongst brothers and sisters in the same country.
It remains to be seen if unified African law developed and influenced to a limited extent by practical and reasonable common law all over the world would make a difference in Nigeria. Many people are disillusioned by those who fooled them campaigning on Sharia law, only to discover that their governors were hypocrites. They were the last people to subject themselves to Sharia law. Some people honestly believe in Sharia just as others believe in Christian law blindly and interpret it according to the days they were written.
If this is the bone of contention in the North, African scholars have the responsibility to respond and bring the masses into realities of the world today. The same is true in the South where Christian preachers have gone nuts for the pocket of the downtrodden to amass luxuries Jesus Christ would frown on. Religions split African cultures in pieces. We also have to admit that a society so obsessed with money at the expense of their people has little time to think deep and disassociate its people from their ignorance.
The fear of religion and its extremist’s converters have many people in doubt today of its relevance to peace in a community’s ability to live in peaceful coexistence with one another. The world has become one in a sense because of access and modern means of communication. Nigeria cannot exist in isolation but can limit its religious and economic interest to serve its people first before trying to impose foreign religious and economic solution to the problems at home.
This principle cannot be dictated by majority alone, but if the killing and maiming of innocent women and children is repulsive to enough people it will change lion hearts.
