Date Published: 08/21/09
The New Peace In Ebiraland
By Adabara Abdul Jelil
Welcome to peace: goodbye to violence and bloodshed; goodbye to widowhood caused by political and clannish violence; goodbye to tears, cries and agonies of mothers who are weeping the loss of their sons and daughters; goodbye to social and economic backwardness; goodbye to insecurity; goodbye to loot caused by the bad-freedom to plunder; goodbye to the inhumanity of war and violence; goodbye to the economic depression caused by the violence in Ebiraland. Welcome to peace and brotherhood; welcome to safety of lives and properties; welcome to economic development; welcome to happiness; welcome to unity; welcome to mutual forgiveness and oneness. Welcome to all exiled sons of Ebiraland! Praise be to Almighty Allah because a new Ebiraland is in focus! A peaceful Ebiraland has come! Ebiraland, I say to you: welcome to peace!
But no salutation to comradeship in violence which shed needless blood in Ebiraland. No glory for motiveless loss of live and properties caused by the desires for power by any section-political, clannish or otherwise. No heroes should be reckoned-with in a war between brothers, between a people of the same historical blood, who are inflamed against each other as a result of their pitiable vulnerability on one hand, and the ill quest for glory and ambition of their leaders on the other hand. The world knows that the nation of Ebiraland has been at war, not with an external enemy but with itself! Shame on the perpetuators of this war who it seems have failed to realize that the people captured by the gun are vastly free in the mind, and at best, are only being forced to pretend. So daft are the sponsors of this crime, they can neither see the source of true victory nor understand the meaning of peace. Evidently, peace confuses them because their minds are full of perversion, their ambitions are entirely inordinate. But we must also blame those who allowed themselves to be used as tools of war while we sympathize with, not envy, those who lost their lives while serving the unjust cause of others. They feed on thoughts of bloodshed, and delight in war-cries. But praise be to Allah whose force of peace is mightier than the forces of all the warriors combined together! The battle-field gladiators of the immediate past violent years, as well as the politicians or clannish leaders, who profited by it, have by no means arrived at hero hood. So too all those who lost their lives while soldiering to deprive others of their own lives. They are not heroes! Exemplary hero hood is primarily rooted in noble causes.
Dear reader, it is a statement worthy of being made that violence is not peace, and it cannot found peace; it has not the qualities to retain peace, and must be abolished as a means of conflict resolution by all the sons and daughters of Ebiraland as well as civil societies worldwide! Haven masterminded the loss of lives and properties; they have by no means set an example either as leaders or followers, or warriors, or as people in a position of admiration. Allah be praised, the battles have gone, a new peace is come! It is true that the brilliance of peace can neither be defeated by the vagueness of violence, nor by the elongation war time.
Our leaders should immediately begin a process of reunification and reconstruction which should have “true love” as its watchword. All clans belong to one brotherhood-the brotherhood of a progressive and united Ebiraland. And no single clan should consider itself an enemy of the whole. Ebiraland is a nation, and we are proud of it; Ebiraland is our commonwealth and we must defend it not, with the force of arms but with the force of love; Ebiraland is our heritage, we must preserve it not by altering the nobility of its values but by holding them dear to our hearts.
Therefore, Oziogu, Oziomoye, Ehebe, Eyire, Aniku, Omavi, Ezika, Emani, and every clan under the auspices of the Ebira-genealogy must begin to act as brothers. This writer cannot pretend to underscore the expensiveness of the violent years of Ebiraland. In several quarters, fires razed the hard-earned castles of men; human beings have been slaughtered on common streets; words have been exchanged; hatred has been instituted and the violence of the old Ebiraland sustained the ugly development. Yet, the judgment of the wise is that violence favours no one, and never will. So the injured should summon the grace to forgive. Especially the innocent victims of violence who are unlucky to have lost their lives and, or properties in the mayhems of Ebiraland.
I wish to urge the immediate reconstruction of Okene, Ihima, Adavi as well as the reunification of Idozumi, Idare, Idoji, Ahache, Ahogede, Okene-Eba, and all the regions whose links were divorced from each other as a result of the disunity caused by the latent crisis. I must warn the leaders that delay is as dangerous as violence itself, for it is capable of inflicting new pains on recuperating victims. I also wish to admonish the sons and daughters of Ebiraland whose efforts to restore peace we here celebrate today. May I further suggest to the five Local Government Councils of Okene, Adavi, Ogori-Magongo, Ajaokuta and Okehi to immediately constitute Rehabilitation and Resettlement Committee which should be charged with the responsibility of ensuring the comfort for displaced persons. The committee may be further charged with the special task of appeasing the injured strangers in our midst. It is my humbly recommendation that the period of violence which the committees mandate should cover should be made to include all violent period in recent era, for example since year 2009. The purpose of this recommendation is to redeem the ill image of Ebiras and Ebiraland in world view. While reunifying and reconstructing our dear home land, we must also act in friendship toward all those to whom our violence brought misfortune: Igbos, Igalas, Hausas and several other trades to travelers either lost their properties or were harassed by our condemnable violence. The committee should please look into the means by which our image of hospitality can be immediately and permanently restored.
But several are the lessons to learn from the new peace. It must be sustainable and lasting and forgiveness must be true and permanent. The politics of rancour must be laid to rest and a new Ebiraland of peace should be allowed to prevail. All sons and daughters in exile should be admonished to return to a peaceful Ebiraland irrespective of religion, clan or political affectation. We must allow a new era of development to reign, we must institute peace and speed-up development in other to make up for lost time.
May I assert that no obscurity is before us, for I see a brilliant dawn for Ebiraland! Irrespective of the violence that characterized our immediate past, we should rejoice in this advent of peace, and we should retain it; we should hallow it; we should welcome and protect it by the indomitable force of unity and brotherly affection. Ebiraland, welcome to new peace!
Abdul Jelil is the Secretary: Ebira Youth Peace Initiative Movement (EYPIM), Okene, Kogi State.
