A bomb blast was averted at ECWA church, Tudun Wada, Jos by a private
security guard on Sunday, 12th July, 2015. The guard had spotted the
device where it was strategically planted by the entrance of the church.
He quickly picked it and threw it away from the church premises. The
device on hitting the ground, caused a massive explosion that was heard
miles away across the city.
The magnitude of the explosion showed that if the plan to bomb the church
had succeeded, the carnage would have been unimaginable. The loss in terms
of lives and property and the psychological trauma the tragedy would have
inflicted on survivals, relations of the bereaved and every human being
with a sense of empathy would have been immeasurable. With every such
attack, we feel a collective sense of loss as humans. Our dignity is
assaulted and our psyche is haunted. Whether or not we share any form of
direct relationship with the victims, we feel a personal sense of loss, so
long as we have our humanity intact. So that attack would have inflicted a
deep wound not only on the victims and the people of Plateau state, but on
all of us as one body of humanity.
We are at war and it has been one long and extremely difficult war which
we have no idea when it will end. Since his inauguration, President
Mohammadu Buhari has consistently promised a new approach that will see to
the defeat of Boko Haram. That is as far as the military offensive is
concerned. The recent appointment of new service chiefs and the NSA has
brightened our prospects in the military aspect of the war. But fighting a
war takes more than a military offensive and I am afraid we are yet to get
it right on other fronts of the fight, such as the psychological warfare.
My worry is our cold attitude towards our heroes of this war and our many
other wars. They are hardly ever acknowledged, let alone celebrated. We
are only excited about the tragedy of victims and never about our heroes
because our media tells only the stories of lives that have been lost and
the property destroyed. Those are the stories that sell because of the
element of sensationalism that they bear. When a bomb blast is averted, it
hardly makes serious news.
How can a nation at war record only victims, when it has won several
battles? Perhaps we have become so accustomed to tragic news that when the
news is good, we seem totally uninterested in it. Initial reports of the
bomb blast at the church had claimed that lots of lives were lost and
citizens escalated it within minutes, especially on the social media. When
it turned out there were no casualties, there was a sudden lull which
showed the initial interest in the incidence was lost since it did not
claim lives.
I searched through all the media outlets that reported the story and I
could not find the name of the guard in any of the reports. He is nameless
and faceless, the nation does not recognise his bravery. If he were an
assailant that had killed scores of people, we would have known his name
and made him a celebrity. We are a nation that celebrates criminals and
despise honest and selfless people. The media and the government are the
biggest mongers of this strange culture we have of undermining our true
heroes and making false heroes of criminals. No medium, to my knowledge,
has made any effort to tell the nation who the guard is and the story of
his gallantry. In other climes, for days, all the major news outlets would
have focused on the young man and made him the trending news and the
government would have honoured him. Private organisations would have also
reached out to him with gifts that would reward his sacrifice. This is how
nations win their wars. They celebrate their heroes and inspire others to
contribute their own bit to the victory of the society.
This is one opportunity we have to re-write our story and turn the
psychological tide of the war in our favour. Unfortunately, we are missing
out on it and I hope we don’t let it happen. It is not too late to act on
the matter of the security guard and various individuals and members of
our security forces who have harnessed their bravery to save lives. The
Nigerian society must cultivate the culture of rewarding excellence and
sacrifice. It is the right of those who exhibit these virtues to be
rewarded.
We cannot undermine the action of that security guard. He saved us pain
and grief. He saved lives and the destinies of children and dependents
whose breadwinners were worshipping in the church that morning. Perhaps
there was an only child in the church whose death would have brought
unending grief to the parents or a young couple who just got married and
were looking forward to raising a family and pursuing their marital dreams
and he saved all of them. If we look at the human angle of that incidence,
we will better appreciate the action of the young man. He wrote a
beautiful episode of our story and it is our responsibility to tell it to
the world.
We always condemn the western media for telling only negative stories
about us, when we do not care about our good stories. We do not only have
bombers, we also have people who risk their lives to save others from
bombs. And we must tell their stories.
This era of change is a good time to begin a new chapter in our attitude
towards our good citizens and the security guard who saved lives in Jos is
a good starting point. The nation must rise to his ovation and honour his
bravery. The device could have detonated the moment he touched it. He
could also have simply ran away from the scene to save his own life. But
he made a decision to stand on the side of humanity and risked his life to
save all the others in the church. It is a matter of right for him to be
honoured and Nigeria owes him a debt of recognition and reward. He did not
do it for a reward and he is not demanding for any appreciation from us,
but it is in the interest of our dignity and reputation as a nation to
honour him as an encouragement to others. We must make this statement that
we are a people that value and reward sacrifice.
Iyorngurum is an editor, the secretary of Abuja Writers’ Forum and a
member of the #BringBackOurGirls advocacy group. He writes from Abuja and
can be reached on: elvisnigeria@yahoo.co.uk or @ElvisIyorngurum on Twitter