When you take everything away from a man or a people, including their
humanity, their loved ones, their land, their possessions, their faith,
their God, their self-respect, their identity and their dignity and you
put them and theirs under the fire and sword morning, day and night you
cannot expect them not to voice their pain and not to scream and a shout.
And when the screaming and shouting goes unheeded you cannot expect them
not to hit back and attempt to break the yoke of torment, subjugation,
tyranny and slavery.
No matter how powerful you are and how long you have been killing them and
all that are theirs, one day they will rise up, pull you down from your
giddy heights and cut open your throats.
If history teaches us nothing else, it teaches us this. The morale of the
tale is as follows: mind how you insult and mock your victims and those
that you treat with contempt, kill at will and hold in bondage because one
day their time will come.
It is in this context that I view the shameful call by the Council of
Imams for the arrest of the President of the Christian Association of
Nigeria (CAN) and Christian leaders in Southern Kaduna for asking the
people to defend themselves from genocide.
The call is not only reckless and provocative but it is also self-seeking
and dangerous. They must stop this nonsense.
The facts are as follows. 808 Christians were butchered on Christmas eve
and Christmas day by the Muslim Janjaweed Fulani militia in Southern
Kaduna. Not one of the butchers and bloodthirsty murderers have been
identified, apprehended, killed or arrested since then by our security
forces.
The Christians of Nigeria are still in mourning and the people of Southern
Kaduna are still in trauma.
Yet there have been no soothing words or expressions of regret,
consolation or solidarity from any Sunni Muslim group in the country since
the pogrom took place.
Only threats and insults from the Council of Imams. The only exceptions
are the Shiite Muslims who have consistently expressed outrage about what
is going on in Southern Kaduna and who have themselves also been subjected
to mass murder and genocide in Kaduna state simply because they are not
Sunnis.
You first butcher the flock and then you say that the shepherd dare not
complain or attempt to protect those that are still left behind and alive.
What type of monsters are these?
The Supreme Council Of Islamic Affairs made matters worse by saying that
those that killed 808 Christians in Southern Kaduna on Christmas eve and
Christmas day were “unkown elements”.
Really? This, perhaps, is the biggest insult of all. It is rather like
saying that those that perpetuated the holocaust against the Jews which
resulted on the cold-blooded murder of 6 million Jews were “unkown
elements”. It is insensitive and it is callous.
It represents the greatest perversion of truth and most bestial denial of
decency and justice that Nigeria has witnessed in many years.
It is falsehood and pefidy, cooked up and served by a group of
unconscioble and uncontrollable dark and evil men who believe that they
can get away with anything and that they are a law into themselves.
Meanwhile, Miyetti Allah, an umbrella organisation that speaks for the
Fulani herdsmen and the Janjaweed militia, have said that the mass murder
of Christians that took place in Southern Kaduna on Christmas eve and
Christmas day were “reprisal” and “revenge” killings for the murder of
their kith and kin by the Christians of Southern Kaduna in 201. Need we
look any further for who the culprits are?
In his own contribution the Minister of Internal Affairs, General
Dambazzau, who is himself a Fulani Muslim, has roundly condemned CAN’s
call on the Federal Government to do its job and protect the people of
Southern Kaduna and their counsel to the Christians to defend themselves
where and when the government fails to do so. I ask again, what type of
monsters are these?
And why has our President refused to call them to order? Is it because he
shares the same faith and comes from the same region as them? Is it
because the President himself is not only a Muslim and a Fulani man but
also the Life Patron of Miyetti Allah?
Professor Wole Soyinka provides profound insight into the matter. He said,
“Religion in the history of this continent has been a disastrous venture,
a disaster in many zones and continues to be even so today. In this very
nation in Southern Kaduna, over 800 souls were brutally extinguished
suddenly. While the issue of grazing lands versus farming is
unquestionably part of the conflict, it is equally undeniable that
religious differences have played crucial role in the conflict. And yet
some weeks before the latest outrage, the governor of that state was
quoted to have claimed that peace was nigh since he had sent funds to the
earlier wave of killers and they had agreed to end their killing spree.
What astonished me was not the admission by the governor but the
astonishment of others at such governmental response to atrocity. There
was nothing new about it. Has appeasement to religious forces not become a
Nigerian face of justice and equity? First lethargy and then appeasement.
Wasn’t Boko Haram’s Muhammed Yusuf not a beneficiary of appeasement in a
similar fashion? Southern Kaduna has reminded us once again that the
monster always lying waiting to pounce under the guise of religion. If you
ask why General Buhari did not act fast enough when these events take
place, which degrade us as human beings, well it is perhaps he has been
waiting for the governor of that state to send money to the killers first
for them to stop the killing.”
Whatever the reasons are for the indifference of our President and the
callousness and insensitivity of the Council of Imams, the Supreme Council
of Islamic Affairs, Miyetti Allah, Governor Nasir El Rufai, General
Dambazzau and all those that support them, it would be wise for them to
appreciate the fact that the patience of the rest of the country is fast
running out and that they are set to provoke a chain of ugly events the
end of which will not augur well for them or their cause.
Nothing reflects this better than the words of Bishop David Oyedepo of
Winners Chapel, who is one of the most influential and powerful clerics in
the country, when he said,
“Since when has it become a crime for Christians to say they can defend
themselves ?
Must the north always rule? If Nigeria will break let it break. No
marriage is by force. I curse every Islamic northern forces sponsoring
this uprising of Fulani herdsmen and Boko Haram in Jesus name. You catch
anyone that looks like them, kill him! There is no reporting to anybody.
Kill him! Pull off his neck! And we spill his blood on the ground. What
nonsense. They said why should Christians say they could defend
themselves, hold it! What stupid statement, why should Christians say they
could defend themselves? So, they should watch for you to put a knife to
their necks? You think we are dummies? What! What? All those zeros census
they are fake. Where are the human beings?Where are they? We go around the
place. Where are they? We’ve never had a successful census in this
country. Where are they? Don’t mistake only those in politics as in power.
The anointed in the Lord are the ones in power. By divine ordination,
don’t mistake that. There was a king in the land but Elijah was
determining the events of the nation. If I say it will not rain here for
three years, it will not drop. What nonsense! Who born their mother, who
born their father? They are too small. Come! Get excited and walk in
confidence. Any devil that misbehaves around you will be slain by the
fire!”
Again Darius Ishaku, the Governor of Taraba state, said,
”The people of Southern Kaduna must wake up from their slumber and defend
themselves. You can’t just lie down and allow yourselves to be annihilated
by other groups. You have a constitutional right to self-defense and now
is the time to use it. The government alone cannot do it.”
Clearly the drums of war and conflict are already beating in our nation
and no-one takes a greater share of the blame for this than those
identifiable forces that are encouraging, sponsoring, protecting and
covertly supporting these barbaric and murderous Fulani militias and
herdsmen. They are all, to the last man, nothing but monsters and beasts.
(TO BE CONCLUDED).