For Nigerians, these are perilous and uneasy times as their lot is being made worse on daily basis by a myriad of issues that have gone beyond the daily and normal challenges of life and living. An otherwise rich country, Nigeria has become an enclave where lives of citizens simply mean misery and pain.
In Nigeria, poverty, hunger and long suffering have become national identities and stubborn visitors in many homes. Today in this country, the combined negative effects of inflation and recession have reduced life and its value to zero, all because the national economy is slowing and leadership seems inept, insensitive and clueless. As if these are not enough, the country has been put under siege with the activities of people who, for political convenience and other considerations, have been identified as bandits or gunmen — a nebulous description that neither locates them to any region or district nor links them to any known sect.
The bandits are not only killers, they are also rapists and kidnappers who have made major highways in Nigeria dreadful, risky and unsafe. Like wild fire, the activities of these killer-bandits are spreading, leaving in their trail destruction, death and woes.
Last Saturday, about 43 rice farmers were killed in what President Muhammadu Buhari described as an “insane” attack in northeast Nigeria. Reports say the attackers tied up the agricultural labourers working in rice fields and slit their throats near Maiduguri, the Borno State capital. The Boko Haram faction loyal to Abubakar Shekau on Tuesday claimed responsibility for the attack and, as usual, the government has so far done nothing beyond the president saying “I condemn the killing of our hard-working farmers by terrorists in Borno State. The entire country is hurt by these senseless killings. My thoughts are with their families in this time of grief. May their souls rest in peace.” And with this, the government goes to sleep.
In some cases, the government whose statutory or constitutional role is to protect lives and property remains silent. This silence, at such trying times as these in the land, is not golden in our opinion. It is hurting and heart-rending. The silence becomes all the more thought-provoking and head-whirling when the mindless killings by the bandits are placed side-by-side with mere agitations by self-determination seekers in some regions of the country and the government’s swift reaction to them.
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Nigerians are worried that the federal government which once vowed to ‘crush rascals and economic saboteurs’ in the country does not see the ungodly activities of the bandits bad enough to attract prompt and decisive action. We join the rest of Nigerians to condemn, in its entirety, government’s inaction and un-golden silence. We condemn more the excuse by government’s apologists that it is dealing with this act against God and humanity silently. In street parlance, it is said that whenever and wherever there is crisis, any onlooker is either a villain or a conspirator. We cannot agree more.
We are worried about the senseless manner people are killed in Nigeria and the looming danger if nothing is done to halt them. We are all the more worried by the inaction of the government because this silence has created room for various interpretations of the activities of the bandits. We believe that the unity of this country is sacrosanct and non-negotiable and therefore, we expect the government to promote this unity by rising to the occasion of protecting lives and property of all Nigerians irrespective of class or creed. We take exception to the idea of government condemning “this dastardly act” and mobilizing all its security apparatus to “fish out the perpetrators” only when the killing or kidnapping involves a ‘big man’ and his family but turns blind eye and deaf ear when a poor man and his family are involved. The life of every Nigerian should be precious to the government and should be treated as such.
