I am awake at three in the morning wondering how we got here as a nation, where even to go out requires strategic thinking. Freedom to travel has been stolen away and major cities and hinterlands across Nigeria are suddenly inaccessible, impenetrable and no-go area.
I was born in Kaduna and went to secondary school at the famous Queen of Apostles College, Kakuri, Kaduna State, graduating when it became Queen Amina College. My friends and classmates were all from the schools around there – St Faith Kaduna, Rimi College Kaduna, which used to be St John. The governor of Kaduna State went to secondary school here. I often wonder what happened.
I have braved it many times by train, by air and by road as I make my way to Kano where I am currently pursuing an educational interest at Bayero University Kano. I have driven past Kaduna, gritted my teeth as I make my way and stayed the night very rarely. But Kaduna is a beautiful and much improved city these days from how I knew it then. Overtly for a while, my family and friends advise I avoid Kaduna like plague on my way to Kano.
I have tried to imagine those who died, their last thoughts at the hands of people they neither know nor have ever heard of. I am in a mourning toga while thinking of those that were taken away, abducted, derided, …
Once I missed my flight home from Kano and travelled by road to Abuja my entire family prayed as if I went on a spy mission to a dangerous territory like all the war-torn zones around the world. Although I arrived home safely, my family nearly suffered a nervous breakdown as I made my way home. Now, we all know by the recent train attack that indeed a war has been declared by these people who we cannot find an appropriate appellation for.
I must have watched the footage of the mangled train and glass splinters and blood like 50 times, and I feel so sad for my nation. How did we get here? What do these people want that they use ordinary people as cannon fodder? I must have taken that train a dozen times in my sojourn to and from Kano, and like I earlier explained in a previous article, more than thrice the 6pm one that got attacked. I have tried to imagine those who died, their last thoughts at the hands of people they neither know nor have ever heard of. I am in a mourning toga while thinking of those that were taken away, abducted, derided, undone as they walk through the forest to include women and children.
The men among them, impotent in the face of gun toting persons of no known address, most of them barely out of their nappies. The children cannot even comprehend and the trauma will be life lasting. What did they ever do to deserve this treatment while the rest of us are sitting comfortably at home? If I feel this bad, how are their families feeling? People’s parents, children, brothers and sisters. Everyone is sad but we need to ask ourselves how we got here.
I have sorrowed deep for our many citizens in captivity whose names are not known and written in the papers. Then, of course, there are the remaining Chibok girls who have gone from abductees to sex slaves, and then to wives of terrorist commanders, their souls lost forever. I have heard the stories of persons kidnapped, ransoms paid and then the victims killed, irrespective. Then there are tales of beheadings and narratives that boggle the mind.
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We are living in difficult times and we are now looking over our shoulders wherever we go. It’s insane as these abductors are people’s children and brothers and how they have now become strangers among us. Those who know them now keep sealed lips for fear of attacks, and whole villages are being wiped out. How can we live like this courting religious intolerance, political brigandage and assault and abductions for money as a new business model.
That train attack tells us it could have been anyone of us.
But all of these have to be hinged on keeping hope alive. If you work hard, be honest and disciplined, you should never be in a helpless situation with people you don’t know away from family and friends. Even the ostentatious and frauds among us should never suffer such indignity. We vote them out if they are politicians and hand them over to the relevant authorities if they are frauds.
It’s shattering to know the number of days our brothers, sisters and children have been in captivity since the train attack. But there are also those out there longer. It’s so hard.
Now that the 2023 presidential election campaign has opened and everyone is running, this is a good time to ask candidates, pseudo – candidates and jokers, what are you going to do about the security situation? How do you plan to bring back our girls? How do you plan to stop this neo-slavery in the 21st Century? Before our very eyes, the trade in human beings is in full swing. If not through kidnaps then through the sale of body parts.
It’s time for historians and social scientists to ask the question of a full-blooded Nigerian when slave traders came to our shores, who was quick to sell his brother? Who should we blame now? White men and women bought our kindred from our chiefs and brothers for mirrors and tobacco, and now we sell each other for a plate of pottage. Let us pray!
