Long before now, I wanted to air my view concerning the recent U.S. President’s comment directed towards President Tinubu’s administration, but for some reason, I couldn’t. I couldn’t because the issue goes beyond tapping a few words/emoji/simile on monitor screens. Behind monitors, just about anyone can put up anything without fact-checking. However, when my good friend, Dr. John, eventually raised his voice on the matter a few days ago, I knew I couldn’t feign ignorance or keep silent. After all, it is often said that evil soars when men of goodwill keep silent.
Even now, I do not consider myself fit enough to tell the whole story of what it feels like to be butchered or wiped away from the surface of the earth on the basis of religiously aided insecurity or what the Donald Trump administration tagged “Christian genocide..” Drawing from past events, and except for the game of football, it is nearly impossible to judge national matters in Nigeria without an ample spray of ethnicity, religion, or political divide—emotions, instead of objectivity, dominate most times..
Many years ago, I was caught up in one of those many Jos crises. I saw things a child shouldn’t have seen; dead bodies littered the streets. I was lucky not to have been killed during the 2001 Jos crisis, for I was a Christian living in the wrong environment; a Muslim-dominated area called Congo Russia. My friend, Sadiq, was also lucky to be alive. Just like me, when the crisis started, he too was found in a Christian-dominated area. He made it out alive only because a good human hid him in his room.
When Donald said what he said about the systemic and reckless killing of Christians, I knew that the usual sentiments would sprout their ugly heads. Upon touching the tummy of an elephant, a blind man once called it a mountain. The blind man was not wrong. He only established a fact among many other characterizations. To further understand the context of things, it is only sensible to admit that, in this country, some Nigerians are more important than others. Lagos would rather have a bus stop named “Badoo” instead of “Charlyboy.
For those who think that the bone of contention is about whether there is indeed a Christian genocide or not, I hope we understand that no man qualifies to talk about the pain of the menstrual cycle or childbearing more than women.. Even if we pretend that all is well and that there is or has never been an iota of evidence to conclude that Christians are not being massacred, I am most certain that only a terrorist sympathizer would conclude that we are a nation at peace or that a hundred dead villagers does not warrant international intervention.
When push comes to shove, these terrorists do not mean well for our nation. Maybe it would have made more sense or reflected the actual state of things if President Trump had simply said that “there is a Muslim genocide.” The narrative I hear is that the USA interventionists are only in for self-seeking rent… a pursuit for resources.
When people talk about resources, I think that only those who have felt the pangs of terrorism possess the right to speak on such things. When the do, we must listen. The average Nigerian politician, guarded by a retinue of security forces, lacks the wherewithal to speak for the people who have had to bear endless, needless, and gruesome killings. After all, isn’t it ridiculous to see terrorists in their dozens put on army uniforms on the basis of repentance?
However, there are those who think that the killing is only but political. Maybe when such people become victims, they will understand that the only yearning of Nigerians is nothing but “live and let us live”.
– Olayinka Kayode writes from Kobape, Ogun State.
