By Ment Nnomeh
This piece was originally scheduled for last Sunday. It didn’t fly. Editors frown at such default because it signals the requiem of a publishing house. It was indeliberate. Procrastination. I felt a punch on the brow and at the occiput, the rear, and nothing was connected. Dazed! Really, if you are above 65 years, even less, and fought the Nigerian Civil War, 1967-70, even tangentially, reading the graffiti on national political wall, and the leaders keep them as jokes, you will surely feel bad. A stich in time is meaningless? Yes it is. You may likely faint. War drums and chants are on and they point to violence. Nobody seems to proclaim peace. It is disheartening that at best it is a phony peace proposals to suspend national upheaval. And we oil the nuzzle of war ordering, like King Herod, the massacre of all new-born and two-year olds because a bigger king was born. Vain! Mary and foster father Joseph had escaped from Bethlehem with the King, Jesus Christ. From the North-east, where Boko Haram has held its ground for 11 years , even if it is in the sambisa forest, Nigerians are slaughtered, homelessly panting. Billions are spent managing the fraud. Let’s thank the military for efforts and sacrifice! Southern Kaduna is burning; call it ethnic cleansing or religious brigandage or communal upheaval, something evil is ongoing. Blood is river. Who cares? Recently, a former deputy governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Dr. Obadiah Mailafia, committed blasphemy. He granted a radio station live interview and said that a certain northern governor was the commander of the terrorist group, Boko Haram. Security agents went after him as he also held that the infiltration of terrorists into our circles is a 2022 war game. The growth of intolerance in democracy! From Sokoto to Zamfara, Katsina, Niger, Plateau, Benue terrorists are on the rampage. And down South, terrorist herdsmen have taken over forests unabashedly daring natives arguing that nobody owns the land. Danger brewing. The US, it was reported has warned the government of treating the infiltration of ISIS, Al- Qaeda and Boko Haram into the Southern part of the country with ignominy. Nigeria is on the boil. We can’t fake ignorance of who these irritants and their ideologies are; men who suck blood. It is the Taliban ideology. It is the Boko Haram ideology. That ideology is sprouting here and our people know that there are some Nigerians who, apart from Boko Haram, support the ideology. They invade the forests, bushes, the farmlands. They grab the land. Yes if insurrection lasts this long, blame God. Pass the blame to the devil. My late father, when he presided the village assembly would enjoin all to embrace peace because the gods of the land bless those who proclaim and live in peace. Equally, our parish Rev Father would admonish in his homily the essence of peace, ‘blessed are the peace makers, for they shall be called sons of God,’ adding before dismissing a mass, ‘go in peace, the mass is ended’, to which we chorus ‘ praise be to God’. Good relationship! Rewarding fellowship! Not so in national politics, of wolves and sheep, the strong and weak, the rich and the poor masses, the hewers of wood and drawers of water. We are in peril, perilous times.I am fainting again! Are they the new messengers of Herod? Remember, the massacre of the innocents of Bethlehem by Herod’s men did not stop the rise of a redeeming king, Jesus Christ. Those who inflict terror on us may well be advised to revisit the brutal life of Herod and its tragic consequences at benediction. Awful way to end.
THE ECHO 