Deputy Editor, SONI DANIEL, writes on the subsidy and sectarian crises that are pushing Nigerians to the edge, and espouses the need to stave off the looming doom that has the potential to hurt the nation and its people at a period of unnerving economic peril.
The bombs have been booming unceasingly. Each time the rubbles begin to clear, blood, tears and sorrow flow as torrents of a surging river, difficult to control. From the crevices, bodies of innocent children, men and women are wheeled away into ramshackled morgues, decrepit hospitals and emergency wards of private and public medical facilities.
And, as an unwritten but effective rule, security agents have always been taken unawares by the blood suckers, who unconscionably bomb, kill and main others as if they are an invading army, on a mission to annihilate their enemies.? As the ripples of the incessant bombings and massacres resonate in the land, confusion, fear, agony, anger and hatred have been woven into the very fabric of the nation’s life.
Nigerians have never had it so bad since the end of the civil war in 1970. Apart from the self-inflicted crisis triggered by the reckless annulment of the June 12 presidential election won by Chief Moshood Abiola, Nigeria has never come as close to the brink of a civil war as it has been lately.
Even though the Nigerian army has not declared any war on anyone or group, all the attributes of war are already playing out on the streets of Nigeria daily, giving the people a real cause for concern. Just t as the guns, bombs and grenades wreak unmitigated havoc in many parts of the country, voices laced with tribal and sectarian coloration, have flared up, stoking the embers of conflict that is fast consuming lives and property across the country.
The vitriolic speeches, which are in most cases given by undeserving persons, have significantly helped in weakening the unity, peace and cohesion that bind Nigeria together. And there appears to be no end in sight following the latest round of bombings that have consumed many Christians in many parts of the North lately.
Just after the Christmas Day massacre of over 43 Christians by the Islamic sect-Boko Haram at Madalla in Niger State, the group struck in Adamawa, Gombe and Kano and killed scores of Christians in quick succession, forcing many Christian leaders, politicians, academics and well meaning Nigerians to issue statements reminiscent of war times.
The pernicious Islamic group provoked the series of verbal onslaught that has enveloped the country and unleashed a wave of counteractions from the different strata of society but mostly driven by the age-long Christian/Moslem divide.? The attacks and counter attacks on the pages of newspapers and broadcast media have left discerning Nigerians with the fear that the country is fast falling apart along ethnic and religious lines.
After the brutal murder of many persons in parts of the North, the Boko Haram elements appeared undone and unsatisfied with its agenda and went a notch further to issue an ultimatum to Christians to quit the North within three days or risked being wiped out.
“We find it pertinent to state that soldiers will only kill innocent Muslims in the local government areas where the state of emergency was declared. We would confront them squarely to protect our brothers. We also wish to call on our fellow Muslims to come back to the North because we have evidence that they would be attacked.? We are also giving a three-day ultimatum to the Southerners living in the Northern part of Nigeria to move away,” Abdul Qaqa, the sect spokesman said.
But that did not go down well with Niger Delta militants, who have a penchant for war and conflicts. Same day, the leader of the dreaded Niger Delta Salvation Front, Muhajid Asari Dokubo, who led a 2004 rebellion in the creeks until the late Yar’Adua declared amnesty in 2009, warned Boko Haram not to provoke a war in the country by asking Southerners to leave the North.
“It is seconds away … Nigeria is on the precipice of a civil war. For Niger Delta people to take up arms is just a minute away. It’s just Goodluck that is holding us back,” said Asari, who converted to Islam many years ago.
“We have all reached the extreme. There is nothing anybody can do about it except we fight,” he added.
Many eminent Nigerians, who are apparently worried by the turn of events climaxed by hate speeches and rancorous statements, have voiced their concern over the way the country was drifting towards the precipice at a time of supposed peace.
In what appears as a verdict from a man who rarely comments on national issues, the Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal Mohammed Dikko Yusuf, has described the high level of insecurity in Nigeria as a threat to National unity and constituted a risk to not only the peace and unity of Nigeria but also to the effort of its founding father to keep the country as one.
He said that Nigeria was passing through an extra-ordinary time when some events that were ’’threatening to shake the foundation laid by the founding fathers of this great nation are happening”.
Nobel laureate, Prof Wole Soyinka, after observing the trend of events in the country, warned that was gradually heading towards a civil war and blamed political leaders who spread religious hate, for the situation.
Soyinka, who spoke on the World Service of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) agreed with President Goodluck Jonathan that the current unrest was worse than the 1960’s civil war and added, “It’s not an unrealistic comparison. It is certainly based on many similarities.”
He expressed worry that the unrest threatened the State of Nigeria itself and? added :“It is going that way. We no longer can pretend it’s not.
“When you’ve got a situation where a bunch of people can go into a place of worship and open fire through the windows, you’ve reached a certain dismal watershed in the life of that nation.”
According to him,? “There are people in power in certain parts of the country – leaders – who quite genuinely and authoritatively hate and cannot tolerate any religion outside their own.
“When you combine that with the ambitions of a number of people who believe they are divinely endowed to rule the country and who believe that their religion is above whatever else binds the entire nation together -? and somehow the power appears to slip from their hands, then they resort to the most extreme measures,” Soyinka said.
The former governor of Abia State, Dr. Orji Uzo Kalu, stepped into the tribal ring with a strongly worded warning that the Igbo would never again keep quiet over the killing of their kindred in any part of the country.
In tone laden with rage and frustration, Kalu roared like a lion: “If we are singled out for attack again, we shall no longer turn the other cheek but shall demand an eye for an eye.”
“It is unacceptable that whenever there is any disagreement or crisis of any sort in this country, the Igbo are targeted, whether the issue at stake concerns them or not. The Igbo as a group have paid dearly for the unity of this country, and despite the pogrom that preceded the civil war, and the genocide against them during the civil war, they have continued to believe in and practically work for the unity of this country.?
The ingredients that caused the last civil war are fundamentally being thrown up again by what is happening today. Despite the massive budgetary allocation to defence and security, the Federal Government has not risen to the occasion in taking steps to stop this unwarranted descent towards ethnic cleansing, the former governor lamented.
But if the uproar thrown up by the killings in parts of the country was not frightening enough, the voices of dissent triggered by the sudden hiking of the pump price of petrol by Mr. President, are something to give the administration some sleepless nights.
Alarmed by the success of the mass protests called by the organised labour, which effectively grounded the country since January 9, 2012, many chatterers have tried to whip? up ethnic, religious and political sentiments into the removal of subsidy, which is clearly an issue that the president and his handlers have not been able to handle with wisdom. They faltered from the outset of the highly contentious subsidy debacle. If ever the president and his groups had any justifiable reason to hike the price of petrol, they should have been able to keep their cool and allow hapless folks who travelled home for the annual ritual of Christmas, to return to their bases before unleashing the hardship that has emboldened them to open their fangs against the system.
As a people whose tongues have been clipped, none of them has seen anything wrong in Jonathan’s malevolent and unpalatable decision against the generality of Nigerians. They have also not been able to look at him straight in the face and tell him what the people are passing through since the infamous action pushed Nigerians to the edge.
While the nation was almost being consumed by the action of the government, some groups sympathetic to Jonathan but obviously opposed to the wellbeing of Nigerians, rose up to attack unnamed persons in the country rather than tackle the issue at stake.
One of the groups, which vented its anger in a widely publicised advertorial, tried in vain to push to Nigerians the vague idea that some persons from the North, who are opposed to Jonathan’s regime, were behind the upheavals in the land. They did not however give any concrete evidence to prove their warped theory.
The group therefore suggested that the country should be redefined. It said, “The leaders of “Niger Delta Nation”, being led by some young intellectuals from the region, have advised the leadership of the country to begin to re-negotiate a new starting point for the continued existence of Nigeria as a nation, by negotiating a “peaceful dissolution of the Nigerian State”, as was the case with the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), Ethiopia and Czechoslovakia.
“Nigerians currently have time and space re-negotiating a new basis of our continued corporate co-existence as a nation or negotiate a peaceful dissolution of the Nigerian State as was the case with USSR, Ethiopia, and Czechoslovakia. Or do we allow the country to slide into a bloody disintegration of the Black race’s largest democracy, as did Sudan and Yugoslavia?
“As it appears now, the Sudan and Yugoslavia option is now very apparent and fearfully looming as the anarchy and potential loss of innocent lives, including plans to assassinate or overthrow the government of Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, portrays. This is totally unnecessary.”
In spite of the wild allegations in the statements, it is not clear why the law enforcement agents who are always on the prowl for seditious sentiments against the state, have not invited these elements to name those who want to kill the president and why.
But rather than confront the issue that has brought down the economy on its knees for many days, the security agents in some of the states, went wild, shooting, killing and breaking the limbs of unarmed protesters. At the last count yesterday, no fewer than 20 might had been killed in the subsidy protests in Lagos, Kano, Kogi, Niger, Edo, Osun and Oyo states.
The government is overwhelmed by the large number of Nigerians so far killed by Boko Haram across the country since the sect started its bombings, mostly targeted at Christians, in 2009. It has lost count of the innocent souls killed, maimed and displaced from their abode. Perhaps, as a sign of admittance of the sect’s growing influence, the president declared a few days ago that his administration had been infiltrated by Boko Haram, but did not say what he would do to dislodge it.
Nothing more than mere threats may ever be done, given the initial posture by the president that insurgency is a global phenomenon and that Nigeria is not an exception.
The sectarian crises in Nigeria have become so pervasive that the United Nations has warned Nigeria not to allow the group to destroy the country.
The UN in a warning sent to Nigeria on Thursday, said, “She said, “The religious tolerance that has been a central tenet of Nigeria’s federation is being threatened, and I urge all Nigeria’s leaders to avoid falling into the trap of calling for, or sanctioning, retaliation or making other provocative statements.
Everybody will be the loser if Boko Haram succeeds in its aim and efforts to sow discord between Muslims and Christians, or pit Northerners against Southerners.
“The fact that people are already leaving some areas where they are in a minority, out of fear of reprisal attacks by the majority, shows just how dangerous this is becoming for the country as a whole. Anyone inciting violence or hatred must be held accountable, no matter who they are.”
“It is essential that the country’s leadership, and especially its Muslim and Christian leaders, join forces to unequivocally condemn all violence, including retaliation, and encourage their followers to identify and help arrest all those involved in killings and other acts of violence that have been taking place,” Mrs. Navi Pillay,the UN
High Commissioner for Human Rights, said.
And, while the protests and killings were going on, the government adopted a propaganda strategy that is reminiscent of wartime. The media, depending on who their owners are, reported the strike as if a real war had broken out in the country. They government media in particular churned out serious propaganda and adopted other barefaced lies to deceive the citizens about the strike itself. A government-owned television network was the worst offender. For instance, when the House of Reps passed its resolution at an emergency session on Sunday, January 8, it said: “House of Reps orders labour to suspend strike and go for dialogue.”
Again, when the Senate followed same on Tuesday Jan 10, the same station screamed: “Senate orders labour to suspend strike, followed by a vexatious headline: “Attorney General of the Federation, Mohammed Bello Adoke, reminds workers of ‘No Work, No Pay’ and asks them to resume work.” When it dawned on the station that it had misfired, it went on to say that the resolution passed by the House was a mere advisory and not binding on the government. It did not say anything about the Senate resolution mandating the president to revert the pump price of petrol to N65.
Unlike in previous propaganda run by men in times of great national crises, the current one is being spearheaded by a woman, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, who doubles as Finance Minister and the Coordination Minister for the Economy, whom the former Senate President, Dr. Iyorchia Ayu, has described as a World Bank representative in the cabinet of President Goodluck Jonathan.
She is amply supported by the CBN governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi,? Diezani Alison Madueke, the petroleum minister, and her information counterpart, Labaran Maku, a man who had before now paraded himself as a labour activist, opposed to any form of ill-treatment of the Nigerian worker .? But as hard as they have tried to sell the dummy of fuel subsidy removal to Nigerians, they have deliberately refused to tell Nigerians how much it costs the government to refine or procure a litre of fuel to warrant the selling of same at the cost of N141.
Like a bad product, the subsidy brand on their hands has refused to ignite the expected response from the Nigerian audience: it has only provoked what looks like a revolution far beyond the imagination of the protagonists of the action and pitched them against Nigerians. The government and its agents are hard put to explain why it has become fashionable for them to suddenly raise enough money to inset multiple-paged coloured ‘wraparound’ adverts in virtually all the major newspapers in the country and sponsor spurious groups to sing the benefits of subsidy removal in the midst of an economy that would soon ‘collapse’ without full deregulation.?
While the nation is passing through a turbulent time with echoes of war raging like a hurricane across the land, it is left to be seen how the conflict will be contained and the wellbeing of the nation and its people guaranteed in the unfolding drama of the absurd that blows like an ill wind fueled largely by images emanating from a sharply divided mediaalong the lines of ownership, politics, religion and tribalism.
It is doubtful if the news media could have done any better in times like these when the need for round-the-clock information has heightened across the globe. It is all too clear that what Susan Moeller predicted in 1999 about media manipulation in times of crises has already taken roots in the current crisis in Nigeria.
Moeller said, “In today’s 24/7 all-news, all-the-time environment, the potential for manipulation and distortion of information is exponentially greater than it was even 15 or 20 years ago.”
It is not however likely that the current attempt by some sections of the media in Nigeria to manipulate the audience in order to achieve their selfish aim can quicken the resolution of the problems triggered by sectarian violence and the fuel subsidy battle.
As Stephen Ward, an expert in media and conflict resolution once argued, conflict reduction is not served by censoring voices, slanting the evidence, hiding uncomfortable facts, engaging in partisanship, or communicating uninformed spin.
But will the government allow its media outlets to tell Nigerians the truth no matter how painful, so that they can understand the issues at stake, make informed decisions and give the administration the desired goodwill, support and understanding?
That, in a way, could douse the rising tension, fear and terror that are already raging across the landscape over ‘wars’ that have not been declared by Nigeria. As the former Senate President, Dr. Iyorchia Ayu, has said, Nigeria may be toying with time bomb with the hiking of fuel price on the New Year Day.? Will the government continue to remain evasive to the plight of Nigerians and allow the ‘bomb’ to explode on all of us?