THE UGLIEST INDEPENDENCE ANNIVERSARY GIFT: WHAT IS THEIR CRIME?

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…By Eddie Onuzuruike…

It was Heinrich Heine, the German poet who observed that ‘wherever they burn books, they will also in the end burn human beings.’

A few years ago, a group called themselves Boko Haram, meaning No to Western Education. It sounded like a joke but we know better today as Nigerians have become the joke of all times.

Gujba in Yobe State, Northern Nigeria has made history rubbing shoulders with Somalia, Beirut, Bosnia and Herzegovina, West Bank and Gaza strip- the killing fields and trouble spots of the world.

The difference is that most of the places mentioned above are in war zones where battle and violence are the names of the game.
Sadly Gujba is in Nigeria. Sadder is that Nigeria is not fighting any war. Even in war situations, the School of Agriculture where innocent students, the so-called greater tomorrow were, should have been a DMZ- demilitarized zone. The Red Cross and Red Crescent insignias would have been, bold and fluttering to the extent that bomber and fighter aircrafts would have seen them and avoided them like sacred cows. Even stray bombs and bullets landing on the roofs of the school would have attracted United Nations investigation and opprobium.

But Nigeria is not at war neither are we in any fierce political struggle. We got our independence in 1960 without firing a shot but through sharp wits and oratorical eloquence of our founding fathers. We are in peace time, yet some mindless countrymen descended on students who are being trained to feed the nation and reduce the importation of food to the oil producing and exporting country.

Some questions beg for answers. Who masterminded and executed this dastardly and unthinkable act? What is, or, are the motives? Should helpless children we are supposed to protect be the target? If it is for power and raising consciousness of any kind, should it be bloodstained? What kind of leadership will come from ruthless murderers of children?

Even ferocious animals like tigers, lions and the cheetahs spare their cobs. Watch how the mother hen fiercely comes after an intruder when near her brood. Has any sane fellow dared to snap a puppy from the dog?

Yet humans termed homo-sapiens otherwise Wiseman, premeditatedly and without conscience kill our kind, young ones for that matter in Nigeria. To what can we liken this? It was like a sharp knife slashing through a banana stem, hot knife on cheese or rather, a burning spear on foam.

Sometime this year, Ombatse, an ethnic militia in Nassarawa State laid ambush and grazed down policemen and some security officers without any provocation. In the same Yobe State, students were attacked prompting the Government to close schools. It has been bad news from time to time. Mosques and churches burnt, schools, transport companies, human targets defenselessly hit here and there. There is need for us to sit down and think.

We sit down in our homes, eyes glued on Television and enjoy the exploits of Victor Moses. We are savoring the outing in January 2013, of Cup of African Nations which Moses and his teammates helped to win, but we killed his father and mother and certainly would have killed him if he was at home.

Among those children killed in Yobe school of Agriculture, there are more Victors, more Isaac Newtons, possible Albert Einsteins, Emeagwalis, Chikobi’s, yet it wasn’t by accident of fire, flood and drought.

In Madugiri, 14 students were killed in an exam hall; on June 7, students and two teachers were killed in same Yobe causing the Governor Ibrahim Gaidam to close the schools only for them to kill more numbers with greater tenacity. The first count was 53, the Ombatse mayhem of May 27, was in scores, yes these are numbers and may be negligible statistically, but like one Igbo proverb says, the corpse of the unknown are like logs of wood to others, but when connected to the dendritic human networks of brothers, sisters, children, uncles, mothers, it turns to anguish unlimited.

The wives of policemen killed by Ombatse in Nassarawa protested publicly when it dawned on them that they were made instant widows. In other cases, as many as we can imagine have been orphaned, made homeless, and others made childless.

This bloodthirsty hobby should stop! Let us see ourselves as human beings in the real sense. There are certainly many avenues and ploys to attract notice other than the blood of innocent children.