A kì í gbọ́n tó “Èmi-lóni-í. One cannot be as wise as “I-am-the-owner.” (One should not presume to know as much about something as the owner.)
A kì í gbọ́n tó “Èmi-lóni-í. One cannot be as wise as “I-am-the-owner.” (One should not presume to know as much about something as the owner.)
As I put pen to paper in admonishing us Nigerians, it is exactly one week since, according to Police figures 27 students were killed, butchered, maimed and sent to the world beyond.
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In that one week, there have been a sizable number of commentaries, reportorial, editorial, opinions and very little in outrage. Somebody pardon me, but that's the truth, very little in outrage. We gradually with time have become a people that seems to be losing our humanity and not many are taking notice.
It took NANS, two days to respond, off course, they wanted to gather the facts (sic). The Nigerian Labour Congress did not think it was an issue to weigh in on. The federal executive council was even worse, as the best they did was sickening (taking their turns in condemning the act).
David Mark came close maybe by asking for the capital punishment for the perpetrators, but really that's as close as it gets. News reports talked of several arrests by the police, but the police denied any arrests.
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How did we get here, where dozens of students could be killed 'just like that'. And after one week there is no real headway concerning motive, killers and arrests?
I have a vague idea. We got here the same way we got to the spot where a girl was raped serially in the east and it was put on social media yet all that was denied by the authorities. We got here when kids were killed and thrown into the well in Kuru, no one was held liable.
We got to our present state when there was Dogo Nawa and the Jos praying ground massacre, the Christmas day bombings and countless daylight murders, be it Boko Haram, haram boko or bokoless haram.
We got here slowly and steadily and we don't even know yet, that seamlessly we are moving even further. One week gone, authorities have no tenable official empathy for parents and relatives of these kids. Not even the state governor has been to Mubi.
Only a week back a boat capsized and some three scores plus drowned, it just passed off as news. How about those roasted by accidents based on human causes? Nothing just happens to anyone, as long as yours is not involved, we give thanks and carry on.
We are becoming by the day, strangly, defying death in our mean way by a non-challant unexplainable manner.
How is it that the death of these students have been reduced to rumours, the same way the death of some traders in same Adamawa was treated to rumours and case closed. No proper sense of closure to any mass killing irrespective of creed, faith or origin.
In Mubi, Christians and Muslims were killed, cut short in their prime. I say it categorically with time it will be confined to the dirt bin of once upon an event and left with several permutations of who it could have been. Investigations will take forever, while police and other security agents involved will be posted elsewhere and others will die.
All these are for many reasons like the vague ones I have raised...the elite are not killed, their children do not school in Mubi or are not trapped in floods in Markudi, Lokoja or removed places in Anambra or Delta.
Over a decade of heinous murders, no visible headway, phony arrests are made, police statements are contradictory, cold blooded killers get bail and no convictions, we all lose our humanity and become quasi-cannibals. In a community on Port Harcourt over alleged stealing or robbery, students are beaten, and burnt to death in very unclear stories.
Finally Cynthia and the Facebook killers, after commentary, are fading in our consciousness. Just the same way in few weeks after the usual "Mubi Massacre-How students were killed and eye witness stories" will all fade.
In Abuja in the last few months mob actions have been the order of the day. Citizens stripe suspects both male and female and apply jungle justice of various forms. If victim is lucky the police arrives, if not, you pray and wish you are not mistaken for a crime by the public.
As much as I am a believer in the goodness of the real Nigerian spirit, I am also afraid to say that a sizable number of Nigerians have become wicked beyond imagination and for now those few are winning.
I don't need to re-echo the fact that the government and its security apparatus has been stunned, I don't need blame Jonathan, NSA, SSS or the maligned police. These persons are not losing families, or friends like the common man.
I end with these few facts. When some years back, the kidnap market opened shop, we played politics with it, many of us cried our voice hoarse but today the African Insurance Organization says Nigeria accounts for 25% of global kidnappings reported worldwide. This was disclosed this in its newsletter on kidnap and ransom insurance coverage during the ongoing forum in Balaclava, Mauritius.
"We have become designated as the global capital for kidnap for ransom due to the huge record of kidnap cases reported in the country yearly", the report said.
Thus, making the likes of Mexico child's play...the Mubi massacre is another dimension to our blind race to doom. Let us not think that all these will just go away. I started by saying A kì í gbọ́n tó “Èmi-lóni-í.” One cannot be as wise as “I-am-the-owner.” (One should not presume to know as much about something as the owner.) We are the owner of this contraption
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