What happened in jos yesterday was totally barbaric and stands unreservedly condemnable in all ramifications. Wrong is wrong regardless of whosoever is involved and so therefore we should be bold and call a spade a spade. The body language of governors Lalong and Ikerelodu is nothing but a first step to an executive conspiracy otherwise why should they refer to the incidence as a mistaken identity.
If care is not taken it will reach a point where people will be forced to start writing justice in letters of blood by way of reprisals.
The Darfur genocide of 2003 is a stark reminder of our hypocrisies. The victims of the ethnic cleansing were non-Arab populations of Sudan. Arab countries that make the loudest noise about Israeli aggression against the Palestinians lost their voices because the victims happened to be black African Muslims. Arab racism is no less evil than Caucasian racism. You can't condemn white racism and condone Arab racism without being a hypocrite.
We should elevate our common humanity above race, religion and ethnicity. Why should a Christian be indifferent to the killing of Muslims because the perpetrators happen to be fellow Christians? Why should Muslims be indifferent to the murder of Christians because the culprits are fellow Muslims?
Our reactions to tragedies is always coloured by our religious and ethnic sentiments. There is no religion that doesn't preach love, but in practice, we portray religion as a tool for hate and destruction. We should have the courage to condemn evil doers, regardless of who they are. Solidarity with mass murdererers contradicts the concept of our common humanity. There is no place for political correctness when it comes to condemning evil and its perpetrators. The government should know and understand that all of us living and participating in running the affairs of this country under whatever capacity will certainly come to have a date with history and posterity will never have mercy on whosoever keep mute about these dastardly acts being perpetrated every day in Nigeria.
The government should halt and reverse this trend and identify means of dispensing speedy justice to express dissatisfaction with the animalistic tendencies ruling our affairs. Nigerians cannot afford to be existing in the 21st century while living in the primitive ages. Even lawless states like Somalia are operating with some decent level of respect for human lives. No modern society will allow innocent citizens on federal roads to be trapped and hacked to death for no reason other than being of the wrong ethnic and religious background caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.
With each round of renewed violence there will be investigative panels supposedly created to identify the immediate and remote causes of these deadly events and propose measures to avert future occurrence. Just why solutions proposed by past investigative panels are yet to provide solutions to these unnecessary killings defies logic and common sense. This is saying, the longer we remain at the level of debating these deadly events at committee room level without taking appropriate punitive measures to redress and prevent, the longer we remain in a perpetual circle of avoidable bloodshed and irritating shenanigans. Meanwhile we enjoined the public to remain calm and chose maturity over reaction.
BASHIR UMAR MOHAMMED
(PUBLICITY SECRETARY)
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