Nigeria as a country has never had enemies worst than it’s own people who refuse to reason beyond geographical, religious or ethnic boundaries.
The recent unwelcome happenings across the country have never been more ugly in Nigeria than now, from the dreaded Boko Haram sect unleashing their terror in the Northeast to the marauding bandits in the Northwest kidnapping and maiming people in their home villages at will, coupled with serious criminal elements among herdsmen that are creating discord with automatic weapons in the Southwest, to the people waiting like a time bomb in the East parading as Biafra.
Literary speaking, Nigeria is on fire and unfortunately, issues like the second EndSARS protest is also coming at this point acting more of a fuel to the ongoing crises than a solution.
Our situation reminds me of a story of three thieves by our IRS teacher in secondary school, three friends agreed to coordinate a robbery and get a lot of money together, according to them it would be more protective since they would be watching each other back and give a hand whenever the need arises, they agreed to share money gotten in the robbery equally.
However, after a successful outing of their robbery in which they got a lot of money, the two friends sidelined the last person and sent him to buy them food to eat before sharing the money, unfortunately, he added poison to the food he bought anticipating them to eat and die so he could have all the money for himself, little did he know that his friends have also planned to kill him upon arrival to divide the money between themselves.
And they beat him to death after he brought the food, the first person, having been stronger also decided to kill the second one to have all the money alone instead of dividing it into two, but after murdering the other guy he decided to eat the food before taking the money alone, but he died from the food poisoning.
We must remember at this point, the story of a father who shared sticks with his children and instructed them to break it, which they successfully did, but surprisingly none of them could be able to break the sticks put together, it means we are stronger together and that the strength of unity can even break an iron. If we seek to destroy each other we might all die but when we all unite we become unbeatable.
Consider this three people and the children as Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba, the truth is we all have no other country than Nigeria, and by virtue of the crises we have at our table as a country at the moment, we already have more than enough to deal with, no one among us can kill another and live in peace, we are at the time to decide either to live in peace or die, we must leverage our commonalities and understand our difference to be able to live in peace.
Martin Luther King has never been more right in our contexts than today when he said “we must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools” this is the time for us to unite and identify our common enemy as a country and people bonded together by fate and destiny, our enemies are not Igbo, Yoruba or Hausa for that matter, we must put aside our primitive thinkings and wake up from the long time slumber that blocked our vision from seeing our true enemies spread across all ethnic extraction and regions.
There are predators who are always ready with their fangs wide open to bite upon any slide opportunities that present itself.
This issue originally started when Osun state decided to give all herdsmen notice to leave the state, despite agreeing that there are bad elements among herdsmen, it’s also the same thing in all other tribes in the country.
It’s a wrong decision that is clearly guided by tribalism and all these Ibadan killings are simply a manifestation effect of that desertions decision. Instead of giving quit notice to all the Fulani men, they could have sought to collaborate with peaceful Fulani men in the community to identify the criminals and bring them to justice but sending an entire tribe out of a state or region speaks more of a regional issue than safety.
The newly formed security outfit of Amotekun is also not helping matters as they are already overstepping their boundaries and even confronting police officers in the states. We have Fulani and Hausa people who have been living there for more than 60 years and these people were still chased out for the crimes of few people bearing their tribes.
Then it transformed from chasing Fulani from the West to targeting all Northerners in Ibadan, more than 20 people have died and about 5,000 displaced with properties worth millions vandalised, all in the name of ethnic conflict.
Thankfully, the North didn’t retaliate with the same action, but the big question is how much longer would it take for them to start retaliating with all these crazy pictures going rampant in the social media, some angry youth are already calling for retaliation on Social Media while elders and religious leaders are keeping people calm and calling for young people to embrace peace, but clearly, with survivors calling their families for the assistance of money and prayers while narrating how narrowly they escaped death, the truce might not stand the taste of time.
The government especially of Oyo state must as a matter of urgency launch an investigation to find the perpetrators of this madness, for an example to be made out of them in the court of law and disclose all plans of compensation to the properties vandalised.
I believe that all Nigerians have equal rights on the shores of their country regardless of their origin, the value for human lives should never be selective. People must know that taking the law into their own hands at whatever guise have consequences, and that government would not fold its arms while some criminals instigated by hatred and guided by tribalism are destabilizing all pillars of peace.
For those people thinking of going into full-scale war, I want to use this medium and point them to the Rwandan genocides, which started like this, empowering some tribe under the pretence of self-defence.
The case of South Sudan is not a different story, they are still fighting and killing themselves even after getting the much desired said freedom, the current realities of Nigeria is questioning our ability to learn from our history and the mistakes of many countries, the value of human lives is far more expensive than any tribe or religion talkless of geography, only the living goes to mosque or church and speaks in Yoruba or Hausa.
We have come a long way as a country, we need each other like it or not, they are marital ties, their cross and mixed families across the country, unlike many speculations and popular opinions about Nigeria, I refuse to believe that we are joined together by accidents, there are certain things in life that are too great for a coincidence and the formation of Nigeria is one of such.
We are brought together by God for a reason, and the best way to move forward and live in harmony is to realise that there are things we cannot change as humans and one of such things is our tribe, no one has chosen to be born a Yoruba, Hausa or Igbo, we are who we are by the mercy fo God.
Just like the story above, when one seeks to destroy others over certain things or issues instead of been fair and sincere in intentions, there are every possibility that we would also not see the lights we are wishing for, and even if we did, there is no guarantee that we would enjoy it.
Nothing acquired at the expense of human lives and humanity would ever be useful to its owner, Some prices are too much to be paid and so is the price of taking lives over tribes.
Civil societies and organisations whose membership have cut across the boundaries of all tribes and religions must live up to their expectations on this gloomy moment, we are at the time that more than the government of the day, to a large extent, to live in peace or perish in violence lies in our hands.
The government might have failed us in this regards, but of course, we can refuse to fail ourselves as a society, as eloquently said by professor Plo Lumumber that we can still change our dancing steps even if the music has refused to change. I’m afraid changing our steps in Nigeria is no longer a choice but a necessity.
We must avoid general labelling of a particular tribe or region as criminals, scammers or terrorists. We have reached the crossroads to decide for ourselves “peace or violence”.
Me I have chosen peace because I have seen what wars can do to people here in Maiduguri, and I still see on a daily basis how life in internally displaced person camps looks like, not even the whole world can handle an explosion of more than 200 million IDPs not to speak of our neighbours, so we are on our own. Let’s go for peace.
Musa Gambo is a JCI Nigeria Ambassador and writes from Maiduguri, Nigeria. He Can be reached via Twitter: @Musagambo143.
