Nigeria As A Killing Field, by Kazeem Akintunde
Nigerians once again, woke up to the sad news of the gruesome murder of over 160 men, women, and children in Woro and Nuku communities in Kaiama Local Government area of Kwara State last week. The attackers, numbering over 100, who came from the neigbouring Kainji Lake National Park, were on a mission that was purely to maim and destroy the entire community. The sin for which the targeted community had to pay the heavy price for was their temerity to report the terrorists’ activities to security operatives. Earlier this year, locals of the community got news from the terrorists, said to be led by one Sadiku, that they would be coming to the community to preach their brand of Islam. In Woro, where over 90 per cent of the population are Muslim, however, believed that the type of preaching being spread by the terror group was alien to them. The matter was reported to security agents by the village head, Alhaji Salihu Bio Umar.
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That became their undoing, as the terrorist group got wind of the move and decided to teach the people a lesson. On Tuesday last week, just a little after 6pm, the terror group struck, killing everybody on sight and razing the entire community to the ground. Although the village head escaped, his family, consisting of his two wives and several of his children were murdered in cold blood. His palace and most of the buildings in the community were set on fire.
The fire was still burning on Wednesday when the State Governor, AbdulRahman Abdulrazaq, paid a condolence visit to the community and the Emir of Kaiama. On Thursday, a distraught Abdulrazaq headed for Abuja, where he met with and briefed President Bola Tinubu on the destruction and mindless killings in his state. President Tinubu has ordered the deployment of soldiers and other security agencies to the state, particularly the affected communities. A mass burial has been conducted for most of the deceased while the survivors and citizens of a perplexed nation is again, forced to dust themselves off and move on in stoic silence.
Nigeria has, rather unfortunately, become a killing field. We no longer place any value on human life. It is now so easy to kill or get killed. Thomas Hobbes, an English philosopher, in his famous book, ‘’Leviathan’’ (1651), argued that without a sovereign power and social contract, life would be a constant struggle for survival, characterized by fear and violence. According to him, life in such a state would be ‘’poor, nasty, brutish, and short.’’ It was to avoid such a doomed prophesy that we gave consent for some amongst us to lead. In their leadership, they would guarantee the protection of life and property for us all. However, in spite of the fact that we have elected leaders, death is so cheap and common in Nigeria now. It is both worrisome and scary.
That you are within the four walls of your own home does not guarantee your safety anymore. In the now popular street ‘lingo’ in the country, Nigeria has happened to the people of Woro and Nuku. It could be any of us at any time. This is why the citizens have a popular prayer almost turned greeting that “may Nigeria not happen to us”. How sad! Death is now so cheap that is being hawked by mindless terrorists across the country. Whether it is the Mamuda terror group, their cousins, the Lakurawa, or their big brother, the Boko Haram group that carried out the killings in Woro and Nuku on the pretext that their activities were reported to security agents, they should be told that they are not practicing Islam as prescribed by Prophet Mohammed (PBUH). They are children of hate and they would meet their waterloo on the Day of Judgment.
Islam is a religion of peace, and whosoever deviates from that path should not be regarded as a true Muslim. The Qur’an strictly forbids forcing one’s religious beliefs on others, and even more so, it abhors the killing of an innocent soul, equating it to the killing of all humanity. It describes the intentional murder of a believer as a grave sin deserving hellfire while emphasizing the sanctity of every individual life. Qur’an 5:32 states that: ‘’Whoever slays a human being unless it be (in punishment) for murder or for spreading corruption (sedition) on earth, it shall be as though he had slain all of mankind…’’ The Qur’an elevates the value of each human life, stressing that harming an innocent person is a profound violation against God and humanity – a deed so severe that it can’t overshadow other sins except worshipping the creation over the Creator.
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The Bible also condemns the killing of an innocent soul, often referring to it as the ‘’shedding of innocent blood’’ and labelling it as an abomination to God. Proverbs 6: 16-17 lists: ‘’hands that shed innocent blood’’ as one of the seven things the Lord finds detestable. Again, Exodus 23: 7 commands: ‘’Do not kill the innocent and the righteous, for I will not justify the wicked’’. In Deuteronomy 27: 25, a formal curse is pronounced on anyone who accepts payment to kill an innocent person.
If the two religions that we so much believe in could be this explicit on why human life should be sacred, I wonder how we find it so easy to kill a fellow human being. If the intention is to convert others into your religion, which, in itself, is prohibited, should it then be to the extent of taking their life?
It begs to be emphasized that Islam has expressly stated that there is no compulsion in religion to those hiding behind the banner of religion to perpetrate crime. The Qur’an explicitly prohibits forcing anyone to accept the faith. Belief must stem from free will, sincerity, and personal conviction, not coercion. Quran 2: 256 stated that: ‘’There is no compulsion in religion: true guidance has become distinct from error.” In Qur’an 10:99, it is stated thus: ‘’If your Lord had so willed, all who are on earth would have believed, all of them entirely. So, would you then compel people until they become believers?’’ This verse highlights that even God chose not to force belief on humanity, providing free will to choose instead. Qur’an 109:1-6 also stated: ‘’To you be your way, and to me, mine’’. This chapter underscores a principle of coexistence and mutual respect for different beliefs. The responsibility of Muslims is to convey the message of Islam with kindness, wisdom, and good manners, leaving the ultimate choice of belief to the individual.
I have gone to this extent simply to show that the true believers are those who fear God and His Commands and show their respect to Him through perfect character to His creation, as exemplified by our holy Prophet Muhammad SAW and all the Prophets and Messengers that preceded him and preached the same message of love and peaceful coexistence. Those who are on a mission to kill are not doing so in the name of any religion. They are children of hate and they should be condemned by all well-meaning individuals in the society. Those supporting them or who are sympathetic to their cause are not doing any faith or humanity any good. This is the time for all of us to come together and rid the land of killers hiding under the cover of religion.
From what has been pieced together so far, the assailants in Woro were apparently not “bandits”, which often connote an ethnic definition. State authorities have linked the massacre to doctrinal excesses on the part of a “Boko Haram faction”. That group was said to have fanned out of the Kainji Lake National Park. It means that a very active faction of Boko Haram has taken advantage of the manner that our national parks seem to have transitioned into ungoverned spaces in recent years.
In the past couple of months, the Office of the National Security Adviser has actively worked on the training and equipping of forest rangers for Nigeria’s national parks. However, there is a national imperative to rethink the budgeting for national parks as well as their security. These are genuine national treasures that were a product of patriotic thinking and execution when they were created in the 1970s.
Today, they are ghost institutions in many instances. They are not properly budgeted for, and until recently, they were not effectively policed. They became sanctuaries for the likes of Boko Haram and other non-state actors who live outside of a lawful relationship with the state and civil society.
Kwara state is in a particularly difficult situation. It is the location of the Kainji Lake National Park, the Old Oyo National Park, which is not far from the Kamuku National Park, and it is also home to very expansive, very difficult to govern, natural forested regions of Kwara North, in the Baruten, Kaiama, and into the Edu, and Moro local government areas. While Abdulrazaq was on a condolence visit to the two communities, he was on the road for more than six hours. Yet, these are same territories within the same state. While Tinubu has approved the deployment of a military battalion to that part of Kwara State, now is the time for the Federal Government to take charge of all the forests in the country. Even though it may be expensive, no part of Nigeria should be left as ungoverned spaces. Once there is an expanse of land left unattended to, criminal elements are always ready to take advantage of such areas to perpetrate their criminality.
The people in vulnerable communities need the reassurance of visible security presence with regular route assessment patrols; territorial surveys; area dominance exercises; forest patrols, etc. These will help to properly target the non-state actors that violently attack residents of vulnerable communities. They will then, hopefully, be neutralized, captured, or eliminated. That will impose the peace that can allow peasant communities and pastoralists to go back to their livelihoods.
Again, government needs to pay closer attention to the needs and aspirations of Nigeria’s youths. Our neoliberal capitalism has transferred public wealth into the hands of private individuals in a string of dubious privatisation programmes that didn’t improve national productive forces. Indeed, our bizarre form of capitalism is not creating the jobs to absorb millions of young people who are frustrated and angry, and have become the reserve army of a hopeless underclass available for recruitment by different non-state groups.
If we don’t create a caring society that works for the young people who constitute the majority of our population today while we continue to prioritize elite privileges, our country will not stop the harvest of emboldened criminality, the type that led to the massacre of so many innocent people in the Woro community. Benue, Kogi, Borno, Sokoto, Niger, Katsina, Kano, and several others states in the North have had their fair share of mass killings and terrorists’ attacks, and it is high time that the government finds a lasting solution to the madness.
Innocent souls of thousands of our people that have been killed in the last 15 years are enough. While the Federal Government seems helpless and has invited help from outside the country, which should be commended, it is time for us as a nation to identify the root cause of the problem, which is that we pay little attention to education in the North and we have allowed religion to hold the masses down for several decades. Once we get it right in ensuring that all children of school ages are in the classrooms, we create jobs for our teeming youths, and enhance security across our borders and communities, insecurity and terrorists’ activities in the North would be significantly curtailed. We cannot have over 10 million children out of school and be going about business as usual. We are only toying with the future of our nation by sitting on kegs of gunpowder.
Again, politicians must address multi-dimensional poverty in the land. If the poor are hungry, they would eventually come for the rich. May the souls of all innocently killed across the country rest in peace, and may God give us leaders that would have our interest at heart. Amin.
See you next week.
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