Dear poor brethren of Nigerians, in war, everyone is a prisoner of captivity, both the belligerent and the cheerleaders. Keep drumming for war because you feel displaced and dislocated. There are only two outcomes of war, life or death.
In war, the market closes to everyone including you and the one you hate. When the bullet flies around, it hits everyone in destructive staccato.
When bodies filled the ground in debris, we all take in the stench in exhilarating doses, choking us to more deaths.
In war, no one buries the other, we perish in bloated bodies
And burst in smelly particles,
To be fed by the vultures.
Keep mobilising for showdown, when the doom comes
We shall face it in boom of woes,
The call for war can be very sweet; it gives the feeling of conquest,
Like the rain, it usually ends with drench.
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When the war comes, we all ceased to be Igala, Yoruba, Igede, Jukun, Fulani,
Igbo, Angas, Beriberi, Chibok or Igbo,
We all become entrapped bodies of human waste,
We will be buried not in tribal identities but as wasted human bodies.
In our carcasses, mutilated by the vultures and left for archaeological fossils,
Shall be us in historical reference,
Skeletally heaps are the remains of a people who preferred to perish as fools than to live in dignity.
Brethren, is it time for you to pause this time in measured logic to see how you have been used, abused and cheated over the years by the same people that propel you to take up arms against your fellow poor brethren? Can’t you see that your life doesn’t matter to anyone? Can you see how the unfortunate death of the daughter of a rich man is generating great concerns and attention? In the last few days, the VP, former presidents, leaders from both leading parties have besieged Ondo state for condolence voyages. I dare to ask, how many of these leaders visited Zamfara, Birnin Gwari, Taraba and Jos when killers massacred people in these areas? Who told you all lives are equal! Unite my brethren and put an end to your oppression.
Former President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan in a deadly show of rushing to a neighbour’s house to respond to a fire alarm when your house is already on fire was in Akure to condole with Pa Fasoranti’s. Few days to his visit, the aged mother of Nigeria’s superstar, Samson Siasia was kidnapped in Bayelsa – country home of Mr Jonathan. To him, the life of the woman matters not but hence his refusal to sympathize with the Siasias. The trip to Akure has more tempting peckings than the Bayelsa visit- because the opportunity to politicize the killing would create itself, as media men would besiege him to hear his opinion. And the man did not disappoint as he reeled his usual incoherent approach to security solution. He wants a security architecture defined solely by technology- the same technology he deployed to defeat Boko haram maybe? Abi the same CCTV technology huge money was budgeted and released for but never saw the light of the day?
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Funny clime we live in, Fani Kayode persistently calls on Yorubas to go to war but hang around Muktar Shinkafi his age-long Fulani friend. Oga, kill your rich Fulani Shinkafi first then we can follow suit. You can’t be in the cosy comfort of your mansion and instigate Akinbayo to go and kill Bashir. Allow this less-privileged Nigerians to exist in harmony instead of pushing them to take up arms against themselves. The poor man has no problem with the tribe of his fellow poor man. They are both united in their daily hustles. Stop the hate and preach love.
Dear brethren, never allow these people continue to use you as pawns to sustain their quest for the grip of our resources. They are up in hate and belligerence because the positions that come with opportunities to corner our resources have been taken from them. The very moment they are invited to the national cake-sharing table, they forget the call for war. Refuse to be used as sustain tool of manipulation by these elites, they are the reason there is embarrassing poverty in the land, the reason for the protracted security challenges in the country, the reason we have collapsed educational system, we are ravaged by diseases because they looted what we have been used to build standard hospitals.
Do not dance to their dangerous drum of hate where profiling is the fueling fossil of their sinister ploy. Tribes don’t commit crime but individuals, no tribe is bad but we have bad individuals. Refuse to be sold the dummy of tribal hate and distrust. No society attains greatness living in mutual fear of others; we are unique because of our diversity. Let no one wreck the foundation of our existence- for, in war, everyone is a victim.
