Promise Adiele
Sunny Okosun, the Ozzidi crooner, do you remember him? Shortly before the last general elections, I wrote an essay with the title “Which Way Nigeria” published in this column. In my celebrated style to always interpret contemporary reality using works of art, I used Okosun’s song by that title to upbraid the country’s political class following the postponement of the elections.
Then, our country’s present rudderless identity was in infancy, therefore the question, ‘Which way Nigeria’ was apt. Today, while engaging malignant issues which tend to plunge the country into warfare, the muse, a writer’s best companion, brings Okosun’s song ‘No More Wars’ to my creative template. In the song, Okosun berates the Nigerian and African political class who deliberately lead their people to war in the pursuit of inordinate, irrational ambition without consideration for the attendant carnage. He insightfully insists that given the backwardness Nigeria and Africa have suffered through warfare, given the millions of souls lost in avoidable gruesome conflicts, there should be no more wars.
Events in the country today seem to affirm the inevitability of war in all its potential for ruin. As far as some people are concerned, various indices in the country are suggestive of the ineluctability of war in the absence of any option to readjust our country’s numerous, socio-economic, and political misdirection. No circumstance justifies war if we consider the price we must all pay in its eventuality. Was the Nigerian-Biafran war avoidable? Could Nigerian have done without losing over three million lives in that internecine of a monumental dimension? Many families in Nigeria, especially in the Eastern part of the country, will never recover from the scars of that war following the death of brothers, uncles, fathers, and relatives. I am reliably informed that I lost two uncles in the war, men who had completed school certificate which was in those days equal to our present university degrees. Interestingly, some architects of the war died at a good old age while some are alive, enjoying celebrity status with their families.
Rumours of war and warmongering, regrettably dot on Nigeria’s social consciousness since the beginning of this year. Without a doubt, war, the greatest of all human obscenity, has become a recurring motif in Nigeria’s political discourse in recent times. When I imagine war, I see streets littered with mangled bodies, human body parts, and decapitated heads. I see live ammunition pumped into a crowd killing thousands of people in one fell swoop.
I see soldiers live out their brutish, sadistic, and murderous fantasies on a helpless populace. I see tall buildings crumble at the detonation of a single bomb. I see homeless children, without parents, starving to death. I see a whole family wiped out in one day, fathers shot in the presence of their children.
I see a dislocated social structure, backwardness, pain, anguish and psychological impairment. Most painfully, I see the rich, the political class, fly out of the country, those who have unjustly benefitted from the plundering of our commonwealth. They quickly leave the country with their families while the ordinary people stay back, their blood washing the streets of Nigeria. This is the picture I see when I imagine warfare.
Some questions should bother every Nigerian of good conscience. What should we do to avert war? Is the government aware that the country is sitting on a keg of gun powder? Is the government aware of the grave security situation in the country? Has it not come to the knowledge of this government that a certain ethnicity is currently waging a war of conquest against the rest of Nigeria? Should a select group of Nigerians representing different people across the country march to Aso Rock in thousands to communicate these realities to the presidency? Should we all sign a petition in millions to convey the delicate national emergency to the presidency? What exactly should we do to rouse the power protocol to the subsisting nadir in the country? It was this same lackadaisical approach by Gowon to the wanton, indiscriminate killings in 1966 that eventually led to civil war.
Certainly, many Nigerians do not understand what war entails beyond mere civil unrest. Reports show that 70% of Nigerians were not born during the civil war that lasted from 1967 to 1970 claiming over 3 million lives. Also, many who were born during this period were either babies or too young to discern the reality of the situation. Even if many of us did not witness the war, it is expected that books of different narrative would have conveyed the situation of war in our psycho-social repertoire.
I didn’t see the civil war, but I have confronted it in the pages of literature in addition to the stories told by my parents. Festus Iyayi’s ‘Heroes’, Isidore Okpewho’s ‘The Last Duty’, Sam Omatseye’s ‘My Name is Okoro’ and Chimamanda Adichie’s ‘Half of a Yellow Sun’ all paint a savage picture of the Nigerian civil war. For a glimpse of the nature of warfare, reading any of the novels mentioned above will serve a good purpose.
The only language understood by war is death and destruction. There are many Nigerians who are fed up with the current socio-political structure and would rather have the country implode and perish to pave way for a new beginning. Such a mindset is at best fatalistic and retrogressive. Sadly, it seems that the current political class is determined to ensure that war breaks out in Nigeria. Indeed, it seems that there is a deliberate and organized scheme to bring the country to ashes through the instrumentality of warfare. The herdsmen are raging, populating major forests across the country, killing and kidnapping.
Other devious groups are emerging too, ready to defend their land, avenge their dead and reply violence with violence. The attempt to excuse these killings and exonerate the perpetrators is not only heinous but also irresponsible. Although many Nigerians have accused the government of complicities in the dastard activities of herdsmen.
The army, the police, and all the security apparatus in the country seem helpless to stem the tide of killings.
Depressingly, some Nigerians are making excuses that herdsmen are not the only terrorists in the country and therefore should be spared of blame. Such utterances question the civility of our humanity. Should war break out in Nigeria, millions will die, many more millions will be maimed too. This is the reality of warfare.
Those who daily stoke the fire of warfare do not understand the implications of war. It is the responsibility of the leadership rank of this country to do everything within its power to avert war. The killings and bloodshed must stop immediately. Banditry and brigandage must stop too. No More Wars, please.
Dr. Adiele writes from Lagos via [email protected]