What is going on in Southern Kaduna is a slow genocide of the native population. The mounting homicidal violence against the natives and the erasing of their history and culture mean genocide on the instalment plan. Our collective silence makes us the next victim! We must therefore speak out now to halt the drift, end the human carnage and save our future.
Early this year, a female fan, who is a native of Southern Kaduna called my attention to the bloodletting in the area where natives who are predominantly Christians are savaged in tens and hundreds by rampaging Jihadists which the media love to call Fulani herdsmen.
This lady told blood chilling stories of deaths and torture; of military style executions; of how snippers on trees and rooftops game their unsuspecting victims; she told me of how the people live in fear of their physical safety- how crime-murder, robbery and rape is rampant; she told me of how life in Southern Kaduna is as dangerous as living inside Syria. Indeed Southern Kaduna is on fire.
According to the Catholic Secretariat of Nigeria, over 800 Christians have been killed in Southern Kaduna since President Buhari came to power. Other sources claim the figure may even be higher given the frequency of attacks and level of destructions.
When I asked my caller, what the government is doing to stem the ugly situation, she replied that both the Federal and state governments are complicit for if they are not, the situation would have been stemmed by now. As far as she is concerned, if an uprising goes beyond forty hours the government must have a hand in it. The government she said has the capacity to secure and safe guard lives and properties but they are not doing enough. The police and the army were often caught napping while the attack lasts. Their road blocks disappear only to appear after the deed has been done.
To make matters worse, the government is saying everything is okay and normal in Southern Kaduna even in the face of unrestrained killings and destructions coupled with the fact that no culprit has been brought to book after series of almost weekly attacks that has resulted in nearly a thousand deaths. Rather than stem the killings , the security agencies are more interested in debating the statistics of deaths. This shows someone up there is sitting pretty on intelligence and investigations, debating the figures and enjoying the horror.
The vandals whether herdsmen or Jihadists, Nigeriens or Malians are no ghosts. But for the lady from Southern Kaduna ,the vandals are jihadist fighting religious war against the Christian population. She wanted me to write on their travails and expose the complicity of the State and Federal Government so that the world will come to their rescue because right now the people of Southern Kaduna feel abandoned by Nigeria and forgotten by the world.
I must confess I was hesitant to touch the issue because then I was angry with Christian pastors and prophets who in 2015 failed to realise that politics is war by other means. They saw the coming apocalypse but refused to heed the warnings of the time. They allowed their emotions to becloud their sense of judgment and by themselves called the present day Armageddon upon their head.
It was clear that the government that was coming in 2015 has the tendency to further the interest of a particular religion and a section of the people over the other. I recall Bishop Kukah rebuking me in a rejoinder published in The Sun Newspaper where he accused me of having a scattered knowledge of Islam. I also recall my altercation with Pastor Kris Okotie and Rev Father Mbaka – all of whom claimed God spoke to them to elect people with the tendency for several absurdities.
It was obvious that Christianity will come under severe attack. I was convinced that the first casualties will be Northern Christians and that they will neither have protection nor justice. How the bishops , pastors and prophets couldn’t read and interpret the clear hand writings on the wall is an issue for another day.
Today, I weep for the people of Southern Kaduna. Despite my disappointment in their response to politics, my conscience will not allow me to remain quiet when every day I am confronted with sordid pictures and media reporting of the never ending killings they suffer. Again , I am forced to ask , where is the government in all these? Are the police, the DSS and the military helpless? Why are they looking the other way while the people are being killed? Why is the President and Commander -in- Chief mute while Southern Kaduna is on fire? Why is the government denying that the crisis has no religious coloration when in actual fact it is Muslims that are killing Christians? Why deny the religious coloration when it is the homes , live stocks and businesses of Christians that are being destroyed?
The people of Southern Kaduna are bona-fide Nigerians; they are part of our humanity; they have rights to their native lands and homes ; they have right to their choice of religion and livelihood and they have right to peaceable living and rights to be protected against the state and private sponsored violence and terror.
While the victims and casualties might be new, the conflict in itself is not new and cannot be separated from the centuries of wars fought between the natives and the Jihadists. The natives who have lost families, homes and livelihood knows that this conflict is a continuation of the religious wars fought by their ancestors against the Jihadist army of Othman Dan fodio.. These are fact, the government is not accepting, but which it must admit to enable it handle and tackle the crisis from its roots.
If the violence in Southern Kaduna is not stemmed, it can become very dangerous for the whole country. The President must speak out strongly against the killings. He must speak out against the destruction of churches, properties and livelihood of Christians . He must make a strong case for the preservation of human lives and protection of human rights in Southern Kaduna . He must deploy the machinery of the state to stop the herdsmen whether they are Fulani, Nigerien or Malian herdsmen. Enough of the lame excuses of the herdsmen coming from outer space. The President must follow the foot track of the terrorists and bring them to justice. Nothing short of a decisive action will convince skeptics, especially the traumatised natives that the Government is not complicit as the lady from Southern Kaduna had suggested. I believe this lady spoke the mind of her people, some of whom are now dead as a result of the ongoing genocide by instalment against the people.