Boko Haram tragedy as platform for religious tolerance

In spite of our claim to intelligence and superior analysis, most of us analysts, columnists, reporters and pressmen in general fall into the usual trap of generalisation.  Where is the discernment with which true distinction is identified?  Why is the Boko Haram news being reported as if nothing is different from what happened now, and […]

In spite of our claim to intelligence and superior analysis, most of us analysts, columnists, reporters and pressmen in general fall into the usual trap of generalisation.  Where is the discernment with which true distinction is identified?  Why is the Boko Haram news being reported as if nothing is different from what happened now, and the Maitatsine tragedy of the 1980s?  Why are inferences drawn in the negative and everything dismissed in a manner that portrays a certain people and religion, as barbarians?  Why are we not seizing this golden opportunity for a thorough reflection on our humanity in Nigeria, and on the fact that the same thread binds us all together as human beings?

Does it matter that this time, it was Boko Haram, the Nigerian Taleban, against the police and army and that this time, they did not face the churches and Christians specifically, as some other radicals did in the past?  If they did, would the crisis have ended yet?  Does the fact that Boko Haram in its rampage in the north of Nigeria carefully skirted the suffering masses irrespective of religion and creed, matter at all?  I’m not asking for any garlands or awards for the dead radicals of Boko Haram here, but I’m asking that we see an opportunity for unity between Christians and Muslims.

Many have dismissed the radical guys as people with half-destroyed brains, but do Nigeria and its leaders share any blame whatsoever in the shrinking of these brains?  Could careful governance and good conscience in society over the years have spared us of incidences like the Boko Haram tragedy?  Whereas Boko Haram was hinged on a wrong interpretation of religion, is there any similarity between their struggle and that of the Niger Delta militants?  While the Niger Delta guys are asking for total control of their oil (after five to seven decades of total neglect and plunder), the Boko Haram guys and their sympathisers were asking for a return to the ways of God as they understood it, no?  And in both cases they were ready to carry arms to defend their causes.

If all the adverse reactions we are seeing in Nigeria today is the result of a more subtle but even more deadly brigandage on the part of those to whom we have ceded the reins of governance over the years, should we then not scream to high heavens for the militants massacred in the Boko Haram tragedy as we would have done if they were from the Niger Delta, or Massob, or OPC, or Middle Belt, or any other sets of dissidents that have over-ridden this country in response to too many years of crass irresponsibility?  

Perhaps we’ll be excused from doing so since it was Boko Haram that attacked first.  Yes, Boko Haram has absolutely no right to attack and kill Nigerian policemen, no matter their grouse.  Boko Haram’s leaders fell into a common trap; when you are organising a mob, (most Nigerians talk about ‘revolution’ these days), you can hardly vouch for 10 percent of their activities.  Something always goes wrong that escalates your problems and misrepresents your intentions.

But Nigerians, especially the intellectuals and writers, should move away from ‘beer parlour’ analysis, which we have also fed the international press with, especially regarding this issue and others like it.  The international press swooned on Nigeria while the madness lasted, and beamed to the world scores of corpses littering the streets of Maiduguri and elsewhere.  Another point was scored that Nigeria was receding fast into the jungle of barbarism.  But perhaps the networks like CNN, Sky and so on, are also complicit in this regard; it is similar situations that forces Palestinian children to become suicide bombers in Israel.

Israel keeps the Palestinian people locked up as if in a hen’s pen.  They are deprived of basic amenities.  They have to get Israeli permission to even go to work.  A people driven from their land, become scavengers in a little corner of where belongs to them.  They live frustrated and on a few occasions, this tension bubbles over and they react.  Once this happens, they are beamed on the network as being barbarians.  Israel then moves in on them from the air, sea and land, shelling homes and raining chemical weapons (white phosphorus) on women and children, while the Red Cross is barred from entering and the CNN, BBC and co, are kept at bay (perhaps willingly).  

In Nigeria, I will continue to insist that it is mis-governance that leads to these reactions.  Most Muslims know there is nothing wrong in getting western education.  From the little I know, the Qur’an encourages the acquisition of knowledge.  This puts the Muslim on a higher stead since they master two languages (Arabic and English), in addition to their native tongue.  But who is guiding young minds aright these days?  Who cares?  Leadership in the north of Nigeria is what has changed.  Ostentation and irresponsible display of wealth was not the norm in the north of Nigeria, even 20 years ago.  Then politics was about ideology.  Now, politics is about the self.  The leaders now treat their own people with disdain.  

Will we dismiss Boko Haram and continue in impunity?  ‘Waste’ them all and continue to largesse?  Blast their brains out and continue in hedonism, mutual distrust, religious bigotry (on all sides – Christians and Muslims), holding our brothers in disdain and embezzling the Commonwealth?  The underlying societal problems which angered Boko Haram, still exist with us.