Letter to Mr Terrorist

I hear you even speak great English, with slight American accent!  You would also notice that I have not called you a religious bigot, because the carnage you have been causing have killed more Muslims than Christians, and the way you plant your bombs, you certainly do not care how your victims worship – church, […]

I hear you even speak great English, with slight American accent!  You would also notice that I have not called you a religious bigot, because the carnage you have been causing have killed more Muslims than Christians, and the way you plant your bombs, you certainly do not care how your victims worship – church, mosque or traditional shrine.  Many choose to call you a religious bigot of the Islamic hue, but it is more than obvious that your plans and actions are geared towards discrediting that religion, and you know as much as I do, that you have done more damage to Islam than good.

I will also not bother to call you an ethnic jingoist.  Some say you are Hausa/Fulani.  But I think not.  You have only succeeded in whipping up negative sentiments against those tribes of Nigeria, and you have welled up so much anger in the average Nigerian, so much anger that the environment is toxic.  Mr Terrorist, I do not know who you are, but from the little school I attended, I know who you aren’t!  Still I remain confused, like majority of Nigerians.  The only difference is, for now, I am not allowing my confusion to drive me into unnecessary and blinding anger, as to befuddle my good judgment.  I am not allowing my confusion as to what is going on in my beloved country, to make me ask for its breakup, or to make me discriminate against those who aren’t from my tribe or religion, or to make me curse them and wish them bad, or to make me call for my tribe and religion to go and kill others, as many have been doing.  Mr Terrorist, I think you are playing a mind game, and you have won almost every step of the way.  I think you have us Nigerians EXACTLY WHERE YOU WANT US.

Still I remain confused.  If your aims were noble in any respect, if you aimed to change society for the better, through violence, you may have achieved a bit of that, but you have certainly overreached yourself, dear Mr Terrorist.  You have tainted your hands with the blood of blameless children, of innocent toddlers, or starry-eyed teenagers who had absolutely no blame in where Nigeria has found itself.  You have killed and maimed poor Nigerians who are themselves victims of the malaise of society, and the mismanagement of their so-called leaders.  Yes, you have us running scared today, with our tails between our legs.  You have us all scampering home before dusk for fear of your bombs.  You have us running amok at the sight of a stray bag innocently forgotten by any schoolboy!  Perhaps by the time you are through with us, our society will be neater and more cautious.  But if we still alive, we would have lost all the love, and trust, all the camaraderie that makes Africa, Nigeria, a home for the world!

To date, your activities, Dear Mr Terrorist, has made many big men cancel their children’s wedding parties – especially in the north.  Some are scared stiff now about displaying their wealth openly the way they would have. Maybe they would feel some remorse for appropriating the commonwealth, or maybe they would rather guard themselves with the few policemen we have in the country, thereby leaving the rest of us to our own devices.  Who knows?  From the foregoing, my friend, your aims could not be said to be noble.  It can only be ignoble.  The upshot of your activities is to cause distrust, to permeate fear in society, to cause us to hate ourselves, to destroy a religion – in fact all religions, and of course to get the Nigerian government to use the country’s meager resources, not to develop our children and create a great future, but to apply in purchasing arms and ammunition, to ‘beef up’ its security, and to purchase the latest gadgets and weaponry from… you know where!  That is why a quarter of the 2012 budget will be spent in that direction, while society goes to waste.

Still I am confused.  I see the efforts of government in ‘securing’ the country. And at their very best, those efforts are limited by their own imagination.  The underneath of cars are scanned at many locations, as if you, Mr Terrorist, sophisticated as you have shown you are, will hide your bombs under the car where it will be obvious!  Boots of cars are checked, but who bothers to check inside tyres, under the driver’s seat, inside the convoluted engines, inside the door panels, or even inside false car roofs?  Cordons are made around important offices, barricades with soldiers dressed in camouflages, but what if you decide to start using rocket launchers from remote locations?  Mr Terrorist, when will the mind game end?  From the little I have seen about your activities, I know that all I can do is beg you, to stop the carnage being foisted on poor people, who never asked to be created as Nigerians in the first place. None of us chose the positions we find ourselves today.  But yes our leaders are a big let down.

Mr Terrorist, I cannot get the image of Sergeant Sunday Badang out of my mind.  A brave policeman and gentleman, he sacrificed his life for the country.  Did you see the way his body was mangled by your bomb?  His face was smashed in entirely.  His skull was reduced to pulp. One of his legs was ripped off and thrown several metres away!  Just for trying to save the day!

Dear Terrorist, the country has changed drastically.  People now fear to attend churches, and every gathering is made with palpable fear at heart.  Every Nigerian now goes about thinking ‘this could be my last day on earth’, more vividly than ever before.  We have become paranoid.  People no longer trust their brothers.  Fear rules our world now.

In spite of government’s huge spending on security, we know that you who perpetrate terror will usually be one step ahead.  What we are doing is reacting.  If we erect barricades to protect ourselves, do we know if you, Mr Terrorist, have perfected plans to attack us with propelled rockets? If we proliferate the society with arms and ammunition, would we not start shooting ourselves in error, like Pastor Niforo, the Director of a Ministry in Kaduna, was shot?  Have we then not fallen into the trap you set for us?

We now run about like headless chicken.  Our leaders have chickened out like cowards.  We know not who to look up to.  Our society is in disarray.  We wonder what your activities are all about.  If it was to teach us a lesson in caution, in chastity, in discipline, perhaps you have more than made a point, at the cost of the lives of many innocents.  Their bloods can never be washed off your conscience.  But if the aim is to destroy our souls, then all we can do is beg you to stay your hands!  Let us not be swallowed by violence.  Let our children be able to achieve positive feats in this dynamic world.  Let us not set examples in self-destruction.  Let us have our peace Mr Terrorist.