Our tears of blood for Buni Yadi

Since I wrote this lament, there has been Michika, over 40 dead, Maiduguri market and a crowded television viewing centre, 60 dead; Maiduguri twin bomb blasts, 50 dead and over 60 injured. All the dead ever wanted was to live. Suddenly death and a meeting with their creator who of course knows why and how […]

Since I wrote this lament, there has been Michika, over 40 dead, Maiduguri market and a crowded television viewing centre, 60 dead; Maiduguri twin bomb blasts, 50 dead and over 60 injured. All the dead ever wanted was to live. Suddenly death and a meeting with their creator who of course knows why and how they got to Him so early in their prime.
This is terror. For over 60 innocent children, humans in their rightful senses, invested time, Hilux vans, loaded assault rifles as if they were heading to war. No. They headed for a school and to hostels where children slept and woke them up. They took aim. Did they look the pleading children in the eye? – children, God’s gift by grace to man. Did they imagine the loving in their own mothers’ eyes while they suckled? What if someone had snuffed life out of them at same age? They each pressed the triggers and bullets obeyed. At that range, even an adult would be propelled to heights as the bullets hit. Blood of innocent children shed, and flowed. What type of victory celebration and dance would these heathens indulge in? For one has to be a heathen to be this heartless and lacking in compassion. Terror is the message, and it has been effectively delivered.  Nigeria is terrified. Now, to what purpose is the question begging for an answer. How can we explain this heartless butchery?
Time it was when attempts were made to rationalize the Boko Haram related terror and even make suggestions to the effect that social contradictions, decadence, extreme discrepancies between the poor and the rich added to the national cancer of corruption were the root cause. Terrorists nearly succeeded in polarising the country along religious lines. All these are no longer tenable. In our angst, we seek an answer to what could drive any social group to carry out such heinous bloodletting as happened Monday night in Government College Buni Yadi in Yobe State. We always ask: What do they want?
Not long ago, it was the College of Agriculture Gujba that was struck and 40 students were killed in a similar raid. In the Buni Yadi massacre, the teens were slaughtered, and the hostel set on fire, burning the corpses beyond recognition. Only devilish hatred can influence a human into this type of callous murder. Intense hate-ideology fuels these butchers into committing atrocities of this kind.
They of course only select soft targets; but this is sheer cowardice.  They are like wanton boys with guns and bombs for toys, getting kicks from indiscriminate killing of their own kith and kin, and defenceless children for that matter.
By the widespread condemnation, it seems the national citizenry has had enough and offers of measures range from mass protests to a return of fire for fire – a measure of the frustration felt by the citizenry nationwide.
Sadly the nation is cowed. People would rather suffer in silence. The system has so collapsed that there is no protection against the insurgents and any attempt to speak for restraint or even against them attract calamities with which the citizenry is visited. Many of our prominent elite maintain safe sealed lips. A great many in Borno and Yobe states have since relocated. Universities have lost quality lecturers who have fled. The wealthy have abandoned the less privileged to their fate. Soon, communities will be forced to go to sleep prepared to put up a fight to protect themselves, their families and property. A situation in which marauders sneak on communities to murder them while they sleep is simply not acceptable. There will be a limit to the tolerance.
However more informed reasoning would discountenance a mass protest in any area of the State of Emergency complex North-East for the possibility of it being easily hijacked by divergent interests; and we agree there are a lot of aggrieved parties. Also suspected insurgent from sleeper-cells would only be too eager to seize an opportunity to strike with advantageous media coverage.
A full-fledged riot and civil disorder will certainly do more harm than good. Politically, it could hurt the Governor of such a state given the pressure on President Jonathan to override the Constitutional cul-de-sac of an emergency rule of the States extended to nearly one year now. No governor in the North East wants to give President Jonathan an excuse to declare a complete removal and replacement with a military administrator.
May be there is no better time than now to underline the weight of responsibility that rests on the shoulders of the people of the North East. These insurgents are not an invading army, but locals mainly. The terror from its genesis is home-grown. There must consequently be a home-grown solution to it within the dictates of the laws of the land. It is necessary for all the stakeholders to boldly confront this malady and if need be, die in doing so, than to watch and see future generations being exterminated like flies.
Alas, the insurgents rule. They can strike at will whoever, wherever, and simply disappear.  We are a religious society and must not relent in our fervent cries to God, to mercifully arrest this heathen and save our communities from further hurt. For now, we cry tears of blood for those children who lay dead like poisoned rats, their own blood flowing into the sands of the school yard. We bleed in our hearts. Yes we cry tears of blood.