Ozubulu: Was that ‘Christian’ terrorism?
No! It was not. It could not have been. But whatever it was that caused that massacre in the Catholic Church in Ozubulu last Sunday, it bears no emphasis that neither Islam nor Muslims would approve of such a heinous act. Nigerian Muslims were grieved by the event. Our hearts ached at the sight of […]
No! It was not. It could not have been. But whatever it was that caused that massacre in the Catholic Church in Ozubulu last Sunday, it bears no emphasis that neither Islam nor Muslims would approve of such a heinous act. Nigerian Muslims were grieved by the event. Our hearts ached at the sight of death, destruction and despoliation which was brought to bear on that Church last Sunday. The sight of innocent Christian worshippers who had congregated in that Church early that day and were callously murdered was simply vexatious to behold.
Brethren, when I beheld the sight of my wailing compatriots in Ozubulu in the social media last Sunday, I became attentive, once again, and as I have always been since close to a decade when the cataclysmic events of violent extremism first started in the north east, to the tribulation which had visited, and still do, families of victims of violence all around the country. I remembered the trepidation and the catastrophe which had since become the companions of the family of that other woman, and the kith and kin of that man. Face to face with the motionless body of the victims of the carnage, her husband looked up to the skies as if in search of the “eyes” of the divine; his sister held strongly to her head as if the grief was restricted only to that part of her physiology. The pain the bereaved usually feel at the departure of the victim particularly when the latter presumably ought not to have become a victim can only be accounted for by the facticity of resurrection. Imagine what would happen were there to be no life after death- the empire of evil would have had no recompense.
Thus whether the massacre was in Ozubulu or on the deserted landscapes of the Lake Chad basin, Islam holds no brief for the unlawful destruction, by man, of that which he cannot by himself create. Whether it is in Ozubulu or Maduabushi, there is nothing Islamic in the so-called “Islamic” terrorism; there is nothing Christian in the so-called “Christian terrorism”. No religion can adequately account for the infirmities of its followers.
It is my argument therefore that souls are souls. The unwarranted destruction of a soul, on behalf of another, be it that of an Ibo or Hausa should therefore be subject of our joint deprecation and opprobrium. The desecration of places of worship should not find acceptance in our reality provided we still retain some sanity and decorum.
The day Hamza, the Uncle of Prophet Muhammad (SAW) was killed by Wahshi, the grief became so much on the Prophet’s heart that he said: “I would kill thirty people in vengeance”. But a verse which forbid the Prophet from carrying out his threat was soon revealed to him: “If you have to retaliate, let your retaliation be commensurate with the wrong which was done to you; but if you endure with patience, the best reward indeed is for those who endure with patience” (Quran 16: 126). Our Prophet eventually pardoned Washshi; the latter eventually accepted Islam.
In other words, Islam holds that if indeed there are sacred entities whose sacerdotal status must be preserved and protected by all means even in a state of war, such must include the lives of innocent women and children, such must include monasteries, synagogues and churches where, according to the Quran (Quran 22:40), the name of the Almighty is mentioned and celebrated. Thus, we commiserate with those who lost their loved ones in that carnage last Sunday. I recognize, in line with Arthur Schopenhauer, “the deep pain that is felt at the death of every friendly soul arises from the feeling that there is in every individual something which is inexpressible, peculiar to him or her alone, and is, therefore, absolutely and irretrievably lost at his death; that there are things that we do not want to happen but which we have to accept”.
However face to face with the reality that those killed in that event on Sunday have all gone and forever too, a number of matters arose for our contemplation. For example, one could not but be concerned how quickly politicians, attention-seekers, overnight tribalists and ethnic jingoists have quickly sought to turn the event, as usual, into political capital. I am disturbed by statements credited to some of my Igbo compatriots. According to one of them, the reason Ozubulu took place was simply because certain powers in this nation were not comfortable with the new popularity, or rather notoriety he now enjoyed while grandstanding as the new mouthpiece of the Igbo nation. Thus I lament; I shudder in the knowledge that in order that some might become overnight heroes, some other people’s head would have to be put, and ignorantly too, on the guillotine.