Yet, like
Oliver Cromwell and Sir Thomas More, despite the sign of the times and
the hazards and perils of standing against injustice and tyranny, we
must rid ourselves of our fears and speak the bitter truth. And that
truth is as follows.
The more our
government persecutes its perceived enemies, the more they are sowing
the seeds of disintegration in our country. The more they oppress and
attempt to intimidate those they seek to silence and subjugate, the more
they engender anger, rebellion, alienation, enmity and division.
Nobody wishes
to be part of a country in which apartheid, genocide, ethnic cleansing,
islamisation, state-sponsored terror, religious bigotry and the
selective application of justice is alive and well. Nobody wishes to be
part of a contraption which seeks to empower and strengthen a tiny
minority and which seeks to impoverish and enslave a pliant and docile
majority.
If you want a
country to remain united you do not go out of your way to kill, destroy,
intimidate and tell lies about those that oppose you, that criticize
you and that are not in your political party.
You do not
attempt to relegate Christianity into being regarded as a weak,
inconsequential and second rate faith. You do not burn the cross and
attempt to shame our faith. You do not drag our nation into a military
coalition of Sunni Muslim countries. You do not refer to concerned
Christians as “religious bigots”.
If you want
your country to remain together you do not get into bed with the
Jihadists. You do not refuse to condemn the heinous activities of your
kinsmen, the Fulani militants and herdsmen.
You do not
tolerate the banning of preaching in public places, the banning of
all-night prayers or the licensing and pulling down of churches anywhere
in the country.
You do not
condemn the bombing in Brussels and remain silent about the massacre in
Agatu, the slaughter of the Igbo in the east and the mass murder of the
Shia in Zaria. You do not behave like the King of the North and instead
you conduct yourself like the President of Nigeria.
If you want
your country to remain together you do not try to convict and jail your
opponents for no just cause or attempt to silence them with sensational,
salacious and baseless allegations and lies.
You do not use
the security agencies to insult and threaten them on a daily basis and
attempt to demonize them with half truths and mendacity before the
entire world.
You do not
impoverish the people with half-baked and ill-conceived economic and
fiscal policies which have resulted in untold hardship, an unprecedented
economic recession, high food and fuel prices, endless fuel queues,
high electricity tariffs, the exile of the U.S. dollar, the unofficial
devaluation of the naira, high unemployment and the lowest generation of
electrical power since 1999.
You do not
tell your people that you are ”not a magician” and that they have to
live with the debilitating and traumatic fuel queues up until May.
You do
not tell the Nigerian people to hold the vandals that are sabotaging our
pipelines responsible for the lack of electricity that we are suffering
and the perpetual darkness that we have found ourselves in. You do not
throw 76 hardworking farmers in police cells in Enugu simply because
they attempted to defend their wives, children and farms from the
rampaging, lustful and bloodthirsty clutches of the Fulani militants and
herdsmen.
If you want
your country to remain together you do not tell your people that you
will import Brazilian grass and establish grazing lands and settlements
for Fulani herdsmen in the south.
You do not say
that as a testimony of your so-called ”monumental efforts” to save the
nation and as part of your contribution to national and international
development our country will start producing toothpicks in 2018.
You do not say
that we will send a man into space in 2030 when we can’t even produce
enough petrol and refined products to fuel our cars and meet our local
needs in 2016.
If you want
your country to remain together you do not implement an economic policy
that is nonsensical, counter-productive and irrational, that drives away
foreign and local investment, that has killed the manufacturing and
industrial sector, that has crippled farmers and the agricultural sector
and that has turned us into a nation of poverty-stricken paupers and
destitute beggars.
You do not
implement a foreign policy that has turned us into the joke of the
African continent, the laughing stock of the civilized world and the
lackey of the Arab world.
You do not use
your Armed Forces to intimidate your people or your AK-47-wielding
ethnic militias to kill, crush and terrorize those that you consider to
be subhuman slaves and second class citizens.
You do not
attempt to break the spirit of those that refuse to worship you and bow
down before you with brutal aggression and naked intimidation.
If you want
your country to remain together you do not demonise President Goodluck
Jonathan and leading members of the PDP and attempt to break them,
humiliate them and destroy their legacy.
You do not
lock up Col. Sambo Dasuki and Mr. Nnamdi Kanu indefinately, ignore court
orders that have ordered their release and throw away the keys of their
dungeons and cells.
You do not
provoke God by using the machinery of state to ruin the name and
annihilate the families, homes and lives of those that you hate and
those that oppose you even though you know that they are innocent of any
wrongdoing.
You do not
denigrate and unleash your thugs on the people of the Niger Delta and
you do not attempt to turn Nigeria into Africa’s North Korea.
These things
that you insist on doing do not breed love, peace, joy, hope and unity:
they breed hate. They also breed bitterness, defiance, suspicion, fear
and rage and ultimately they will result in civil unrest and a bitter
and prolonged conflict.
I do not
believe in violence and neither do I call for or support the idea of an
armed struggle. I am a man of peace and like Sir Winston Churchill, the
United Kingdom’s greatest Prime Minister, once said I believe “jaw jaw
is better than war war”. I do not subscribe to the logic of force and
instead I believe in the force of logic.
However when a
people are pushed up against a wall and when a government has as its
primary objective the silencing and cowering of the opposition and the
destruction and humiliation of leading opposition figures, things begin
to change very quickly.
When dreams
are shattered, when hearts are broken, when children weep, when widows
mourn, when tempers flair, when hearts harden and when blood boils, the
center cannot hold and things fall apart.
When men cry
through the night for the future of their nation and when women wail in
despair because there is no hope for their children, the center cannot
hold and things fall apart.
Where the
voice of reason is drowned, when lawful opposition is reigned in, when
peaceful dissent is silenced and when the fury of violence becomes
inevitable, the center cannot hold and things fall apart.
History proves
that those angry young men and women that do not believe that they have
a future in a united Nigeria and that do not share or care for our
disposition for peaceful dialogue will eventually say “enough is enough”
and rise up like an all-powerful, angry and erupting volcano.
They will push
the rational and reasonable aside and they will pick up their weapons
of war in a desperate attempt to break the yoke of slavery and liberate
themselves from the bondage of servitude.
Let us pray
that it never comes to that. Let us trust God that restraint and good
reason will prevail. Let us hope that we settle our differences in a
peaceful manner.
Let us pray
that those that hold the reigns of power today will eventually change
their ways. Let us hope that they remember that they will not be there
forever.
Source: cc
No comments:
Post a Comment