As a young boy, I watched the
torture of Samuel Doe on VHS. I may not have understood what made so many
people angry with him at the time nor had I an insight into the political
nuances that led up to the civil war in Liberia; but even in my naivety, the grotesqueness
of the video was palpable. I considered the video a horror movie like
The Living dead or
Idi amin because my mind could not conceive violence of such
magnitude as fact.
After watching what now is considered
the “Aluu four” massacre video, there was no confusion as to whether it was
fact or fiction. What was puzzling this time around were questions I had no
answers to: How did we get to this point in Nigeria? How did the threshold for violence
lower so much without notice? Who are
the parents of these murderers? How did they bring up their children as killers
and what went wrong in their formative years? How will the parents of the slain
ever find succor having watched their sons hacked to death in such brutal
manner in their own country?
Children are usually taught to “rat” or tell-on their siblings in acts of
misdemeanor. It is a system employed by parents to know when things go wrong in
their absence. A child, usually the youngest is the designated whistle blower. If
truly the society is an offshoot of the family, it is worrisome that no one in
that crowd ran to the police to report? No one felt compassion enough to do
anything about it. Instead, they cheered on and acted like children angry at
lizards which simply just refused to die after stoning them down from a tree.
In July, Miss Cynthia Osokogu, a 24 year old entrepreneur
was raped and murdered for sexual gratification. While some blamed the poor girl for being of
easy virtue, the bulk of the criticisms went the way of the murderers. It was
perhaps only Idowu Akinlotan, a columnist for the Nation Newspaper in his essay
titled, “The Cynthia Paradox”, that
captured my sentiments on the matter. I think we we need to pay more attention to why these things are
happening in the country rather than on the actions themselves. Violence has
taken a new dimension in the Nigeria. She has taken off her clothes and danced
naked in the village square while we watch in astonishment. Violence is now the
cancer ravaging us from within. Treating the symptoms is tantamount to putting
a band-aid on a diabetic foot in the hope that it would heal. It is not enough
to set up committees of enquiry. It is not enough to parade suspects on NTA and
force confessions out of them. Something lies beneath.
While we slowly came to terms
with Cynthia’s demise, a group of youths slaughtered over 30 students in Mubi,
Adamawa state. The names of the victims were called out and they were summarily
executed. Some reports suggest that their bodies were chopped into pieces. Yet
again we wailed and cried and set up more committees of enquiries. The investigations
were still ongoing when all of a sudden in Aluu, Port-Harcourt, another violent
incident erupted. All these acts have one thing in common; they are carried out
by young people and targeted at young people. Be it in the north, west or south-south,
the trend is evident-the youths have turned on themselves.
I remember a time when we young
people used to boast about togetherness and camaraderie. We collectively agreed
that it was the older generation that had caused the denigration of present day Nigeria.
Youths make up more than fifty percent of the general population, so when there
is a dysfunction in the way youths think, then you know we have a serious
problem. So what exactly has caused so much disconcertion, disdain and disarray
amongst us?
A plausible explanation could be the
overexposure to bloodshed over time. We are inundated weekly by wave after wave
of violent acts across the Nation and little by little we have lost the human
connection God put in us. News of Boko Haram bombings; killings in Jos and
Ebonyi state are just headlines to us now. I too am guilty, because after
hearing about a church bombing recently I was grateful to God that the death
toll was minimal. I praised God it was just one person that died as if that one
person didn’t have a family. It didn’t occur to me at the time that that singular
human life could have been a father, husband, brother, son, breadwinner
and uncle to someone else. It now takes a large death toll to get our attention.
In addition to the over- sensitization
to violence, the present economic hardship in the country has not helped. The
youth are frustrated, jobless and restless. They are full of energy and will
react quicker to situations. They willfully expend such energies even if it is
against the society. They are also more
impressionable that other age groups. We, youths, have also noticed that crime
is hardly punished in Nigeria. We see no point in going to the police. For
instance, when have seen that oil subsidy thieves are shielded from prosecution. We
have seen that Farouk Lawan has remained in the house of representative even after
his obvious complicity in the bribery scandal. We have witnessed people like Dimeji Bankole use inane
techniques to stall court processes. We
have seen youths kill in Jos, Bauchi, Yobe and Kano and yet walk free after jamboree
committees’ met. We noticed that a man was killed five days after his
wedding in Lagos by men suspected to be members of the police force and yet no answer
has been forwarded. One doesn’t have to be a genius to deduce the repercussions
of this on society. When there is impunity even for seemingly small crimes, disaster
looms. This is why the killings have increased in intensity and have gone
unabated.
In finding solutions to these “uprisings”,
we may need to look at the Aluu incident more critically. We need psychologists
(the Nigerian government is not interested in such things) to investigate the upbringing
of the perpetrators. What went wrong in their childhood? I believe that there
are certain people who are prone to violence and crime-an infinitesimal few.
For others-the majority- they need to be pushed to the wall to commit crimes
like armed robbery. Around the world we hear about misguided persons such as
Timothy McVeigh, Andres Brevick, and James Holmes, committing mass murders. In
such instances, the perpetrators acted alone and in the case of Brevick, his
sanity was questioned. But when a group
of “sane” people champion killings and go on to record it on video, you begin
to fear. When a group of young men lure a lady to Lagos in order to rape and
kill her, you sense a depravity. When bandits connive to kill 30 students in
peace time, you are terrified for your children yet unborn. Even in war, soldiers’
sometimes suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) because of the things
they do and see. My argument is that the
community of people that killed these four boys are sick and are not fit to live amongst human beings.
In order to prevent this from reoccurring,
the law must be seen to function. The perpetrators’ of the act must be punished
severely. Those that gave the order, those that supervised, and those that executed
the order must be punished. The Mubi killers must also be brought to justice. If eventually the law finds them guilty and
capital punishment is employed, their executions must be made public. This
should be done to elevate the sacrosanctity of the law. The law needs to make a statement that it
functions and exists. Executions even in the US are made public in some states. Sadam Hussein’s
execution was made public. Even in primitive societies, the hang man (representing
the state) performed his duty in the full view of the public. This was done so
that people respect the law.
The Goodluck Jonathan
administration has experienced an unprecedented wave of bloodshed. In 2010, I wrote
then that I hoped we would never come to a point where suicide bombers would be
employed. I actually thought I was exaggerating. In 2012,
suicide bombing is no longer news. It seems funny that the President made a
speech three days after the Aluu incident and the four boys did not get a
mention. Perhaps he forgot, or it wasn’t on his agenda for the speech. I was disappointed.
The President should have called for national mourning. Flags should have been
flown at half mast. If he didn’t consider it a national tragedy, then it
probably wasn’t so important. Flying
flags at half mast is a call for national re-awakening. It sends a message that
the incident must never repeat itself. By not giving it a mention, he has
tolerated it. He has inadvertently agreed we have the capacity to deal with such
things. I have been extremely slow in criticizing this
President because I think that we as citizens abdicate our own responsibilities
sometimes. But why are all this things happening under his watch? Is it all a
coincidence, or is there something he is doing wrong? Where has he gone that he
shouldn’t have? Where should he have gone that he didn’t go? There has been too
much bloodletting under him.
In conclusion, we all must know
that violence begets violence. The law of sowing and reaping is in motion. The bloods
of the innocent have been spilled time and again. We cannot claim to have heard
the last of the Jos conflicts. If your
family member was maimed during the Berom and Fulani fracas, do you think you
will forget? Would you live happily ever after with those you know killed your
spouse? Will the parents of the slain four ever forgive the Aluu community for
this action? The truth must be told. Many families have been hurt. They have
not seen the state provide the justice required to keep them at peace, so they
wait simmering, hoping for the perfect opportunity to strike back and shed
blood. The cycle goes on. To break the cycle, a holistic approach
must be sought. While we work assiduously to bring perpetrators to book, we
should also target the next generation. We must begin to teach those coming
after us to respect life. Parents have a huge responsibility here. The body is
a function of cells the way the society is derived from a family. If we miss it
at that level, then we will fail. The state must enact laws to compel people to
plant trees and keep pets. There must be stiff laws for killing animals. If you
go to prison for killing a dog, you will think twice before killing a human
being. It will take time but it will work. If the little children love life,
they will preserve it. They will in turn teach their children and one day we
will have our beautiful land once more.
©2012 Otaigbe Ewoigbokhan
Itualive!
The issue now is how to find a
middle ground. How do we harness the benefits of Okadas without their liabilities?
Lagos is not a modern city, at least not yet. Modern cities like Amsterdam, Paris,
Dubai and Helsinki don’t have Okadas because they have good roads. London with its
Oyster Card has one of the best local transport systems in the world. Speed trains
span the lengths and breadths of these developed cities. They achieved all this
by carefully planning and building infrastructure. 
