May Their Deaths Not Be In Vain

An Igbo adage has it that“e buru ozu onye ozo, o dika e bu ukwu nku”. Translate it to English and you have “when they are carrying someone else’s corpse, it will seem as if it is a log of wood”. Which means that one may not feel the impact of a situation or problem until he is affected.
Many a time when we hear stories of how some soldiers lost their lives in the cause of the unending fight against insurgency in the country, it may seem like a fairy tale or we term it concocted stories by the army to give the impression that they are actually dealing with the challenge as expected.
In the past few months, many policemen in the south-eastern part of the country have reportedly had their lives cut short by gunmen causing mayhem in the zone. Yet some people either doubt the report or feel the policemen deserve to die because the police represent anything evil in Nigeria.
Not until someone close to you or a person you know loses his life in such a gruesome manner will you understand the pain and agony all these senseless killings cause to many families in the country. I had a feel of this sorrow early in the week when someone I know lost her husband, a top-ranking military officer, in the hands of Boko Haram insurgents. She could not be consoled. She was wailing and asking so many questions – why did he leave her, making her a widow at a very tender age? What will she tell their only child who is less than a year old when he grows up? Who will cater for his aged parents and other family members who depend on him?
She couldn’t stop asking, “When will there be an end to the bloodletting and wasting of lives in this country? How many of our husbands will die in this endless fight?
These are questions that the leadership of the country should answer. How many Nigerians – men, women, children, students, soldiers and police do we have to lose before the carnage and wanton destruction of lives and property in our land is brought under control and peace is restored to the nation?
You open the pages of newspapers every day, visit different social media platforms and the stories there will make you wonder if the country is at war. All you see or read are stories of kidnappings, killings, maiming, shooting and destruction across the country. Just last Monday, seven Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in a camp in Abagena, a Makurdi suburb in Benue State, were killed by suspected herdsmen. The attackers, they said, stormed the community and destroyed many houses before moving into the camp.  About 50 communities have been sacked in Niger State by Boko Haram, hoisting the flags of Islamic State in those areas. Children whose only crime is that they are seeking knowledge are whisked away from their schools, tortured and killed.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs put the number of people that have been killed in a decade by Boko Haram’s terror activities in the country at more than 30,000 people with nearly three million displaced. Add that to the number of people killed daily by killer herdsmen, bandits and others and you cannot help but weep for the nation. It has never been this bad in this country.
The most worrisome thing is that the government at the center seems not to be bothered about these problems. The president will not address the citizens on what the government is doing to assuage the situation as to calm frayed nerves. And when his assistants choose to speak; they worsen the situation through their arrogance and choice of words. The terrorists masquerading as bandits or herdsmen are sprayed with deodorant while citizens seeking self-determination are poured insecticides, thereby making some of the theories on nepotism hard to dispute.
We cannot continue like this. We need a government that will take charge of the affairs of the Nigerian state. It is now time, before it is too late for us, particularly our political leaders, men of goodwill both within and outside the government to put the interest of the country over and above selfish, partisan, ethnic or religious interests and rise up to save our dear land.
As some analysts have opined, our national lawmakers should, at this critical time, do away with playing party politics but work together using all the tools at the disposal to salvage the very ugly situation. The senators should go beyond being emotional about the current problems in the country but rather use their powers to compel President Muhammadu Buhari, Commander-in-Chief of the Nigerian Armed Forces, to wake up to his responsibility of protecting the lives of Nigerians or be made to go and take a deserving rest.
The ruling party, APC, should at this point come to the aid of the country by coming together to correct whatever is wrong from within so that this country can move forward. If it means asking the president to step aside so that a more competent, stronger, capable person from among the party steps in to prevent the total collapse of the party and the nation, as it is usually done in other civilised climes, so be it.
Meanwhile, the president must be commended for harkening to the advice of many well-meaning Nigerians to seek external help in dealing with the precarious situation at hand. Insurgency and terrorism respect no boundaries and there shouldn’t be any shame in asking other nations more endowed than Nigeria in terms of ammunition, advanced technology and experience like the United States of America to come to our aid. We hope that all the necessary measures to make this intervention a reality as soon as possible will be put in place by the appropriate authorities without delay.
In addition to that, it is imperative that due consideration be given to the issues of restructuring or devolution of power as some people call it, state police,  job creation, as well as address the problem of injustice, nepotism, corruption as that will create a more conducive, peaceful atmosphere in the country and bring an end the bloodletting and wasting of lives so that the supreme price paid by our soldiers and other citizens will not be in vain.

By: Calista Ezeaku