Owo Massacre: Shame Of A Nation

Last Sunday’s attack on St. Francis Catholic Church, Owo, Ondo State, was a reproach to Nigeria, leaving
no one in doubt that terrorism has been fully entrenched in every part of the country. According to reports, while worship service was on, gunmen, armed with explosives and automatic weapons, opened fire on the worshippers. The gunmen put up the appearance of being first-time visitors, only to gun down the unsuspecting worshippers, killing dozens and injuring some others.
Nigeria’s terrorists have spread all over the country on various fronts. And, unlike the docile Federal Government and some visionless state governors, the terror groups have an objective, a technique, and an obligation to their ferocious undertaking. The Ondo fatality figure is uncertain. While some put it at 35, others raised it as high as 50 or even 60. The incident was a picture of a monstrous church that looked like a slaughterhouse, with citizens of this country lying helpless on the church floor among the pews.
Indeed, there is no safe place anymore. The attackers dealt a fatal blow to the church. The church service was reportedly coming to an end when gunfire rang out from all directions. Using the element of astonishment, the attackers overwhelmed the unprepared congregation. Among the dead were women and children, and the numbers are rising as some victims who were ferried to different medical facilities died of their injuries.
This tragedy is akin to the bloody brutality of the barbarians that many have seen. The criminals chose Owo, the hometown of Governor Rotimi Akeredolu, perhaps because the governor has been an advocate of true federalism, especially insisting that predators who claim to be harmless herders should not get free permits. When he insisted that certain forests were sanctuaries that no one could trespass, he clashed with the Federal Government, who invoked the right to free movement in the country.
The daily attacks and many other events across the country reflect the horrific damage done to the disintegrating coalition by President Muhammadu Buhari’s regime. His incompetence and poor leadership are mixed with the actions of governors and federal and state lawmakers, who refuse to press for immediate changes to the 1999 Constitution to promote state policing or create effective local security agencies.
We hope that Nigerians will not continue to see this as a routine in their national life. Only last April, terrorists, suspected to be the Ansaru arm of the Boko Haram sect, attacked a military base at Polewire in Birnin-Gwari, Kaduna State, killing 17 soldiers and injuring 40 others, after a fierce gun battle between both parties. The gunmen also killed three locals, razed four armoured vehicles and went away with military weapons after killing the soldiers.
Since Boko Haram launched a bloody insurgency in 2009 in the North-East, more than 30,000 people have been killed and nearly three million displaced in more than a decade of terror activities in Nigeria, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Violence committed by insurgents has affected over 26 million people in the Lake Chad region and displaced 2.6 million others, according to the UN Refugee Agency.
How long shall Nigerian citizens be restrained from moving around the country without fear of what is ahead, or what is behind them? We live as sojourners in fear. Gone are the days when people could wake up and eye the highway for a trip. Yet, the dead in Ondo were at home, at a place of worship, sedentary and kneeling, no trip ahead. But the criminals came bearing arms and bombs, detonating tragedy.
The spread of terrorism across the country has long been predicted. But as usual, governments and security agencies have neither heeded the alarm nor acted preemptively. The latest warnings came from Nobel laureate, Wole Soyinka, Kaduna State Governor, Nasir el-Rufai, and other prominent figures, who had warned authorities that terrorists were spreading across the country.
Similarly, other groups and individuals, through statements, online videos and reports to security agencies, had been warning for years that Islamic terrorists, Fulani herders/terrorists, rated the world’s deadliest terror group, had ravaged the forests and shanty towns of the South-West by the thousands. We can only say that it is a delinquency of the Federal Government. For such catastrophe as this to continue without let, and nothing has deterred them, calls for citizens to seek ways to secure themselves.
Nigeria appears to be in an irreversible state of national defeat. The Federal Government has politicised insecurity. In the process, Buhari lost control. Under his leadership, Fulani herders, coupled with Fulani bandits from all over West and Central Africa, have become an occupying army, numbering in the tens of thousands. They inflict terror on Nigerians. Inspired by a seemingly sympathetic Presidency, a security system with unbalanced leadership tilted extremely in their racial and sectarian direction, they operate everywhere with eerie impunity.
Ondo, like many other states, has suffered from Fulani buccaneers. Nomads once abducted former Finance Minister, Olu Falae, from his Akure farm. He was brutalised and compelled to pay a ransom before his release. He was not the only one. Funke Olakunrin, a daughter of the Afenifere leader, Reuben Fasoranti, was gruesomely murdered by herdsmen in July, 2019. Since then, Akeredolu has been at the forefront of ridding the region of the murderous gang.
Unfortunately, the refusal of the government to properly investigate or take definite actions to ensure justice or deter future occurrences continues to exacerbate the crises. Since their emergence, herdsmen and banditry attacks have risen exponentially as the authorities have failed to demonstrate the capacity to address the insecurity plaguing the country.
The Owo massacre again raises the question of governance misprision, considering that our 1999 Constitution asserts security and welfare of citizens as a primary responsibility of the government. The same Constitution centralises the command and control of security establishments in the Federal Government through the President. Hence, Buhari must take prompt measures beyond denouncing the truculent act to end insecurity in the country.