By Evaristus Offor
WE are living in the state of nature in this country. The centre has been broken and human life which is the greatest value has been cheapened and murdered with impunity. We not only experience terrible economic and religio-political aggravation , we are under siege by barbarians in the forms of kidnappers, armed robbers, ritualists, unconscionable serial rapists and most deadly, Fulani herdsmen’s open audacity in hostage-taking, stealing, maiming, killing and destruction of people’s hard earned farmlands. We can see innocent Nigerians butchered and brutalized in the most inhuman style, and yet nothing is done to those monster perpetrators.
We have heard stories from the media of how Fulani herdsmen had captured and married innocent Christian minors from the south off to the northern emirate for Islamic baptism without anybody raising any eyebrow. The recent case of Ese Oruru from Bayelsa State is still fresh. What an outlandish monstrosity. If not the media, this young girl and others would have been kidnapped and sexually harassed forever even when the police and the emirate looked the other way round in tacit support. What an errant degradation of a minor’s rights in a country that claims to be practicing democracy? Back to the Fulani Herdsmen’s open harassment, intimidation and dehumanising actions in the Middle Belt and South Eastern States which leaves much to be desired. We were inundated with ugly pictures of how the herdsmen butchered indigenes of Agatu in Benue State without all the levels of government acting rationally or civilly either. When I saw the demonic pictures from a fellow priest’s blackberry, it was so unnerving and cruel as the Fulani herdsmen handcuffed their victims and sliced their throats in the most horrible style, I refused to eat, asking if these herdsmen are truly human beings with souls and grace of God in them and those who have done nothing to bring the perpetrators to book.
Presently, these men from the pit of hell are now desecrating the “Holy of holies” in the Igboland by kidnapping innocent Catholic priests on a daily basis without the law enforcement agencies acting rationally or morally. Last year they captured two Catholic priests of the Enugu diocese and when the hierarchy refused to offer ransom for their release, their relations and well wishers had to part with some amount before their release. The priests even paid some four hundred thousand Naira to the anti-kidnapping arm of the police for tracking, yet nothing came out of it.
This month again, another Catholic priest was abducted by the same Fulani herdsmen with sophisticated weapons in Ezeagu and taken into bondage. We heard that they blasted one of his legs while he tried to run. Now the fear of Fulani pastoralists has become the beginning of wisdom for us priests and South-easterners, because both the federal and state governments have gone to sleep in that regard. My questions, therefore, are “where are the law enforcements agents who are paid to protect us and spread their dragnets to get information about them and possible arrests? Are they part of the evil game or are they afraid of the powers that be?
What are the five South-east governors doing in that regard too? Where are the so-called traditional rulers, local government council chairpersons, towns’ union leaders, and Igbo opinion leaders, political officeholders, the Church hierarchy, Neighborhood Associations and the rest of us Igbo people? What are we afraid of in tackling the ugly menace of these agents of destruction? Even some federal media houses in Igbo land are afraid to vehemently carry out commentaries on the nefarious activities of those zombies.
Do we not think that their actions may bring about reprisal attacks and possible break down of order in the country? What are the human rights groups doing or is kidnapping not a violation of the right to freedom and movement. Is the legitimacy of human rights no more the basis of our kind of democracy? Is kidnapping by Fulani herdsmen not a violation of the rule of law. Is it a standard form of decent living? If not, why is everybody including church leaders keeping mum? Why has the long arm of the law sleeping been in this face of ugly impunity, sacrilege and monstrosity? Is this type of kidnapping different from the other forms? If not, why are Fulani herdsmen who rape, harass, intimidate and kidnap innocent priests and the laity not being treated as others. Who is betraying us by protecting them? Why are our governors playing uncalled-for democratic settlements when their subjects are willfully vandalized, humiliated and diminished by a group of Fulani herdsmen who have no inkling of the value of human life?
However, this is the time for Christians especially Catholics to pick up their rosaries in support of their priests in this age of callous anticlericalism, since the government and law enforcement agencies have failed to protect them.
Look at what happened recently at Awgu in Enugu State, where those senseless cattle pastoralists destroyed people’s farmlands, and instead of the police taking the cause of justice and honour, those Igbo youths were captured like armless soldiers in the Congo ethnic war. Why should the army arrest, detain and charge those whose rights were browbeaten by invaders of arson? Are we in a banana republic? How many types of Nigerians do we have? Why do we condone evil in a land we call our own?
However, the worst criminals are the Igbo political and opinion leaders who have refused to speak out or act proactively, either due to fear or favouristic agenda. Can an Igbo person go to the north and kidnap somebody and his head will not roll on a plate of calabash as was the case with John the Baptist? What happened to Godwin Akalaku in Kano?
nRev Fr. Offor is of the Catholic Diocese of Enugu ([email protected])