Nigeria: Our cowntry, their cowlony

We are fond of blaming Frederick Lugard for his forced amalgamation of northern and southern protectorates. We are fond of reciting how Lugard’s squeeze, Flora Shaw, woke up on the wrong side of the bed, after a long night of binge and amour and plied Lugard into decreeing Nigeria into being. 
Because here we are; a country without a soul, which has done more to move apart than bond together. Because there is no binding force, neither faith nor blood; just nothing but aloofness and cruelty, holding us together. The land has been washed by so many bloodbaths, as several innocent souls are wasted in recurrent spasms of inexplicable violence. Somehow, we had managed to contain the slide into anomie until lately that the tiny string holding us is about to snap.
Because someone dared to dream the impossible – colonise us afresh. But unlike the Lugard-Shaw contraption, this is a local brew, a colony of cows – a ‘cowlony’ and a ‘cowtry’ – where cows are prized more than souls of men.
And like the cows, we have been mooing at one another, inflaming the nation with passion. Cows are more valuable than man. No, man is more valuable than cows. For every cow killed or rustled, we shall wipe out communities. No, we have run for too long but will now defend ourselves. The murderous gang is local mititia engaged in communal crisis. No, you are insensitive and neglected to protect Nigerian people. In God’s name, accommodate your brothers and let them be. Which brother does what they have done to us? Tell them to accommodate us too and stop grazing their cows on our years of sweat and blood. We must kill everyone until the anti-open grazing bills are reversed and grazing routes reopened. Is it because you control the power architecture that nobody can arrest or prosecute you for self-confessed culpability?  Well, we are now ready to  kill too or be killed, protecting our patrimony. Government has decided to set up cattle colonies across the country and states must provide the land. No, we cannot release even an inch of ground for entirely private business. Why must government use public fund to support it?
The argument rages on and on but the government seems unperturbed. That is why people say it is complicit. This madness could only happen in a cowntry like ours. In our cowntry, cows have more premium than human. Cows are free to graze as they like on any farm and owe no apologies to anyone. In a ‘cowntry’, cows even take over classrooms and stadia, and federal highways, even in Abuja, the federal capital city.
People express fear, and rightly too, that the southward destination of the killer herdsmen is akin to exporting terrorism by other means. That is why the horde of okada riders and sundry artisans, including scavengers and cart pushers should be closely monitored, as they could well be members of secret occupier army, awaiting instructions to unleash jihad on the south.
However, I am worried by avoidable hateful sentiments fast taking hold of us. The social media is awash with unverified frightful information. Some of the okada riders and artisans, who may actually be victims of economic hardship foisted on the people by the tepid government hobbled by clannishness and extreme duplicity.
The Federal Governmemt must not blackmail or arm-twist state governors to give them land to set up cattle colonies. Constitutionally, all the lands belong to the states and administered by their governors. Since this is a federation, the Federal Government should buy the land for its proposed cattle colonies, and to do that, they must have a willing seller.
You cannot covet and appropriate a man’s property or compel him to sell under any guise. Moreover, cattle rearing is a very lucrative private business. It beats one’s imagination why the Federal Government would want to expend public funds on purely commercial enterprise for a section of the country to the exclusion of others unless it has ulterior motives.
For goodness sake, judging by the number and cost of AK47 rifles they deploy to their orgy of mass murder, the herdsmen and their sponsors are very rich and powerful men, who can afford to buy land for their colonies. The Federal Government should steer clear of this backward reasoning, as it bodes only evil for the country. Any person seeking to do business in any place should be ready to buy the land, whether he is a herdsman or farmer.
And, by the way, does the Federal Government intend to cede Nigerian lands to foreigners seeing that by their own explanations, the killer herdsmen are non Nigerians?
Nigerian leaders have fooled the people for far too long. And now shoving is fast becoming pushing. Southern Nigeria seems to have got tired of its cheap acquiescence over the years. But it is not just about beating drumbeats of war. It is not just about raking up muck. It is also about common sense.
Down south, especially in the East, people are apolitical and shun the political process. Yet they complain most when things go wrong. They don’t register as voters. They don’t vote. And this is the only means of choosing those who rule over us, assuming the votes count.
Come to think of it, there may be sense in pervading fear of hidden Islamic agenda. Nonetheless, honestly,  I’m not bothered about Islamisation of the country. Why are we bothered about Islamic agenda when there is no Christian agenda?  It is the right of Muslims to so aspire as much it is Christians’ to resist.
The late Libyan leader, Muamar Gadaffi did predict the takeover of Europe without even a gunshot and it’s coming to pass such that Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany has expressed fears of the country being overrun by Islam. The case is not much different in Nigeria. Because of carelessness of the believers. Because believers have chosen to sleep while the enemy sows tares all over their vineyard. Because Christians have gone after cheap lucre at the expense of souls. Skyscraping cathedrals dot the landscape with only vegetative souls within. Because the elect is engaged in enemy- induced infighting than join forces in the fight of faith.
Undue rivalry and competition have taken over the pulpits. Evangelism is comatose and passion for souls strangulated. Showmen and magicians prance the pulpits with affected diction, dishing out comedy to perishing souls, laughing their way to hell. Their relevance lies in attacking one another with gusto, as enemies of the faith guffaw over bowls of fura.
Sons of yesterday are stripping their spiritual fathers and elders naked in full public glare, washing their dirty linen before bemused potential converts. Why would Islam not take over the land when Christians covertly block souls from coming into the kingdom? What would attract new souls? Is it the scandalous lifestyle or elders watching goats deliver in tethers?
The shame of it is that our church and the world have become identical Siamese twins, there is no more difference between them.