Continued from last week
Damaturu was peaceful. It had not, as at that period, completely lost its innocence. The Boko Haram was then like a storm gathering momentum at the inner depths of the ocean. Only very few people knew that terror was lucking in the corner.
That trip ended on the same note with which it began – of happiness and sense of fulfilment. But it also marked the beginning of another. Not long thereafter, we had to make another journey to Sokoto.
Traveling round the country at that time would leave you with no sense of foreboding, no apprehension. Wherever you might be in the country, you were sure that most parts of the country were safe and secure.
The roads were free of agents of Beelzebub. In fact, people preferred travelling round the country during that time at night. You were sure of travelling from the extreme regions of the north to the other extreme without the fear of having your life cut short by those who have lost theirs to the denizens of hell.
The sight of the big, hot kettle and the dark colour of the spiced tea on sale usually leave you with that unforgettable memory of how ‘sweet’ life could be. You would also want to savour the pleasurable noise of young and nubile female hawkers jostling on the road side trying to sell Fura de Nunu. You would always want to travel in line with.
Suddenly, all of the above have virtually, if not completely become a thing of the past. I shudder to think that they have become past perfect. This is because our nation is now held in the jugular by at least three noxious luciferous agents all of which now threaten its corporate existence. In the beginning it was the Boko Haram (BH) terrorists whose activities and notoriety have occasioned panoply of studies and works all around the world. The BH emerged from parts of the Northeast and have ensured that the north has lost its peace and sleep. Since whatever happens in the north does not stay in the north, the terror in the methodology of violent extremism has since become a national tragedy. Damaturu lost its innocence in order that Adamawa and Niger might lose their sanity and conscience. Thus, teenage girls have become women at seven; boys who have barely left their mothers’ bosoms have since become gun-bearers and agents of death. Men, aged fifty and above now rape toddlers who do not know where they are nor to what use their genitals could be put. Life has simply lost its sanctity. The north appears to have lost innocence. Then from nowhere emerged what they now refer to as bandits. The latter reminds you of that era in classical Arab history known as the Jahiliyyah- an era when brigands would establish authorities over large swathes of land and pursue the villainous pleasure not of the celestial but the terrestrial. Bandits they are because they rob. Bandits they are because they kill. Unlike the BH that initially pleaded the establishment of an uncanny suzerainty of Islam the like of which is even unknown to Prophet Muhammad (s.a.w), the bandits in the northwest of this country do not lay any claim to preternatural knowledge of Islam. Rather, their sole agenda is to be in charge of the natural resources of the land. They desire to be in control of bread, water and fire.
While the nation was busy grappling with how to rein these elements in and impose some order on the disorder in the polity, the third angle in the triangle of infamy have emerged. Here reference is to the violent herder. The herder who uses his cattle as a warrant to perpetrate odious criminality. The herder of today who now bears Kalashnov and AK 47. The herder of today who now sees his host as boon and the latter’s land as that which can be desecrated and destroyed at will and without compunctions. His criminal activities have functioned in calling to question our unity as a nation. That the ordinary herder has achieved notoriety for criminality has also, unfortunately, widened the geography of ignorance and prejudice among a section of the Nigerian elites who now consider all Fulanis as land-grabbers and kidnappers.
It does not matter to the latter anymore, after having witnessed the murder, the kidnap and the atrocities perpetrated by a section among the herders in parts of the country, that not all criminals are Fulani; that not all Fulanis are criminals; that not all Fulanis are herdsmen and that not all herdsmen are criminals.
Now how shall we educate our compatriots that while it is true some herders have been perpetrators of acts of brigandage and kidnap, some of them have also been innocent victims of the same crime? How do we evolve reasonable and equitable balance between unity and security of our lives and properties as citizens of this country? How do we return peace to our land?!
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