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| ADENIYI |
The Verdict By Olusegun Adeniyi. Email: olusegun.adeniyi@thisdaylive.com
If there is any development that depicts the state of affairs in our
country today, it is what happened last week following the coordinated
attacks by Boko Haram on police, army and prison formations in Bama,
Borno State. As it is now well documented, Boko Haram gunmen had
attacked the two police barracks, the army barracks, the main prison,
the LGA secretariat, the magistrate court, the revenue office, the
primary health care center and a public school in the border town. At
the end of the invasion during which they also set ablaze the Divisional
Police Headquarters, 22 policemen, 14 prison officials and three
soldiers were killed.
According to an eye witness account posted on a listserv along with
photographs of the mangled bodies of the policemen, “while the military
brought the bodies of their three colleagues and five injured soldiers
to the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital on the same day, the
police left the bodies of their colleagues and those of the prison staff
(most of them burnt, some beyond recognition) in the scorching sun
until late in the evening of the following day. As the morgue was full
with other corpses, the policemen still demanded that those that were
there be removed and the 36 almost decomposing bodies they brought be
admitted, a request the few staff available could not grant. Then early
the next morning, men of the police mobile force came into the hospital
and closed the entrance gate. They went on a rampage and started
shooting; they beat up a professor and other medical staff and also shot
a medical doctor before some military men in the hospital came to bring
the situation under control…when the situation had calmed down, we saw
the lorry still standing, filled with the decomposing bodies, families
and friends of the dead were seen in a state of confusion, those who
brought coffins were stranded as the corpses could not fit into them,
while some of them brought mats and woven grasses just to wrap up the
bodies for burial…”
The pathetic story of the families of the deceased policemen having to
be confronted with such gory situation drew tears to my eyes yet the
fight over non-availability of spaces in mortuaries is fast becoming a
metaphor for a nation that is now practically at war with itself. As it
would happen, just a few hours after the madness in Bama, there was a
re-enactment of that tragedy in Alakyo Village in Nasarawa State where
scores of policemen (exact number ranging between 50 and 90) as well as
ten operatives of the Directorate of State Service (SSS) were ambushed
and killed by “Ombatse” Cult members. At the Dalhatu Araf Specialist
Hospital (DASH) Lafia where the evacuated bodies of those that could be
found were deposited, a Red Cross official painted a heart-rending
picture: “We tried to pack them but the bodies were breaking into
pieces; so we used shovel to pack them.”
There are two tragic issues here: not only have lives become very cheap
in our country, there seems to be no resting place for those who lost
their lives either in service of the nation or as innocent bystanders of
a new form of madness that is fast engulfing our land. The litany of
shame is just incredible: a few weeks after the spectacle of about 30
unidentified dead bodies floating on a river in Anambra State, 60 other
corpses believed to be civilian casualties were deposited at the Sani
Abacha Hospital in Damaturu, Yobe State. Then followed other theatres of
violent massacres: Baga and Bama in Borno State; Wukari in Taraba;
Ogbokpo in Benue, etc. And today, we have a situation in which mass
graves have become a common feature of our national existence.
Aside kidnapping for ransom that is fast assuming epidemic proportion,
what has now heightened the sense of national danger is the ease with
which all manner of criminal gangs are springing up with no fear of our
uniformed security personnel who have become targets of ambush and
summary execution. Yet when those who are paid to protect us are neither
safe nor the bodies of their fallen members guaranteed available spaces
in the mortuary, then we should know that anarchy beckons.
That point was driven home yesterday in the United Kingdom in a most
poignant manner at the annual Police Federation Conference. Although
from 2000 to date, only12 policemen have been killed in the line of duty
by criminals in the country, Home Secretary, Hon. Theresa May, didn’t
mince words that even that number is outrageous and intolerable: “To
attack and kill a police officer is to attack the fundamental basis of
our society. We ask police officers to keep us safe by confronting and
stopping violent criminals for us. We ask you to take the risks so that
we don’t have to. And sometimes you are targeted by criminals because of
what you represent. That is why I can announce today that, subject to
consultation with the Sentencing Council, the government will change the
law so that the starting point for anybody who kills a police officer
should be a life sentence without parole.”
That statement and the new resolve by the UK authorities to deal
ruthlessly with those who kill policemen in their country sum up
everything. Unfortunately, neither our government nor the society
appreciates the gravity of what the whimsical murder by criminals of
several policemen in one fell swoop symbolises for our beleaguered
country. What makes the situation even more tragic is that in the
growing obsession about who becomes president in 2015, only few people
seem to be paying attention to the challenge of the moment. While those
perceived to be close to the current president (including public
officials) are making threats as to how Nigeria would go up in flames if
he is not re-elected in 2015, some Northern elders who should be
concerned that Boko Haram insurgents are daily annexing vast territories
in their region are also more preoccupied with issuing counter threats.
In a nation where nobody accepts responsibility for anything, almost
all our politicians and public officials, past and present, are pointing
fingers oblivious to the fact that Nigeria did not degenerate to this
abysmal level in one day.
Nothing perhaps illustrates our situation today better than the
embedded message in “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” which is
regarded as one of the best work of literature regarding ethics and
society. Published in 1974 by Ursula K. Le Guin as a short story in her
collection, “The Wind’s Twelve Quarters”, it is about a beautifully
constructed utopian society called Omelas where the prosperity of the
people came at the expense of one deprived child locked up for life in a
dingy cellar. At the coming of age, every citizen of Omelas is
confronted with the condition of the child and no matter how well the
matter was explained to them, “these young spectators are always shocked
and sickened at the sight. They feel disgust, which they had thought
themselves superior to. They feel anger, outrage, impotence, despite all
the explanations...Yet it is their tears and anger, the trying of their
generosity and the acceptance of their helplessness, which are perhaps
the true source of the splendour of their lives....”
While the citizens of Omelas were quite aware of the child’s deplorable
condition, they did nothing apparently because their happiness was
dependent on his deprivation. But some people, after visiting the child
to discover the hard truth about their world, took the easy way out by
simply leaving the city of Omelas for good. One major theme in this
story which is very popular in leadership courses is morality and how
different people within a given society react to situations around them.
Using Omelas as a metaphor for our country today, we can examine the
different aspects of our society and the rot within.
Of course we can easily argue that in Nigeria, as in Omelas, it is not
everyone who agrees with the culture of indiscipline and perversion of
values. Yet we can also argue that the wanton killings going on and the
subversion of the rule of law that pervade the landscape exist because
only few are prepared to stand up for what is right. Many of those who
feel indignation are not prepared to make the requisite intervention,
either as a result of their desire to preserve their personal interests
or because they do not want to make any sacrifices. So we are left with
two sets of people: those who are ‘walking away from Omelas’ and those
staying back to enjoy their ill-gotten pleasure.
The moral is simple: whether we want to admit it or not, the nation is
being orphaned and the people are dying because many who profit from the
current chaos in the private and public sectors do not look at the
nation in patriotic light. It is all about securing or protecting
private advantage. Yet many seem to forget that where life is cheap
there is no cover for anyone, whether in or out of government. It should
indeed be clear to the discerning that in the Nigeria of today, no one
should assume the sanctity and impregnability of private sanctuaries.
That is why I believe that at the fullness of time, the failure of those
who can do something about the growing mayhem in the land may
ultimately well be their undoing.
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