The murder of the 4 students in Aluu is no longer news again. It’s been flogged, over flogged and flogged again by all forms of media since the video went viral. For me, I can certainly say I have not seen a gorier visual than that of the Aluu killings, and to think I saw less than thirty seconds of the video says it all. I am not a big fan of horror movies but seeing the video of these killings made me wish it was just a movie. Alas, it wasn’t. There were no directors, actors/actresses or makeup artists, no rehearsals and sadly it was not make-believe. It just had a league of barbarians, some sad cameramen who are no better than the murderers and four innocent boys.

First of all, let me restate the obvious, those boys should never have been attacked, that video should never have been shot and most of all, no human for any reason deserves to die in the way they did. These killings point out a sad feature; in his crude form man is barbaric. Society and civilization curb these crude urges and refine man to a point where he can live in harmony with himself, his fellow man and his environment.

So the question is; How did we get this far? How did we get to a point where such mindless act of inhuman torture and murder was allowed to continue till its unfortunate end? What should lead a group of people to inflict such pain to their fellow being? What would have made the ‘innocent’ observers not raise an objection to gory party? What should make a person stand, film and distribute such horror? I would have felt that seeing it as it happened is enough to make me not to wish my worst enemy the torture of seeing same.

As humans we pride ourselves as higher order animals. The reason for this is because we have a better mental capacity capable of abstract reasoning. We are the only known species known to build fires and cook our food. Those being primitive human tasks considering that today we have separated Siamese twins, been to the moon and made the earth our global village space.

Our reasoning capacity apart, we have also developed a unique system of communication that allows for self-expression, the exchange of ideas and organization creating room for cooperation and healthy competition in our social order.

The ability to reason and our unique communication system has propelled us to successes in technologies and art beyond bound. The success here has been so great that I would think if a person who lived in the world a thousand years ago comes back to the world today, he would believe the men of today are gods. But make no mistake about all these developments are merely in the mind, the brain, the intellect. And it can become mere mental illusion, because when a situation becomes critical the human brain acts like computer that has just been formatted and goes back to the basics…barbarism. This is the case of Aluu.

Ask the cultist why he must kill; ask the suicide bomber, what led him to die; ask the senator why he must embezzle; ask Saddam and Ghaddafi what led them to a hole; ask Assad why he must rule. They all do because they have no hope in tomorrow and must do the drastic (barbaric) today

Hope for a better future, guided by values and norms, is what builds a society. This the hope must be real because false hope give in to frustration. Frustration leads to acts of desperation and desperate times activates the barbaric human profile.

I don’t know Aluu, but I know the frustrations of Aluu will to a large extent mirror the frustrations of Nigeria. Schools without quality teachers; youths with no jobs; money without value; communities without hope, hope lost because they have been promised tomorrow far too long. And now they will rather take what they can have today than wait for bleak tomorrow. If the people in the mob trusted the Nigerian Police, they would have surrendered the ‘criminals’ to the Police. If the Police were equipped and had a functional system, a distress call will have been responded to and have saved four precious lives. If our society was better structured and hard drugs are not readily available on the streets, a bunch of junkies won’t bundle up themselves in a so-called vigilante group.

When someone bashes your car and you come down on the same spot and insist on settling with your hitter, not minding the traffic your actions cause. It is because subliminally you know that with the police or court, your legally allowed arbiter; you may not get a fair hearing or a hearing at all. So you fight to settle ‘now now’ in barbaric fashion…You are Aluu

When you write an exam with a performance you know should get you a good grade, but you go to see the lecturer after with offers in cash or kind; it is because subliminally you know that the lecturer can pass or fail you at will and no structure will provide redress. So you ‘settle’ the exam after all ‘man must survive’ (the barbaric gospel)…You are Aluu

When you request for an international passport/driver’s license/customs clearance papers, and pay a fee which is higher than what is in your receipt; it is because subliminally you know that following due process will lead to unnecessary bottlenecks; so you pay whatever your ‘inside man’ requires and get you request done ‘sharp sharp’…You are Aluu

‘Don’t dull’ a popular youth motto translates to ‘do whatever it takes (civil or not)’. When the structure of society cannot guarantee hope of a good future, the barbaric profile is activated and slowing we lose our inhibitions till we consume ourselves. Somewhere within us all we have that tendency to like the Aluu mob. The problem most times is we don’t channel these frustrations to force leaders of society to make a change, rather we find innocent victims to intimidate with our rage, just because we can.

Gani Fawehinmi, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King Jr., Mahatma Ghandi, Rosa Parks had one thing in common; they were frustrated with the sight of a bleak future and acted, channeling their frustrations to cause positive change. Today over 2 billion people are benefactors of their action. The attitudes of these great people are an inspiration as we work to ensure what happened at Aluu never ever happens again.

Say a prayer for Nigeria. Let her hope be real and let her people believe.

Rest in peace Chidi,Tekena, Llyod and Ugonna.


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