Through out Human history, the worst and the most lethal wounds a nation can suffer are always self-inflicted. The Roman Empire did not fall because its legions had been overrun by Gothic Barbarians, later sucessors to its hegemony, the Empire of the Ottomans and even that of the British collapsed not because of a reversal in their military fortunes, an autopsy of all three world powers revealed that their cause of death is moral decadence and internal upheaval; a deadly affliction which drains nations of vitality. Social unrest, rotten criminality and widespread violence are but mere side-effects of this disease.

Nigeria is now showing unmistakable signs that wither due to an overdose on a rare strain of hallucinogenic tribal bigotry and insanity, or the most unfortunate of all our national traditions; our amazingly short-sighted habit of choosing to ignore and sometimes even forget the bitter lessons we learnt in our recent past. Ironclad truths that are written in the blood of our father’s and handed down to our generations so that we may avoid repeating their many mistakes, this trust they enshrined in the spirit of a national pledge all of us were fore-sworn to regard as a sacred duty not only to the 200 million Nigerians alive, but also to the million casualties of unmarked battlefields, the countless men/women/children that sacrificed their life and limbs during the darkest era of our nationhood- The Civil War, that painful tragedy faught to divide a country but ironically provided the nexus on which to forge a new national identity from the ashes of a bloody past. Then and now, we may not know what our destiny as a nation is, but in the heat of conflict we all came to see what it isn’t. This is a wisdom purchased at a heavy price, of dreams deferred and ethno-centric folly. Barely 30 years later, this has been sacrificed at the alter of selfish-interest and irresponsibility, such contempt for society is mostly propagated by those in authority, the same individuals whoose duty is to confront and contain this growing trend.

The extent of this problem only became obvious to me when two days ago, a complicated character called Asari Dokubo- once a former Niger Delta militant who made a name for himself through treasonous actions which do not exclude the kidnapping of expatriates and the waging of a guerilla war against the Nigerian State before his terrorism was halted by the brave men and women of the Nigerian Armed Forces, bringing an end to his criminal career. He however was among the insurgents that accepted the amnesty granted by the administration of our late President, he supposedly handed over his arms and was re-integrated into society, or so we thought.



Asari in a public display of ingratitude and lack of judgement, seemed to mistaken our genorousity for weakness which his training in Colonel Gaddafi’s infamous academy of trouble makers taught him to exploit. This he did shamelessly and in contradiction to the noble purpose to which he owes his freedom today, he even had the audacity to stand in the nation’s capital and threaten more than half of Nigeria’s population with bloodshed and a religious war. Many would like to know what gave him the confidence to make so many arrogant and offensive statements. Here is a man who has directly and indirectly caused the death of so many of our troops, publicly proclaiming that the President in whom lies the constitutional authority to protect the peace in the country and the lives of all Nigerians alike, will play a role in a supposed conflict that he Asari is inciting.

Where is the rule of law then?

Where are the SSS/DSS then, if one can commit as treasonous an act as instigating civil strife and get away with it? I think it is safe to asssume that they aren’t paying attention because they are otherwise engaged, on more vital National Security concerns like harrasing the political opponents of His Excellency. Sarcasm aside, this is a very dangerous game Asari Dokubo is playing in a time as dangerous as this. The insurgency in the north is already stretching National Unity to its limits, the perils in this sad times could suddenly explode to become a disaster we cannot even fathom, if the Federal Government does not bring him to order before he and others with similar agenda drag us into a cataclysm with a magnitude higher than that of a premium eruption of a super-volcano, then they should be aware that history will judge them accordingly. Now is the time to put an end to this madness, it is a duty of all patriots to condemn this act of High-Treason and inhumanity with all the vile venom it deserves. Not only because those who will suffer the most from this folly are those whose voice had long been silenced by the napotism vis corruption at the heart of our governmental system, the ordinary ‘aboki’ security guard and the suya man striving to make a living in the noisy cities of the south, the southern housemaids that wash and feed the children of the ‘Alhajis’ in the core north, all the forgotten invisible people that together make Nigeria a great tapestry of diversity but whose aspirations our rulers take for granted, they will not forget nor forgive us for putting their lives at risk all because of artificial misunderstandings and the power struggle of our political masters. We are bound by our shared humanity to avoid a path that will cause irreparable harm to our people. We owe it to our children.

The President wasn’t elected to keep mute while Nigeria’s existence is at stake. He is suppose to lead and lead he must. He should start by denouncing Asari as the garbage of a man who lost all shreds of dignity when he took arms against his own, he should tell him that so the widows and orphans of our fallen soldiers may know that their husbands/fathers did not die in vain. On their behalf, I demand an apology. The President should know that although he lacks popular support in the North, he still has something much more important; Legitimacy. This is what he stands to loose if he continue to shy away from the issue in the face of several developments which foments doubts about his impartiality; is he the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria or is he an Ijaw President of the Niger Delta?
His gaffe following the tragic terror attack on the day when the nation celebrates 50 years of independence is certainly a blunder of monumental proportions. Defending MEND while it was claiming responsibility for the attack on the nation was a serious miscalculation that portrayed him as someone trying to exonerate his kinsmen either to save himself from the embarrassment to come, or as someone seeking to profit from this tragedy by using it as political capital. It was no surprise that it backfired. The abscence of Federal Character in several of his decisions is re-shaping his image in the eyes of the people, such poorly conceived policies are lacking in both moral objectivity and subtlety. This is not even about the unfair budgets that always favor his region to the detriment of an equally if not more needy North, this is about Trust and Loyalty. Where does yours lie Mr. President?


A Picture do tell a Thousand Words.

If we are to endure and continue to turn a blind eye to the constant insults and threats by those who claim to be the defendants of your interest, and are by virtue of their ethnic affiliation, political stands and public pronouncements perceived to be close to your person, while at the same time we know them to be the agents of only themselves but allied with the immeasurable strength of those who benefit from war and chaos- that shadow conglomerate of multi-national arms dealers who are impatiently waiting to profit from our misery. The least the Federal Government could do to allay our concerns is to be truthful to us on this most sensitive issue, let us put the Freedom of Information Act to the test, we demand a full disclosure of every non-classified data in Nigeria’s archives related to the activities of foreign nations, their agencies and their proxies in our sovereign territory. There are two nations whose activities demands our immediate attention, I unlike many professional Nigerian journalists would not be forced to commit a writer’s most cowardly sin; self-censorship. I shall call names if that is what it would take to awaken our people from their deep slumber. What dirt would we uncover if the suspiciously deep footprints of France and Israel in Nigeria are investigated with the utmost urgency and the seriousness it deserves?

It doesn’t take more than common sense to connect the dots and see the covert hands of foreign interests in the security crisis currently affecting our fatherland. The only question is when will someone stand up for what he knows in his heart is right? When are they going to stop playing politics with people’s lives and start giving us some honest answers?

RIPE FOR HARVEST?

A careful re-examination of the state of the nation going back ten years into the past revealed a frightening pattern, it now quite plausible for one to suggest and rightly so that our country may have been a target of a quick kill in slow motion. The deliberate sabotage of our national dream by a few among us, possibly even at the echelon of power, whose allegiance is not to their country but to a foreign interests. They could blend in any typical Nigerian setting, that the nefarious aims they pursue would cause so much suffering is inconsequential, they are merely useful idiots tasked with creating mischief and sowing hatred. Their most effective weapon is the demon-ization of Northerners in the Southern Local Press and vice-versa. Their tactics seemed to be flawlessly effective. Now these same people are calling for a religious war, are we really going to give them one? Ask Harliburton, Blackwater and other Mercenaries, what’s more lucrative than an artificially generated war of attrition fought upon religious divides?
Their answer would be, not even a sectarian war.

That is accurate, after all, they are the experts; Remember Iraq.

$20 Billion dollars of Iraqi Money disappear overnight.
About 2 Million Iraqis are now refugees.
A Million died either from the invasion, the occupation or the sectarian war it created.
Thousands of Innocent Iraqi’s killed by US Forces in what they describe as The Escalation of Force.
Iraq has not known peace 10 years after the US ‘Operation Iraqi Freedom’
Iraq is now under a dictatorship just as bad, perhaps worse than the regime of Saddam Hussain.
The Infrastructure and Archaeological heritage of Mesopotomia and Iraqi National Treasures had been looted and regularly turned up in the black market.
The sectarian war created by US Intervention is still raging and may have expanded to Syria.

This is the meaning of a 21st Century religious war in a country with immense economic and geo-political importance.

Iraq has only 28 million people, Nigeria has 200 Million.
To harvest the seeds they have sown in Nigeria, they don’t need a trumped-up charge of W.M.D Proliferation or a Colin Powell to lie to the United Nations .
A few Asari Dakubos could do the job just as well.