HERDSMEN TERRORISTS, NORTHERN CHRISTIANS AND THE LAMENTATIONS OF A WALKING DEAD: THE ENDANGERED SPECIES OF NIGERIA
Welcome to Nigeria! A country in which the irresponsibility and negligence of the government has caused more deaths of its citizens than cancer, cholera and malaria combined.
I live in Nigeria, a country approaching the status of a failed state. I want out of the country but my oppressors threatened and whipped me. So I mellowed on my agitations and spoke out instead, but they said it was hate speech and arrested me for such. I watched these same people acquire power through words they today call hate speeches. Then I asked how the rules changed overnight and the inner me answered thus:
“tyranny has no rule on civil engagement, or on social rules. It is anything goes as long as the tyrant is pleased, for which he is the beginning and the end of state laws”.
I am an endangered specie. Being of my ethnicity and religion makes me an unwanted to be withered away. Even endangered plants and animals have organizations who fight for their survival; who will fight for or with me? Nobody is forth coming. My neighbours are undecided while the west is silent on my plight. The CNN, BBC, the UN, AU, the western governments. They are not interested in this religio-ethnic cleansing, same way they weren’t during the Rwandan genocide, because like the later, there is little or nothing to be gained if they involve themselves. And then the evil continue unabated. Or maybe they are ashamed of the country they helped birth and desire to avoid her deteriorating process. But I beg them and all men of good will to help me end this carnage unleashed on me by my clinging oppressors. If this be the last good that undo the mistake of history.
I have lost my father, mother, brothers, sisters friends and love ones. I lost breadwinners, guardians and benefactors. I have lost happiness and hope. I am a wandering orphan pondering on the uncertainties of the future; which I fear. And I wonder why the government hasn’t come to my aid with special interventions like it is in the northeast. I wonder why they blame me instead of my killers. Surely this government is not for me. I am a lesser Nigerian or not a Niger at worst. I have no identity with the people of this world, for if I did, someone somewhere would have come to my aid. My irrelevancy, even the dead mocks.
They say Injustice to one is Injustice to all. But in Nigeria my country, Injustice to cows is a license to kill at will. Yes, it is that bad. I live in a country of sacred cows and infidel humans; where the former is more important than the later. They say bad deeds occur when good people fail to speak. I think they are wrong because we have been speaking. I am currently speaking. Rather, bad deeds occur when good people fail to act. I call on all people and states of good will to act for justice. But first, I need to wipe my tears, bury my dead and fight my way out of extinction. I hope I can. I believe I can. And as I live in fear, struggle to bear my losses and hope to fight for survival, I look to the heavens and pray that these evil attacks being perpetrated on me and my people never occur to the sympathizers of my oppressors. I do not wish them these evils but pray that they change their ways, swallow the bitter pills of truth and speak for justice. But first, I must begin my fight for survival. GOD HELP ME!!!
May the souls of the dead in the Plateau massacre, and those of all Nigerians who have lost their lives in the struggle for a good cause Rest in Peace, AMEN!
My name is Addo Jerry Danjuma. I am a northern Christian and the world most endangered “specie” fighting extinction.
GOD HELP ME!!!
Ekam Stephen Magor
