Is Death No Longer a News to Nigerians?

I turned on my television set on a

seemingly bright morning. The news was being read by an extra cheerful newscaster. He took out time to throw banters with the morning crew already on set. Then he cheerfully read out the news headlines. The first item was about another order by our President to arrest some alleged looters.

By the third item, he cheerfully informed us that a bomb attack happened at Yola yesterday-night and that the casualties are, wait for it, 32 certified dead and about 80 still hospitalized. This surreal news was immediately skipped as the news crew commenced discussions on Anambra debt issue. I flipped over to CNN and there they were still carefully analysing the attacks in France four days earlier and how to ensure that the tragedy does not repeat itself.

Next port of call for me was the daily newspapers. The front pages did not mention this mass murder of Nigerians living in Yola. Knowing Nigeria well, the real death toll may be closer to the death toll recorded in France, but the general opinion of our purveyors of news was that this gruesome mass murder was not headline worthy.

Obviously there will not be any discussions by experts on how to prevent future attacks. Even the social media was not helpful at all. Only one of my facebook friends posted the news with his usual blithe attack on the President. I then did a rudimentary check and discovered to my chagrin that no official statement was issued by the Governor of Adamawa State. He did not address the press. He did not address his people.

He did not disclose his agenda to prevent future attacks and preserve the lives of people that he swore to preserve their lives. Furthermore, no statement was issued by the President and none credited to his aides. Indeed there was nothing. An eerie nothingness! It was reality check for me. Like Wole Soyinka in the “Telephone Conversation” I had to step out of my cocoon. I checked the moving traffic from my window. Touched my head and legs and like Soyinka came to the same conclusion: It was real!

The poser then is: Has the basic humanity in Nigerians been so abused that we can not even grieve for at least 32 Nigerians that got massacred hours ago? Put in a different way, has our penchant for playing cheap and twisted politics with every issue under the sun so twisted our minds to the extent that we cannot start by grieving the loss of lives of fellow Nigerians and then proceed to discuss strategies for eliminating the scourge. Silence is never a strategy. It takes mass mobilization and information to have a chance of fighting terrorism.

Information that can lead to the elimination, arrest and conviction of the terrorists can only be found amongst the folks that live amongst these despicable men. If these common folks do not feel the angst in the populace, if they cannot see the blood these evil men spill, if they cannot see the lives that these terrorists destroy, they are unlikely to acquire the courage to come out and assist the security forces. If the common folks take these mass murders in their stride the way our government appears to be encouraging us to do, then there is absolutely no hope of their confronting these men of terror.

If the attacks on Paris had not happened four days earlier, I might not have observed how countries that have been attacked react to such issues. The French had to pull out the whole of their intelligence and security apparatus to go after the terrorists. Arrests are being made on hourly basis and the public are being informed of the arrests. Men have been declared wanted and their pictures circulated across the entire cyber space. The President immediately declared a state of emergency and stated unequivocally that France is at war. The news media has been relentless. All shades of possibilities are being discussed. All narratives are being examined and re-examined.

We have to develop the ethic of divorcing politics from national security and real and imminent destruction of the lives of our people. We have to face up to reality and realise that we cannot wish Boko Haram away and that we have to collectively observe and examine the atrocities they are committing on a daily basis and ultimately collectively engage these scurrilous elements and hopefully eliminate them.

With the avalanche of social and security weaponry deployed by the French, it is clear that they are doing their utmost to ensure that this type of massacre does not repeat itself. The relentless reporting and intense engagement of their security forces are clearly yielding huge results. The mastermind of the attack, Abdelhamid Abaaoud was clearly identified and a huge manhunt for him and his cohorts is already resulting in the loss of lives of the terrorists.

The French did not take the attack in their strides, they declared an all out war on all fronts against the terrorists and they are clearly winning the war.       In Nigeria on the other hand, both the Adamawa State Government and the Federal Government appear determined to ignore this mass murder.

The 4th Estate of the realm appears equally determined not to highlight this mass murder or explore strategies for preventing future attacks. Even Nigerians who changed their Social Media background to the French flag appear totally unperturbed about the mass murder of fellow Nigerians. There appears to be an unwritten new code that if we all collectively ignore the continued mass killings of innocent Nigerians by Boko Haram, the scourge will just disappear by itself. This new and strange code is totally unrealistic.

The only possible basis for this unfathomable attitude is our proclivity to believe that every issue is about politics and about how we feel about the current government in power. We have to develop the ethic of divorcing politics from National Security and real and imminent destruction of the lives of our people. We have to face up to reality and realize that we cannot wish Boko Haram away and that we have to collectively observe and examine the atrocities they are committing on a daily basis and ultimately collectively engage these scurrilous elements and hopefully eliminate them.