By Aliyu U. Tilde
A letter from the Acting Registrar KSCOE Kafancan refuted that 5 students were ambushed and killed by herdsmen on their way to Gidan Waya campus some days back and wondered why even ‘reputable’ papers would carry such stories when the college is not even in session. Mr Samuel should not wonder because some people are instigating war in the North. But they will fail woefully.
I think those defeated in Biafra should realize that Gowon’s defeat was decisive and final. One Nigeria is here. This attempt at revenge through incitement cannot turn the clock of reality. Meanwhile, do not forget that Gowon is not a herdsman.
I repeat: We northerners can have our challenges, even if instigated or amplified by outsiders. But we are not stupid enough to got to war over them. We will come out stronger, to the shame of enemies who want to see the region in conflagration.
Let these defeated war-mongers visit Plateau today and see how Fulani herds are grazing in Riom and Shendam. Even with a state government that sponsored an agenda of hatred and massacres for 8 years, our eternal resolve for peaceful coexistence could not be broken.
It is through this kind of propaganda that innocent souls in the south are made to believe that there is a rampaging battalion of herdsmen that is killing thousands of Christians in southern-Kaduna and against which the Christians are incited to take up arms.
And they blame government for not doing anything. How can government act on mere propaganda? The present IG went on a fact finding mission in Southern Kaduna two weeks ago and came back telling the media to stop the exaggeration.
It is not the first time. At Agatu, Arase, the former IG, asked to be shown the graves of the 300 Agatians killed by herdsmen. All he could be shown was graves of 3 people! Today, the Agatians have freely allowed Fulani to continue grazing on their land. Shame to the liars and Devils that pray for bloodbirth in the North.
More is awaiting these bad losers. We northerners will come out of the southern-Kaduna crisis stronger. Our people will not suffer war while you smile from 500 km east or 1000 km southwest of Kafanchan. Soon, it will be like it has become in Plateau and Benue. God is on the side of peace lovers. The fiery pastor and his ilk will live in frustration and hell forever.
And take note that these demons and criminals will never spoil the good image of thousands of southerners whom we have come to associate with and love for several decades now. Nobody can tarnish the image of Madame Rose from whom I buy my plumbing materials, or PD from whom I buy my industrial mechanical parts. Not to mention my old friendship with Professor Ezealor in Owerri or Mr. Chidi in Umudike. Vanguard cannot severe these ties no matter its evil efforts.
Neither can it break my nearly 40 years relationship with Prof. Iortsuun, my former Tiv (thief) lecturer from Benue. I missed her when I visited her office in Zaria yesterday. I called her and she told me how much she missed me. Does any southern or eastern newspaper think I will ever take up arms against this northern jewel simply because she is Christian? In the contrary, I am ready to defend her with my blood in appreciation of the exceptional love she showed me over the past four decades as I will defend Serah, Faith, Felicia, Gida, Drambi, etc.
I can fill hundreds of pages with the stories of my Christian friends from Northern and Eastern Nigeria. The dream of someone that he can just instigate war among us while he enjoys his bed in Enugu or Lagos remains just what it is – a dream. When the chips are down, we from the North – Christians and Muslims alike – know that we share a common name that others refer to us with – northerners. We know that in our eyes we all carry that same tag irrespective of our religion. And we are proud of to anwer our father’s name. And let us be frank. I am sure they are intelligent enough to know that at the sub-national level, they too have a tag that they carry, with which we northerners refer to them, irrespective of whether we are Christians or Muslims.
Now, I will give a piece of advice to people like Pastor Oyedepo who is advising that the country be divided between Christians and Muslims (forgetting that his village, Omuaran, is in a muslim majority state), Apostate Suleiman, SSCE (yes that is his qualification) and southern newspapers, that they should preach peace and desist from courting violence, for violence can smell its instigator from afar and overtake him wherever he is, no matter his position in society or his detachment from the scene he depicts it.
We once had someone in Nigeria, a highly placed person, a governor in the Second Republic, a SAN, who was referring to Fulani as Tutsis of Nigeria, publicly instigating a genocide against them in the late 1990s. He died with his wish unfulfilled. Instead, Bola Ige, did not have the privilege to die a natural death. Even as the Minister of Justice and Attorney-General of the Federation, the nemesis of violence visited him one evening in his house in Lagos. He was served some bullets by one of his own, not by a Fulani herdsman. And to date, nobody is convicted for the crime. He became a variable to neutralize in the 2003 second tenure algebra of someone, his own kind, not a Tutsi Fulani for that matter.
Moral: Do not wish bloodshed for some people because it will boomerang on you. Apostate Suleman, the coward, can run from the SSS and enjoy the protection of another equally criminal personality. However, he cannot run away from the nemesis of violence when it reckons to visit him one day.
I must confess to the Roses and Ezealors of my life that I write these posts with so much pain and do so only because it is inevitable today. My pen cannot afford the luxury of political correctness under the situation. We can not sit back and allow some people to instigate bloodshed among in the North. We must check them by all means through revealing their machinations and make our people dispel them. The life of a single Christian or Muslim in southern Zaria is so priceless to me as a northerner that I just must protect it with my pen. Please do understand.
Tilde writes from Zaria, Kaduna State.
