The Defence Headquarters has declared IPOB a terrorist organisation. Now that was long overdue. Albeit it is better late than never. You can’t call a sovereign nation a zoo, her president a pedophile, a plastic reconstructed sudanese, threaten to go for his head in Abuja, call on Nigerians to boycott elections, boast that the nation would burn if you are re-arrested, recruit militia and secret service groups, your goons pelt armed military men with bottles and sticks, instigate communal clashes here and there and still expect to be accorded same rights, privileges and space as other law abiding citizens. That is only possible in a zoo and we are clearly not in one.
The next thing the governement should do is get Nnamdi Kanu back to the gaol where his likes are currently cooling their feet. Yes. Mad men should not be allowed to roam unrestrained on the streets. Not in any sane society. Those asking why IPOB should be labelled a terrorist group whereas the Fulani herdsmen are still called ‘farmers’, they are the very problem of this country. You cannot justify crime on the altar of another crime. That Fulani herdsmen are yet to be labelled criminals-they are also undoubtedly threats to national security- does not in any way make Nnamdi Kanu and his IPOB goons any less terrorists. We can blame the Nigerian governement for not meting out to Arewa youths and the OPC apologists same treatment as the IPOB charlatans, since they are all fingers of same leprous hand, but that does not make her action in tagging IPOB terrorists, wrong. Otherwise, then Musa can steal from Obi and when arraigned in court, he would tell the judge he stole from Obi because when Ekaette stole from Paul, the law did not take it course and that should be enough to acquit him of his crime.
PMB called for blood should he lose during one of those elections he lost. He lost and blood was shed. That was totally condemnable of a man who was to later become our president. But Buhari’s action does not justify Nnamdi Kanu’s. Wrong is wrong, no matter the precedence.
Having said that, the merciless killings and barbaric treatment meted out on civillian Nigerians by the military in a flagrant show of violence in retaliation for IPOB’s irritation, is at best reprehensible and at worst, totally unacceptable. We are not in a military regime. I think this government many atimes forgets that fact. There are certainly civil avenues of going about these things in a democratic setting. Humanity is lost on the Nigerian military. It is also lost on any of us justifying this needless mayhem on unarmed citizens. Nigeria is a contraption of millions of humans with miniscule humanity. Godswill Vesta Utong aptly puts it: more humans, less humanity.
I am certainly not in support of IPOB, least of the charlatan called Nnamdi Kanu, but I am also not in support of a military approach to every civil issue in a democratic nation. President Buhari has to realize he now wears Babaringa and no more Khaki. And looking at this whole thing critically, I am thinking this whole Python Dances and Bee Stings would certainly turn out counter-productive. A people have been crying marginalisation since the 1960s. It certainly can’t be all gibberish, empty lamentations. As a doctor, if a patient presents with a complaint and after thorough assessment, you dismiss it as phantom at first, by the time thesame patient returns with same complaint, then you know you certainly have to do a deeper re-assessment. It is high time we sat down and talked as a nation, sort out grey areas and iron out our differences. It is time to stop the stiffling and do some listening. It is time to dialogue. The time in now.
