Had we lost the General, the reaction from his supporters and fanatics could easily have plunged Nigeria into its worst chaos in a long time.
Nigeria is a land of the absurd, the strange and the illogical. So last Wednesday, General Muhammadu Buhari (Rtd) organized to kill himself? Well, that is what those who see Nigeria through the lens of the 2015 elections want us to believe. There are many things wrong with politics and politicians in Nigeria but General Buhari is well and truly above that. Even his opponents admit he is well and truly above board when it comes to the shame and corruption that accompany Nigerian politics. There was clearly a suicide bomber and the bomber was obviously desperate to ensure the retired General was part of his eventual carnage. The incident has since happened, scores have died and Nigerians in their usual way have moved on. Had we lost the General, the reaction from his supporters and fanatics could easily have plunged Nigeria into its worst chaos in a long time.
We have a problem on our hands as terrorists continue not just to maim and kill but to set us against one another. Following each terrorist attack are the accusations and counter accusations. “They know only Igbos sell in that market, so they chose that market to bomb of all places in the north,” is a classic response from a bomb blast that ripped through Kano in northern Nigeria. It did not matter to the person who wrote the words that there is no way anyone would bomb a public place in Kano and not kill more northerners. Even if we took for granted that only a particular ethnic group sells wares in a selected Kano market, should we also assume all the customers and buyers are from the same place? When bombs go off in a church, you are likely to read, “this people are only killing Christians, it is a war against Christians.” You are not likely to read anything from such people when a Mosque gets attacked or when the insurgents kill a revered Islamic scholar. Those who see the world through their bias often times do not see it through the eyes of logic. So they are not likely to remember than bombs are not capable of separating people into ethnic or religious groups, bombs kill and maim everyone within the radius of impact.
That is the same logic to apply when someone like General Buhari survives a major attack that had his vehicles destroyed. That if the terrorists could strike right at a point where one of the nation’s could easily have been killed, they can get anyone. If they missed a major Islamic cleric by a matter of minutes and have killed some other ones, they certainly do not discriminate in terms of their intent; they want to kill anyone not open supportive of their evil and they are not afraid to go after high profile targets just as they kill the poor every other day if not everyday in the northeast.
We need a bi-partisan approach to the war on terror. We are of course not likely to get it soon if someone as highly involved as the minister of state could share an article link claiming one of the major opposition parties is supportive of Boko Haram. This is despite the fact that Boko Haram predates the party by at least 10 years. How can we have a bi-partisan approach to this war if politicians across the board insist on making this more about the 2015 elections than about what it is; a war on our country, our people and our way of life?
And if politicians insist on making it political all the time, what is the role of citizens and civil society? If the numbers get crunched, Nigeria’s poor masses have suffered a lot more in the hands of terrorism. The least we can do is to stop echoing the voices of those who insist on making this about politics and nothing else.
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