By Simon Abah
The founding fathers of the American society in the bid to win their freedom from Britain didn’t say,”wait until we get there,” enough to know what to do, how to run the affairs of the country when they get there. They knew what to do and framed agreements and concessions for a just society before they got there. It was no wonder then that they decreed religious freedom for all, tolerance for all even though that country was founded on christian principles. It was no wonder that the North took up arms against the south and other confederate states in a civil war to free the slaves when the Southerners failed to honour agreements to free them.
President-Paul-Kagame
But in Africa, Eritrea – had no fore plan on how to govern her people when she went to war with Ethiopia, and even though she got her independence, she is now in limbo after winning her freedom from Ethiopia.
South-Sudan won her freedom and without shame today needs international bodies to teach her how to govern her oil rich country. No thanks to disintegration, Russia today is not strong to the days of Lenin, Stalin, Khrushchev and Brezhnev, and is still embroiled in a war with Chechnya, the southern Russian republic.
This writer has had cause to speak to many people promoting irredentism these days and also watched many from close quarters and came to the conclusion that Nigeria is only a step away from another Rwanda.
The Rwandan genocide which is in the public domain, didn’t happen at once. It took months of systematic planning, double-speak and the promotion of hate campaigns and what many thought a joke devastated a country in ways that can be compared to the pogroms in Hitlers’s Germany and Milosevic’s Yugoslavia.
As I gobbled my meal recently in a restaurant in Port Harcourt, I overheard two young men from the south-east, a table away from mine, who couldn’t be up to 35 years if appearance are enough to judge a man’s age complain bitterly about “police brutality on people who were only protesting the cause for separatism, peacefully.”
Such talk is understandable, but what isn’t agreeable to me was when I heard one say again, “that when war breaks, I will personally shoot saboteurs even if they are our brothers when they stand in our way to get our freedom.” I had to engage them healthily, giving second opinion on why war for the second time in Nigeria shouldn’t be contemplated, most of all by youngsters who do not know the pangs of war. Regrettably, we couldn’t reason together. Their minds were made up. I left them with a poser,”you may have a leader but not a government, failed republics fail because of the absence of real government and countries do not succeed only because they have good leaders.”
One thing I noticed was the way, they were dressed, expensively! And wondered how they would dress and survive should war break?
What plans do they have in place to administer the republic especially as they told me:”we will know what to do when we get our country.”
A few weeks before, after mass, for I am a Catholic, I heard a man of advanced years say emphatically to another, “we will break up this country and get our republic.” To think that he made such statement after leaving the Lord’s temple, left me wondering if he is truly a Christian. Today I look at him suspiciously.
Not long ago, a Knight that I know took the same stance as the man in the foregoing. This Knight is wealthy, highly exposed individual, those kinds who go a golfing.
Academics have joined the fray, giving ideological backing to struggles, and to read statements such as this, is now common, “Every nation or group of people is entitled to national movements. No one can deny a nation the right to self-determination. If a group of people, or a nation within a bigger nation, desires secession, it should be given a chance to articulate its desires. It is after a clear picture emerges that negotiations will begin.” Those academics sit on pedestals, yet clearer picture it would appear isn’t necessary from the get-go.
A grey beard chief, told me,”that our boys in Aba really tried by carrying out the protest march.”
What are these elderly ones teaching youngsters? What happened, happens and are happening in the name of irredentism is not the activity of adventure-conquerors, certainly not misguided youths trying to get cheap popularity, or make money. Like Rwanda, it is sponsored by the elders, state and prominent people who pretend not to be interested in the activities of these,’misguided youths,’ but behind-the-scene, give, the ‘misguided youths,’ moral and financial backing.
How else can you rationalize a situation where a youngster who hasn’t got the dole of democracy from the government in his region and was forced to move out and struggle to eke a living in Port Harcourt and elsewhere assume that secession will automatically solve all of his life’s challenges?
Various research have shown that people display high levels of belligerence, grandstanding, intemperate behaviours, etc., especially those with dull speculative resume, when they are brainwashed by the state, educated elites and the informed who choose to educate wrongly. Remember Hitler and his butchering rowdies, some clerics in the north and dangerous preachments prior to numerous religious crisis, in the north, and now the elites in the south-east are doing the same.
It is not enough to tersely say publicly that “the protests do not have the support or blessing of the leaders of the zone.” The Rwandese did likewise before the genocide.
Our youths, have veered off the right path. No thanks to the elites, educated, academics, political class and the religious. I know so. I see the puckered brow the youth wear when I ask that we reason together. I see hatred on faces and hear swapping denunciations. The minds are really locked. Who will open them? We are on our way quickly to Rwanda. A forbidden prospect.
While I still remember, those who look up to members of the international community, should bear in mind how they double-speak when issues concerning Africa come to public attention. Rwanda and the Nigerian civil wars are cases in point.
Simon Abah
Port Harcourt
Rivers State
The founding fathers of the American society in the bid to win their freedom from Britain didn’t say,”wait until we get there,” enough to know what to do, how to run the affairs of the country when they get there. They knew what to do and framed agreements and concessions for a just society before they got there. It was no wonder then that they decreed religious freedom for all, tolerance for all even though that country was founded on christian principles. It was no wonder that the North took up arms against the south and other confederate states in a civil war to free the slaves when the Southerners failed to honour agreements to free them.
President-Paul-Kagame
But in Africa, Eritrea – had no fore plan on how to govern her people when she went to war with Ethiopia, and even though she got her independence, she is now in limbo after winning her freedom from Ethiopia.
South-Sudan won her freedom and without shame today needs international bodies to teach her how to govern her oil rich country. No thanks to disintegration, Russia today is not strong to the days of Lenin, Stalin, Khrushchev and Brezhnev, and is still embroiled in a war with Chechnya, the southern Russian republic.
This writer has had cause to speak to many people promoting irredentism these days and also watched many from close quarters and came to the conclusion that Nigeria is only a step away from another Rwanda.
The Rwandan genocide which is in the public domain, didn’t happen at once. It took months of systematic planning, double-speak and the promotion of hate campaigns and what many thought a joke devastated a country in ways that can be compared to the pogroms in Hitlers’s Germany and Milosevic’s Yugoslavia.
As I gobbled my meal recently in a restaurant in Port Harcourt, I overheard two young men from the south-east, a table away from mine, who couldn’t be up to 35 years if appearance are enough to judge a man’s age complain bitterly about “police brutality on people who were only protesting the cause for separatism, peacefully.”
Such talk is understandable, but what isn’t agreeable to me was when I heard one say again, “that when war breaks, I will personally shoot saboteurs even if they are our brothers when they stand in our way to get our freedom.” I had to engage them healthily, giving second opinion on why war for the second time in Nigeria shouldn’t be contemplated, most of all by youngsters who do not know the pangs of war. Regrettably, we couldn’t reason together. Their minds were made up. I left them with a poser,”you may have a leader but not a government, failed republics fail because of the absence of real government and countries do not succeed only because they have good leaders.”
One thing I noticed was the way, they were dressed, expensively! And wondered how they would dress and survive should war break?
What plans do they have in place to administer the republic especially as they told me:”we will know what to do when we get our country.”
A few weeks before, after mass, for I am a Catholic, I heard a man of advanced years say emphatically to another, “we will break up this country and get our republic.” To think that he made such statement after leaving the Lord’s temple, left me wondering if he is truly a Christian. Today I look at him suspiciously.
Not long ago, a Knight that I know took the same stance as the man in the foregoing. This Knight is wealthy, highly exposed individual, those kinds who go a golfing.
Academics have joined the fray, giving ideological backing to struggles, and to read statements such as this, is now common, “Every nation or group of people is entitled to national movements. No one can deny a nation the right to self-determination. If a group of people, or a nation within a bigger nation, desires secession, it should be given a chance to articulate its desires. It is after a clear picture emerges that negotiations will begin.” Those academics sit on pedestals, yet clearer picture it would appear isn’t necessary from the get-go.
A grey beard chief, told me,”that our boys in Aba really tried by carrying out the protest march.”
What are these elderly ones teaching youngsters? What happened, happens and are happening in the name of irredentism is not the activity of adventure-conquerors, certainly not misguided youths trying to get cheap popularity, or make money. Like Rwanda, it is sponsored by the elders, state and prominent people who pretend not to be interested in the activities of these,’misguided youths,’ but behind-the-scene, give, the ‘misguided youths,’ moral and financial backing.
How else can you rationalize a situation where a youngster who hasn’t got the dole of democracy from the government in his region and was forced to move out and struggle to eke a living in Port Harcourt and elsewhere assume that secession will automatically solve all of his life’s challenges?
Various research have shown that people display high levels of belligerence, grandstanding, intemperate behaviours, etc., especially those with dull speculative resume, when they are brainwashed by the state, educated elites and the informed who choose to educate wrongly. Remember Hitler and his butchering rowdies, some clerics in the north and dangerous preachments prior to numerous religious crisis, in the north, and now the elites in the south-east are doing the same.
It is not enough to tersely say publicly that “the protests do not have the support or blessing of the leaders of the zone.” The Rwandese did likewise before the genocide.
Our youths, have veered off the right path. No thanks to the elites, educated, academics, political class and the religious. I know so. I see the puckered brow the youth wear when I ask that we reason together. I see hatred on faces and hear swapping denunciations. The minds are really locked. Who will open them? We are on our way quickly to Rwanda. A forbidden prospect.
While I still remember, those who look up to members of the international community, should bear in mind how they double-speak when issues concerning Africa come to public attention. Rwanda and the Nigerian civil wars are cases in point.
Simon Abah
Port Harcourt
Rivers State
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ReplyDeleteI see, you claim to have detailed everything but aren't going to the deep cause of the whole situation!solve their problem by paying attention to what they say and not by reminding them of already genocide that they have once experienced!! equating the situation to the worse case scenario won't help matters with people who have already made up their mind to take their destiny on their hands.
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