#OccupyNigeria,The Struggle That Redefined The Nigerian Spirit: In Pictures
January 1st, 2012. That date in history that reworked the definition of the Nigerian. The date when a lack of smart, people-oriented governance pricked a long slumbering attribute of the people of my fatherland. On that day the government of Nigeria gambled with a policy that would immediately deepen the already inhumane standard of living around here. We are globally acclaimed to survive on a dollar a day and we endure it with a smile and the usual “e go better”. This day gave notice to the people bleeding us of our commomwealth.
This article is not my own version of attempting intellectual cow-boyism, nor is it a ploy to distract gallant Nigerians, who stood their ground until the President fell to his weakness and rolled out the tanks and boots against his own compatriots, from the real issues of government frivolity, corruption, and sheer disrespect of the polity.
Rather, this article celebrates the Nigerian men and women, boys and girls who in anger took to the streets to protest the antics of the same man they queued in the sun, lost lives for, to become President. I attempt to capture pictorially the events and people that defied the sun, whips, and police brutality, but defined the new face of the Nigerian spirit, to march upon Abuja. These are some of the heroes of Nigeria, a representation of how Nigerians cried out in unison, from all works of life, for the soul of a nation still under siege.
Those were days of the mass protest, when the fact that you are Nigerian swelled your head, left you emotional with pride. Those days renewed hope that we will not allow our motherland to go to the dogs.
This is #OccupyNigeria as captured by the lenses of Blaze Otokpa.
It started as a tiny crowd of young Nigerians gingered by Social Media, then the rest of Nigeria caught up!
So That Boko Haram Does Not Prevail Over Us
This evening I got a blackberry messenger broadcast. It was a message written after the fallouts of the latest terrorist attack on the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, by the extremist Islamic group, Boko Haram. On Friday, 26th August, 2011, the UN House in Abuja was struck by a suicide bomb attack. It shocked the whole nation as it was unexpected that a diplomatic institution will be a target of the group.
The content of the broadcast message got me a bit furious. The author of the broadcast claimed that the United States was behind Boko Haram. That it was part of their ploy to set the Christians of Nigeria against the Muslims who are predominantly from the North. According to the author’s theory, Boko Haram was just a name meant to make Christians feel they are under attack, then retaliate against Muslims, which will in turn lead to Nigeria getting destroyed while the United State will swoop in and take our oil.
Hogwash!
If you ask me, I believe this is the propaganda arm of the terrorist group attempting to infiltrate our thoughts and plant in us a distraction from trying to find a solution to their menace. I am a Christian and I will state here what I think about the situation we have found ourselves in.
The terrorist group, Boko Haram, has attacked Maiduguri, which is inhabited mostly by Muslims and Northerners, almost exclusively. Police stations, places of relaxation, and any structure that catches their fancy up North have been attacked. Northern politicians and Islamic religious leaders who have not aligned with them have been attacked, assassinated, or threatened. They have threatened to eliminate Northern Governors, two of whom have had to swallow their pride and apologise (I believe that should be some kind of embarrassment to the Federal Government). The only attacks outside the core North are the bomb attacks on the Federal Capital territory. Nigerians of different religions, tribes, and languages have been killed, or maimed in these attacks. How then did the author of this broadcast message come to the conclusion that the United States through Boko Haram was trying to pitch Muslims against Christians?
We need to remain focused and demand that our government and security agencies do more to bring this terrorism from Boko Haram under control, instead of falling for, and helping to propagate falsehood and fear. There is no similarity between what is happening in Libya, or what has happened in Iraq and what is happening in Nigeria. The closest comparison will be Pakistan or India. The United States will not invade Nigeria because a terrorist group is wrecking havoc here, instead they will go after the terrorist group if it attacks it’s interest in Nigeria. We have seen them do that in Pakistan. The US has not and will not go after the government of Pakistan nor the government or people of Nigeria. The problem here is Boko Haram, and they are our common big headache!
If the government of Nigeria doesn’t think it has what it takes to check Boko Haram, and decides to ask for help from the USA or any other country who have plenty experience in issues of this nature, then they should very well do it.
We need to be vigilant here and not allow seeds of discord to be sown within us. The Boko Haram issue is not a matter of Muslims against Christians or North against South. In fairness, Muslims and Northerners have been at the receiving end of Boko Haram attacks. Boko Haram is at war with Nigeria, at war with all of us. We still don’t know what they really want, why they are carrying out these attacks (the issue of wiping out Western Education is already negated by their means of attack which are all western, and the issue of entrenching sharia law all across Nigeria leaves one with the question of why then did they attack the UN) or who is sponsoring them. Hopefully the government will rise to the occasion and help us with answers.
To those asking for Nigeria to split because of these attacks, mostly educated and supposedly knowledgeable, you should be ashamed of yourselves. Reckless comments will take us nowhere. We stand a better chance together.
To the government of President Goodluck Jonathan, this is the time to do something much more pragmatic. Boko Haram is not kidding around, and they are getting more and more sophisticated with each attack. Who knows where they will strike next? Who knows how wide they will expand their attacks going forward? If by now the IG has not been forced to resign, then there is cause for us to be scared. We need reassurances of our safety, we need to see decisive action, we need to see our intelligence community doing more. Abuja is no more as safe as it used to be, and we seem helpless to it. I wonder where next, and who next. This doesn’t feel good at all.
A Monk's Words 