Irigwe militias

By Usaini Abubakar

While travelling in some parts of the Plateau state, please be cautious and vigilant. It’s unfortunate that some blood-sucking people don’t know their enemy and enjoy attacking innocent travellers passing their towns, not knowing we are all victims of the same system. 

I don’t honestly know their aims. Do they want to turn every federal road that crosses their towns or within the state into gallows, a wasteland, battlefields, graveyards of multiple unknown bodies, or maybe something else of their making?

I nearly lost my life yesterday! Not only that, but I nearly lost my breath, lost the life beating inside me, but my strength and courage and determination and experience, like echoes of vigil nights, disappeared within seconds. Not only that, but I think casualties are not the death of those who started the war or those prowling grievance.

Not only that, but I believe casualties are those who keep quiet, who have the opportunity to talk but keep quiet, and those who smile every day when their next-door neighbours are in tears. But how can we together hold and retrieve ourselves back from this brainwashing?

So, I began to wonder what’s more important than human life. What’s more critical than togetherness, than friendships and relationships and progress? What’s more significant than peace, development, progress, success, love, respect, responsibility, and understanding? What’s peace if we can’t go anywhere inside our towns?

What friendship if we can’t befriend someone from another tribe, village, or country? What’s love if we can’t love and respect what others revere? What’s the progress if we can’t put one block over another? What’s progress if we can’t come together? What’s the responsibility if we can’t be accountable for our mistakes?

What’s faith? What’s a belief if we can’t respect other people’s choices and generational values? What’s up if there are no others? How can you, without reason, kill someone for someone’s sin or mistake? Why punish an innocent traveller for a sin they didn’t commit or knew nothing about?

Imagine we spent half our day alongside the road linking Mararraban Jama’a to Abuja, waiting for death, revenge, hatred, or the taste of human blood to leave people’s minds. We stayed as the only means of safety in our possession. We waited for God’s intervention, waiting and waiting, and I pray for no one to wait for this type of wait… waiting without knowing where death would come from.

Usaini Abubakar wrote from Jos, Plateau State. He can be reached via usainiabubakaradam5091@gmail.com.

Nigerians woke up on Saturday last week with the bad news of the gruesome murder of innocent travellers returning from the annual national Zikr in Bauchi. They were intercepted along Rukuba, Gada-Biyu axis of Jos-North local government by suspected Irigwe ethnic militias who killed them and burned their buses. Every peace-loving Nigerian should condemn the atrocity.

The killing of these innocent travellers came at a time when Plateau State, the epicentre of ethno-religious crises, had started enjoying relative peace courtesy of Governor Simon Bako Lalong’s commitment to bring lasting peace. The militias who carefully selected their victims have a hidden or ulterior motive. Some of their reasons are to set the State on fire and fuel retaliation across the country. The victims came from other states of the country and were only on transit. What did they do?

Even before the unfortunate killings, there have been reported cases of innocent travellers being killed on some roads, which are considered no-go-areas for certain faith. If this crude way of life displayed by the mobs can be adopted in other states, one imagines the dire consequences it will bring to the peace, unity and development of the country.

I learnt that the Nigerian army apprehended some suspects. This is a good development. However, the problem is not whether the perpetrators of the heinous crime are arrested or not. The question remains, are the culprits going to face justice according to the laws of the land? So long as the government continues to temper justice with mercy on those who commit grave offences against humanity, we should rule out any possible end to the unnecessary carnage.

Ibrahim Mustapha, Pambegua, Kaduna State. He can be contacted via imustapha650@gmail.com.