ASSASSINATIONS IN IGBOLAND!

The depravity of the human mind finds culmination in the destruction of human life. This is why assassination, murder, and various killings clothed in different nomenclatures rank supreme to all evil, man is capable of. Every human society and in every culture frowns at the destruction of human life, and this is mainly because death is irreversible, total obliteration of man’s physical life. The act of assassination in all its premeditation is cowardly and can only be hatched from a mind that is already diseased and dead. Nothing under the sun can justify the taking of human life much less assassination. It is very unfortunate that Igbo land is now an amphitheater of this atrocity where anyone can be mowed down in broad daylight and nothing happens.

For any serious government, the quest to find the cause of this new development should be paramount. There should be frantic efforts to know why assassination is rampant nowadays. What is the grievance that propels men to secretly plot and destroys another’s life? What is the crime of the offender that can’t be assuaged except with death, to kill and efface him from the surface of the earth and in your ignorance; it is a deserved justice which is your prerogative to serve.

It is incontrovertible that Igbo’s plight in Nigeria’s union is one of a perennial and the heat is more on the hoi polloi who are denied the basic necessities of life. There is frustration and anger in the land but none of these should excuse any killing. Still, it is assumed that this precedence has everything to do with the evil that is stocking the land. It has because when a lone voice in radio Biafra hyped the hope of acquisition of their own republic while dangling paradise before their shining eyes, they jumped into the ship. They were made to believe that the source of their problem is Nigeria and fully exacerbated by the southeast political elites. There and then the enemies were identified and must be eliminated.

When the leader of IPOB, Nnamdi Kanu, threw caution to the winds and on the radio airwaves sought for assassination of River State governor, what do we think is being implanted in the minds of a legion of his followers? When destruction, killing, extermination, annihilation, and elimination are the language of a leader, what do we expect from the followers who look up to him with sheepish adulation? When a leader with such a mindset and who bound followers in oath call people out, named some saboteurs, and marshaled out orders for violence, how will these killings and assassinations today become a surprise?

For IPOB and their supporters, these assassinations and killings have nothing to do with them. Rather, it is a zoo government who does the killings to paint saintly IPOB members black before the public? But in almost every sit-at-home observance there must be violence and killings, and they have nothing to do with IPOB? The school that was burnt together with the motorbikes where kids went to take their exam was carried out by the Nigerian DSS even though IPOB leadership took the responsibility of the destruction and pledged to repay the damages?

We must not allow the ambition of a new republic to becloud our reasoning. Instead of standing against atrocities, we recline unto soft pillows of denial while abominations spread like hurricanes unchecked. We cheer and extol unknown Gun Men (UGM) who burnt down police stations and massacre everyone on sight in the hope we are being protected by such atrocities. We support evil and hoped for a better future. How can evil beget good? The assassinations in Igbo land are just the beginning and soon the identities of these killers will be made public.

The defensive argument I always hear is the question of what I did when Nigeria soldiers were killing Biafran youths? My reply is that I fiercely condemn every act of killing that comes from anywhere. But I will not go and push the youths with sticks to fight soldiers with guns. I will not tell a group without ammunition to confront police and soldiers with deadly weapons. I will not beat the drums of war with a catapult against a nation with modern warfare ammunitions. I won’t boast of cutting off the head of a president and expect my followers not to borrow a leaf from me.

We want Biafra but at what cost? I enjoined people to follow whoever they feel incline to but not into a ditch. We must live with principles and values for which we can’t compromise. We must look at our ambition through morality and not morality through our ambition! Fighting Nigeria and assassinating real and imaginary foes in this age is neither a path to self-determination nor an exit to freedom. The strategy to team up with other aggrieved nationalities to forge a strong front before the international community is feasible and more pragmatic than the killings and drums of war intended as disruption and civil disobedience to force the government into granting us freedom.

This ongoing assassination has a political undertone and we should be able to sieve out the chaff from the seeds. We should know what a true leader is; one who brings people together and promotes peace and not one who wants to destroy the world with mouth behind a microphone. We are not known for killings and assassinations. We must rise up together and speak out against this new trend of destruction of life or, this madness will come home to us. Enough is enough!