News Editor
Again, another tributary of blood gushes from Zike, in Bassa Local Government Area to Bokkos in Plateau State. Together, they will link up with older tributaries and continue their flow slowly but surely into an invisible ocean of blood that now threatens to swallow the plateau. The streams have flowed from different directions, through Jos, Dogo Na Hawa, Bukuru, Gwong, Shendam, Yelwa, Wase, Langtang, Riyom, Kadarko, Shere, Miango to mention only a few. The list is almost endless. One would need to look into a magnifying glass to see which communities have not been touched in Plateau.
It is tempting to say, enough is enough. There will be verbal condemnations, faint and veiled threats that are merely routine. Yet, this is Nigeria, no amount of blood is ever enough to make us pause. Neither the brutality, bestiality, primitivism, nor the callousness, viciousness, wickedness, barbarity or cruelty of the murderers on rampage can stir us from our stupor. Westill have neither a plan nor a strategy to confront these enemies. They have become invisible because they are embedded in all structures of power across the land. Those who are supposed to have stopped this from happening will continue their lives. There will be enough blame to pass around. It will be redundant to say normalcy has returned because it never went anywhere at all.
In less than one week, we have lost almost two hundred lives across the country. We all under the tranquilising drug of complacency that we are merely either comparing numbers, or attributing ethnic or faith identities to the dead. Elsewhere, we are told that Boko Haram is rampage, returning with a vengeance. Perhaps, they had really not gone anywhere. In other parts of the country, the bandits continue their dances of evil, encircling the landscape, capturing, torturing, and inflicting the harshest form of inhuman treatment on our people. It is hard to know what else there is to say. The greatest tragedy is that we all agree that we are only waiting for the attack. To this end, we are all guilty bystanders. The clock is ticking for our dear country. May God console the families and communities and grant peace to the dead.
Most Rev. Matthew Hassan Kukah
Sokoto.
