Beware! He Keeps Watch over us!

Beware! He Keeps Watch over us!

There were sporadic gun shots initially, then explosions, then gun shots, then explosion again, and again, and again.

Kano was held hostage by Senseless, heartless, barbaric, and cruel ‘human beings’! For six hours the carnage continued unabated. The Public and the police were left to their own devices. The attacks were as simultaneous as they were coordinated, BUK road, ‘Yar Akwa, Farm center, and Bompai the main battlefield.

The explosions from the bombs and the horrific sounds from sophisticated guns were horrifying! This isn’t Baghdad, this isn’t Kabul, or Mogadishu, Somalia, this is Kano! The people and the security agencies were caught unawares! There was pandemonium everywhere. People were scrambling all over to run to safety, but where is safe? Where? Those who were initially informed of the first attack at BUK road were now rushing to Police Barracks Bompai, where traditionally they get shelter whenever there is a crisis. But today, the Police barracks is the theater of Carnage, so most of them were gunned down on their way to ‘safety’!

Those of us who were just 200m away from the center of attacks were horrified beyond description. The pounding of our hearts were as loud, if not louder than the gun shots and bomb explosions! We were lying flat where ever we felt was relatively ‘safe’. The strong were praying, the weak were sobbing, while the weaker ones were openly crying, not that there was a significant difference among us!

The ground, upon which all men and women either walk on humbly or arrogantly, was itself shaking. Glasses were shattering all around us. I felt feverish, nauseous, and dizzy.  My back was aching, my head was aching, and my arms were trembling. I was having difficulty in coordinating my words, which was meant to instill some confidence in those with me, men and women, Christians and Muslims lying on the floor of a mosque. Some had Qur’an in their hands, some had Bibles. Allah was called upon by Muslims uncountable times as much as Jesus Christ was summoned by the Christians! We were terrified beyond belief. We know that anything can happen, any moment. There was fear. Very palpable, you could almost touch it!

My wife just left with my youngest Son to see my Mother. My other 3 older children were with my sister just leaving Kano to Jigawa for a wedding, and I am here. All sort of things were going on in my mind! Were they going to be safe? Will I see them again? What is all this? This scenario prevailed for six solid hours nonstop! We managed to pray Magrib and Isha’I prayers. The most incoherent prayers I have ever performed! When things started to calm down, and by calm down I mean few shots being fired intermittently now, my coordination and senses which had temporarily taken leave, begin to come back slowly. I now have my questioning capacities back.

Why is this happening? Who are these people who have this uncommon audacity and high level of military training as to attack such high profile targets in a city like Kano? What do they want to achieve by this horrific and despicable acts? Above all, how can these number of people, which these amount of Munitions and explosives get into Kano unnoticed by anyone?  The questions kept coming in torrents!

The following day, we defied the curfew and went round Kano to assess the damage for the benefit of our followers on Facebook and Twitter. The overall picture was, due to lack of a better word, simply HORRIFIC! Innocent passersby were ruthlessly gunned down. Women, Children, the sight was horrible! It was sheer carnage!

Where did we derail? What fault line did we cross? Is our diagnosis wrong?  Are the prescriptions given working or is it all motion no movement?

Nigeria is not plagued by Natural disasters like Hurricanes, Volcanoes, Earthquakes, Tremors, Mudslides, Bushfires, or extreme weather conditions. But we have, as a people, collectively decided to inflict on ourselves the biggest ever manmade disaster yet known to mankind on our selves!  We have decided to be corrupt, tolerate corruption, celebrate corruption, play politics with corruption, condone corruption, entrench corruption and exalt anyone who is corrupt!

We are the most pretentious people on earth! We open and close all meetings with prayers yet discuss the most horrific evils in the meetings. We have allowed ‘leaders’ to divide us along ethnic and religious divides to our detriment.

Corruption has eaten both our physical and mental capacities; it has become a Faculty under which all other evil departments reside. Nigeria has, unfortunately, become a country of bunch of Jokers. Whatever we do, the rest of the World takes it with a pinch of salt. We say one thing when we meant the other. Top bottom, we need a big rethink.

I deliberately left out the other evils plaguing us because they all have their roots firmly entrenched  in the fertile soil of corruption; Poverty, Nepotism, laziness, ethnicity, religious bigotry, unemployment, bad Governance, armed robbery. These are all offsprings of the Monster called corruption!

Going back memory lane when Obasanjo reigns, an American Diplomat circulated a document which professes the possible break up of Nigeria by 2015. A little later, Ghaddafi, now late, advocated for the splitting of Nigeria along religious divide. Everyone, including every leader rained insults on these agents of doom. But we stopped there. We did not run a simulation along the faultlines raised. We did not take lady Nigeria for X-ray, Blood count or MRI! We simply dusted her and sprayed some perfume and puffed some powder and, as usual went back to sleep.

There is a saying in Hausa language, that “When you see a dog sniffing at a shoe, there could be meat inside” I don’t believe our leaders at the most highest levels ever undertook  strategic simulation sessions to forecast worst case scenarios, and devise ways, and means of addressing these future challenges If and when they may happen.

Early reports of the investigations from Kano indicate that most of the Bombers and attackers are Chadians; Likely, former rebel fighters with a very high level of guerilla warfare training.  The amount of munitions, heavy weapons, grenades and other explosives found is staggering! The level of coordination, sophistication and audacity they displayed was characteristic of their experience and background. No locally trained riffraff can launch such attacks and sustain it for more than 6 hours!

These attackers indiscriminately cut down anyone and anything on their way that fateful Friday. They did not discriminate between a Muslim and a Christian. Not between a man and a woman. They did not even spare children and pregnant women! They were blind, not physically, but mentally.  They murdered innocent Nigerians going about their legitimate businesses. They murdered hundreds of innocent souls!

From all indications, there is a foreign element in these attacks that have been going on. What I am reeling out is only a hypothesis that may be a theory. These are fragments of my thoughts that are beginning to take a definite pattern. My gut feeling is that somebody or a group of people somewhere are not happy and comfortable with a United, prosperous, and stable Nigeria. Somebody or a group of people are working desperately day and night to precipitate a crisis in our dear country not because they don’t like us but because they can make a fortune in our misfortune!

Imagine a market for arms, munitions and explosives that spans Billions of dollars if we fight each other! Imagine the billions of dollars that can go into some people’s treasury in terms of ‘Reconstruction’ Contracts! Imagine the capital flight in billions of dollars that will immediately be shipped to countries that have been officially declared bankrupt! Imagine the billions of barrels of oil that can be stolen in crisis time! Imagine the comfort of not having to deal with a Potent Successful Nigeria that has the capacity of being a world power with great diversity in its people and millions of Tons of mineral riches! Imagine the relief of not having a stronger Nigeria with a population of over 500 million people in 30 years! Imagine…… whatever other imaginable scenario!

Ghaddafi, may his soul rest in peace, had a hand in virtually most crisis in Africa. He was clearly a man with crisis of identity.  One minute he was a Socialist, the next an Arab, the next he was an African. He hated the west so passionately earlier, and then later professed his unalloyed love for them.  He was, in my view, a man hungry to rule over an Empire. He had never hidden his quest and even lust to be an African Emperor. By predicting the splitting of Nigeria into two distinct entities along Islamic and Christian lines, he may have known something which we didn’t know. He may have sponsored the Chadian rebels to achieve his prophesy. Take Chad republic, Niger Republic, and part of Nigeria and annex. Create chaos, instill fear, send away the Christians in the north to the south and what you have are fragmented entities begging for leadership. He had his country under firm grip, and he had money!

When Ghaddafi met his waterloo with his people, the channel of sending money to these gangs may have dried up! In this hypothesis, all the spectacular bank robberies, all highway robberies with high causalities may have been carried out by these gangs to sustain and fund their operations. The spectacular modus operandi is very questionable!  Five weeks ago, the Immigration Zonal Command in Kano conducted an operation where they deported hundreds of Chadians and Nigeriens. This could be the motive for the attack on the Immigration office in Kano.

The second leg of my hypothesis could be international Arms dealers who have simply sat down at a posh office, ran a cash flow software on arms sales to a ‘Troubled and fractious’ Nigeria and the figures that came out was irresistible! We are simply a huge potential market that can’t be ignored.  We present such a mouth watering preposition that crisis at all cost must be instigated to achieve their cash projections! We are simply a new SBU, Small Business Unit to be created by all means. With the world media at their disposal, we hear all sort of crazy prophesies. Nigeria will not survive election! Nigeria will break up by 2015. No, sorry fells, 2030! Islamic fundamentalists to wage Jihad against Christians in the North.  Northern Oligarchy to make Nigeria ungovernable for Southern Christian president! Islamist Vowed to establish Shari’a law across Nigeria!  Blah, blah, blah! Since Islam is now the number one preferred punching bag of everyone now in the world, the Northern Nigeria has been set as the theatre.

The Producers are sitting somewhere in the west, the directors and the shooting crews are selected in nearby Chad, and the Characters are poor Nigerians. The script is written, and we are led to play this sordid tragedy which will kill our future and future of our children while the producers will earn their billions off stage!

With the crass level of decay prevalent in our societies, this script is a very easy one to carry out. Government officials will make a budget which it has no intention of executing. 80% of the budgeted funds will end up in the private pockets of Civil servants and political office holders. No infrastructures, No education for the Children, no employment for our youth, no training and equipment for the Police, not enough manpower to man our vast sprawling boarders. America spends billions of dollars in boarder security and border patrol on the Mexican border; otherwise the US would have been invaded by drug war loads and other criminals. Security is never cheap. But here we are the funds that will go into keeping us safe have been stolen by the few among us.

The level of decay in all Government agencies is appalling! Most immigration officers will issue Nigerian passports or Work permit to non Nigerians for a fee. Most Police officers will collect N20 from a driver without checking his vehicle, a vehicle which may be carrying the Arms and Bombs that will be used against him. I have seen a Nigerian soldier collecting money at a check points with my own eyes!

The Men and women at the top are averse to Top Down trickle effect. They want all the money to themselves. An average Nigerian Policeman earns less than N20, 000 per Month, which doesn’t come until he is almost dying of hunger. It is easier to cross Nigerian borders than it is to cross a dual carriage way in Abuja city. There is a vast Noman’s Land along Nigeria, Chad, Niger and Cameroun where all sorts of criminal activities are taking place unchecked. Whoever can endure the hardship in this desert can set up his evil empire! Our flanks are open and we are as vulnerable as we can be.

Within the country, because people have been forced to provide virtually all social amenities that the Government was supposed to provide, we look for cheap labor wherever we can get. We employ illegal aliens as house helps, drivers, and security men.  Some because they can speak Arabic, the Muslims among us allow them to teach our Children. In no time they teach them all sort of ideologies right in our homes! We are so simplistic in our approach to life and we assume so much!

The carnage that has now been visited on us is the result of our collective failure as a people, and as a Nation.  Our leaders have to take up the challenge of Nation building sincerely, honestly, openly, and truthfully. The followers must have a soul searching and reset our psyche.  We need to wake up as a people created by One God and destined to live together despite our differences. If God had wanted, he could have made us all the same, but I believe there is a great purpose for being here.

Igbos, Hausas, Fulanis, Yoruba, Ijaws, Itsekiris, Muslims and Christians. We must shun Violence in all its forms. We must learn to live with each other in peace and harmony we must learn to be patient with each other. We must acknowledge that we have wronged each other and will continue to do so, but that our reservoir of forgiveness must always be full! We must teach our children love not hatred.  There is so much for everyone if only we can be Just.

As we mourn the ones we lost in Kano, I have a message for anyone who wishes Nigeria bad. BEWARE! Despite all our shortcomings, despite all our troubles, we will never be cowed. We will strive harder ever than before to defeat all the evil machinations against us. We will remain a United, indivisible peaceful Nigeria Where Christians and Muslims will live side by side peacefully, a Country that will be the envy of all nations.  Our fervent prayers have been heard by Him Who Has always Kept watch over us!

B. I. Bashir

Kano, Nigeria.

24^th,January 2012.