By Gloria MABEIAM Ballason Esq
In Nigeria, many celebrated the 2024 Christmas without the merry. In the evening of Sunday 22 December, 14 people from Ari Doh of Ganawuri, in Plateau state, including a pregnant woman and a one-year-old baby, were gruesomely murdered. The Irigwe people believe that the murder was perpetrated by a combined operation of Fulani militias and security personnel attached to the Ari Doh Checkpoint, Sector 6. In 2023, it was more grim: 200 people were killed and over 500 injured in series of armed attacks that occurred between 23 and 25 December, 2023 in 17 rural communities of Bokkos and Barkin Ladi of Plateau state. To be clear, this is not a contest of murder figures; the death of one citizen is one too many.
The Ganawuri killings were preceded by lethal food stampedes in Oyo, Anambra and Abuja all of which claimed over 80 lives. The organizers of the philanthropic gestures have been arrested. The good they sort to do has now caused unspeakable pain. We must focus on the circumstances that have made these avoidable deaths possible: a Tinubu economy so harrowing that parents fling their children into arenas to lap up morsels to stitch body and soul together. These victims tragically exchanged hunger for their lives. It doesn’t get any more excruciating than that.
By Christmas day, the itinerary of mass atrocities would prove to have more in store: Nigerian military fighters bombed innocent people in Gidan Sama and Rumtuwa communities in Sokoto State, resulting in the loss of at least 10 precious lives.
The military claimed it was a mistake that intercepted their efforts at stamping out the terrorists ravaging the nation. The problem is this sort of mistake has become all too common and the number of innocent lives exterminated to reach terrorists is simply, unjustifiable.
The Sokoto accidental killings has added up with the “Ocean of Innocent Blood Flowing In Eastern Nigeria,” report statistics published by the International Society for Civil Rights and Rule of Law, which alleges that Nigerian security operatives have killed about 32,000 civilians and extorted N3trn in the South East part of Nigeria.
The said report also states that thousands were unlawfully detained and tortured, whereas over 6,000 were blindfolded or face-bagged and bundled at late night from the East.
In another breath, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) reports that N2.23trillion was paid as ransom to terrorists in twelve months. How dizzying does it get?
But what is Christmas if despair can muster such audacity to challenge hope? It reminds of King
Herod’s obsession with an infant- a preoccupation so extreme he was willing to kill thousands of babies to reach that one baby he imagined would rival his kingship but who in reality was born for a different kingdom.
I often wonder what threat Jesus posed, for even if He were to be fed the most potent baby formula; how could he possibly have grown exponentially enough to be a contender to Herod’s throne? Yet Herod would have none of it. The illogicality of Herod’s actions led to a nadir of suffering and the wiping out of a generation. Herod’s model continues to be used by tyrants today.
Take Hunger: With 70.8 million hectares of agricultural land, the seventh largest globally, Nigeria has no business courting lack and hunger.
Consider resource-related killings: pauperized villagers live on wealth mines and never really know why they are massacred until they learn that there are resources that attract organized killings. If the government holds resources in trust then that trust should yield an even distribution otherwise the principle of quicquid plantatur solo solo cedit (fixtures of the land belongs to the land) should apply so the people till their ground and live by it.
Turning to the tragic case in Sokoto, it must now be asked if military precision is no longer attainable and if collateral damage should be imbibed as state art. On 6th December, 2023 over 300 unarmed civilians were killed by Nigeria’s military at Igabi local government of Kaduna state while trying to exterminate terrorists. Surely, the unfortunate incident which happened barely a year ago, ought to have been a learning curve- assuming without conceding, that learning was needed on the execution field.
Amidst reminiscing about these tragedies I sat in a pew on Christmas morning as the President of the COCIN Church read from Exodus 3:7-9, a text I thought was unusual for Christmas. God, in that scripture heard and saw the misery of the Israelites in Egypt, the land of their captivity, and the Almighty decided to act by sending Moses as their deliverer just as He sent Jesus as the Saviour after seeing the misery of mankind occasioned by sin. The Preacher went on to urge us to keep our eyes and ears on human suffering and to act on it.
The hardship of Nigerians is man made. The angst will come to an end when people of goodwill resist the reign of despondency and in its place, enthrone hope; only then will the Nigerian people who dwell in darkness find light and the land where death casts its shadow, find life. Merry Christmas!
Ballason is the Chief Executive Officer of the House of Justice and may be reached at gloriaballason@houseofjusticeng.com
