FOR US TO HAVE PEACE

“There are two basic motivating forces: fear and love. When we are afraid, we pull back from life. When we are in love, we open to all that life has to offer with passion, excitement, and acceptance. We need to learn to love ourselves first, in all our glory and our imperfections. If we cannot love ourselves, we cannot fully open to our ability to love others or our potential to create. Evolution and all hope for a better world rest in the fearlessness and open-hearted vision of people who embrace life.”

― John Lennon

Fear is the primary objective of every act of terror, whether it is on the World Trade Centre, a popular shopping mall in Nairobi, Kenya or EMAB Plaza in Abuja.  

Insurgents, terrorists, enemies of state or whatever name they go by, should not be allowed to prevail. Yet, they seem to enjoy sending the rest of us into panic mode. We have lost count of how many bomb blasts our brothers and sisters have perished in.  These elements are growing in confidence and becoming more daring. Abuja’s EMAB/BANEX Plazas epitomize a melting pot of peoples of diverse backgrounds in the city. The ground nut and banana sellers who bore the brunt of the bomb blast, entrepreneurs, businessmen, taxi drivers and shoppers in general from all walks of life, people who have had nothing to do in offending anybody, innocent victims were maimed and killed at the popular mall.

The reality of our present state of national insecurity has been brought to the fore this year, as opposed to the insurgency affecting somewhere in the far North East of the country, far away from our comfort zone. Now, explosions are reported in almost every region.  Nor are those attacks reserved for the remote suburbs of our cities. Abuja residents who felt that Wuse II was safer than Nyanya woke up to the shocking reality that no part of the city is one hundred percent safe, CCTV cameras, armed military men and all. We are gradually pulling back from life, especially here in Abuja where we now restrict our own movement and constantly watch our backs. We busy our minds with thoughts of, “What if the man driving in front of me is going to detonate an IED?” Companies and offices have adopted bizarre and crazy security measures because we can’t just tell what area is next on the terrorists’ list.

Electronic messages are flying around warning us of impending terrorist activity. We have been advised to stay at home. Our children are now on holiday and cannot go to the mall, the cinema or the market. They are stuck at home. That is what fear does to a defeated people – but we refuse to be defeated.  It is only proper to put the plight of our fellow citizens living in the emergency states of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa into perspective. If we panic this much in Abuja, the seat of power, under what condition do we think those defenceless innocent Nigerians live every day of their lives exposed to untold danger?  

In choosing love instead of fear, we have to be reassured by our government at all levels that they are capable of protecting us. It is standard practice for terrorists to want to create and play psychological mind games to instil fear in order to attract attention. This is partly why insurgents among us belittle our military by daring to attack their formations. They are making our soldiers look ordinary in the eyes of the world, so that we citizens feel more vulnerable. The first step towards redemption and reassurance is for our government to make us believe that defenders of our integrity are superior to our enemies. Such belief should be matched by action.

        

Many factors contributed to the monster we are trying to tame today. Social injustice, unemployment, poverty, corruption, indoctrination, etc are all factors. If these are not addressed, we shall continue to be confronted by the disillusioned amongst us. It doesn’t matter if we have the best military with state-of-the-art arms. No damage control mechanism, such as the new National Information Centre, has the capability to manage a crisis. We need to get to the crux of the matter, change our way of thinking and dialogue. The conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians should highlight to all that have sense and this is not so common, that violence and reprisals will only serve to oil the wheel of repetitious negative actions, which create more hatred and spills more innocent blood.

Our practices here are extractive and our country is ruled by law, as opposed to by the rule of law where all are equal under the law and have the same rights. This must change for us to live in harmony.