A father looks at the place where his house once stood and in which are particles of his son’s cremated remains. His son had asked him to run, father escapes, but the son was felled by bullets. Were the scene to be replayed, he would die so his son would live. He refuses to be comforted. At the road path lie the cremated body of a child, no more than six months old. Ashen and crisp, he represents the bodies of two dozen other children whose identity reside in ashes.
At the end of the road is a wide expanse of red soil. There are women rolling on it and singing the most heart rending dirge. They are wailing and calling the names of the dead. A hundred and twenty were buried in a mass grave. Another set of over forty dismembered heads were found in a rubble house. The sight was too gory for evacuation.
What remained of the house was torn down to cover the spirits of the burnt to rest.
Over three hundred people attacked three villages in Moro’a, Kaura local government of Kaduna state. Three villages were sacked, over a hundred houses were burnt and four thousand people have been rendered homeless. The attacks went on for five straight hours without any intervention by the security agents. Wonderful!
At Birnin Gwari , the local government has become a ghost of itself. People are killed recklessly. Women and girls are raped openly. Property is looted and the thieves and robbers appear at public places without fear or intimidation. Commercial life has almost been brought to its knees. Birnin Gwari, which used to be a home for many, is now a den of robbers and murderers. These two local governments exist in Kaduna state.
Let me move to a story that has been making the rounds. Over six million Nigerians paid in a thousand naira each into bank accounts for recruitment into Nigeria Immigration Service. Sixteen people died. Several were injured. Many more who fainted were rushed to hospitals.
My message this week is simple: If you have no human heart, you have no business leading humans at any level. Can you imagine that people were killed for five straight hours in Kaura local government in a state where there is a government? Would you believe that in Birnin Gwari all these evils go unnoticed, no one is being arrested, no one is questioned and law breakers now determine what happens? Would you also believe that despite all that happened in Kaura local government, the police in Kaduna state invited someone only because he had displayed the pictures on his face book page? Our dear police put up the most intimidating show to stop people from holding peaceful rallies. Let me repeat what I earlier said: If you don’t believe in the sanctity of human life, please do not lead humans, because you don’t qualify.
People are wondering why groups are moving for the removal of the Minister for Interior. The reason is simple: We must revoke the license which emboldens some government agents to kill. When sixteen people died who had no business dying, the Minister blamed it on their ‘Impatience’ claiming that ‘…they did not follow the laid down procedures spelt out to them for the exercise.’ He also wondered why pregnant women would show up for the recruitment. I don’t know his explanation for the incidence of those who got injured.
That is not where it ends, on Sunday, the 16th March 2014, the Nigeria Immigration service claimed that the recruitment exercise it carried out nationwide was successful in all thirty one states. The deaths were discountenanced, the injured were rounded off. What remained after the NIS had done its Maths was termed a success. We see deaths everyday in this country but it doesn’t mean that we have become so dehumanized that we do not call crime by its name. What the NIS did has the ingredients of Homicide. Involuntary homicide is the unlawful killing of a human being without express or implied malice afore thought. You may wish to look up the Law as enshrined in section 220 of the Penal Code.
In the case of the NIS recruitment, Involuntary homicide is defined as the killing of Nigerians by Nigerians for sheer greed. Over six million applicants applied, five hundred and twenty thousand were shortlisted for four thousand five hundred and fifty six available jobs. Someone refused to sift the process because the one thousand multiplied by six million people is more important than the wellbeing of the people.
We need to clear our prisons for their real inhabitants. People are confined for petty theft while those who facilitate the deaths of many are left to walk free, what kind of justice is that?
In any case, the Minister of Interior and the NIS Comptroller have been issued queries. Those who died during the exercise will have three members of their families, including at least one female, who will receive automatic employment slots. All those who sustained injuries and are receiving treatments in hospitals will receive automatic employments.
This is the part that brings tears to my eyes for its revelation of the stark realities of our system: Some people had to die for their families to receive a life line. Six million poor unemployed people who paid a thousand naira each that will end up in the pockets of billionaires, will not have a refund.
To worsen matters, despite the psychological, mental and emotional torture people went through, the exercise has now been cancelled; while those who set the stage for this disaster may just be queried or even relieved of their jobs only to be compensated with other appointments. No one will go to jail. If there is any reason why I find the big man business tempting in Nigeria, it is because I don’t want to die the kind of death where my body will only have a number and not a name.
