On Christmas Eve, the disheartening ethno-religious crisis in Jos flared anew. Several bomb blasts went off in three areas of the once mild-mannered city, killing at least 32 people. The bloodletting was a tragic interlude at a time of celebration and good cheer.
As with many outbreaks of violence throughout our benighted land, the conflict in Jos had hitherto featured crude weapons, especially machetes. About the most sophisticated weapons deployed were guns of various kinds.
But now bombs have, perhaps inevitably, been brought to bear. This follows the usual trajectory of violent conflict in our country. Punches and stabbings mutate into guns and the burning of property. Then routine murder begins to take root as warring sides, in the absence of any government, surrender all inhibition. Unreason begins to rule. The Niger Delta, typically, has demonstrated how violent conflict evolves to near unmanageability. First, foreigners are kidnapped but never harmed. Then they are injured and sometimes killed. Then Nigerians are targeted, almost exclusively adults. Then the dragnet spreads to the elderly and even children. A line is crossed. The codes governing society are shredded and all bets are off.
As we all know, from bitter experience, the corrosive effects of violence almost inevitably send society plunging deeper and deeper into the abyss. Bombings used to be limited to the Delta. Then one or two installations in Lagos are bombed.
Then on Independence Day this year the heart of Abuja, the nation’s capital, is targeted for a bombing attack against innocents.
Now it’s Jos’ turn.
One by one, the dominoes fall in our country. Having been brutalised and forced to endure cold-blooded murder, the disoriented youth who populate Boko Haram have now resorted to murdering public officials throughout the north east. The Igbo states of the south east have completely collapsed into ungovernability.
Kidnapping is rampant. Thugs have ascended into the corridors of power. Civilisation recedes step by step. Our communities are, in effect, reclaimed by the bush.
The underlying cause of all this violence throughout the country is the utter absence of effective government. It is safe to say that every part of our country is roughly equally mismanaged, leaving ordinary citizens vulnerable to the rapacity of the political and business elite. Inequality is as obscene as can be found in the world’s worst societies. Every Nigerian feels s/he is alone to fend for self as best as can be managed. It’s a Hobbesian jungle out there, and sooner or later something will give.
The utter failure of government to make even the lamest symbolic moves is underscored by the fecklessness of Vice President Namadi Sambo, who was scheduled to make a perfunctory visit to Jos yesterday, Dec. 27, to commiserate with the victims and perhaps make the usual empty promises.
Mr. Sambo, it turns out, cannot even manage that much. At the very last minute, the vice president shelved his visit on account of what officials described as ‘unfavourable security reports.’ That’s right: unfavourable security reports! What conditions did Mr. Sambo expect in a city in which citizens cannot even be protected by their government, in which they are shot and knifed and bombed daily? In which their children cannot go to school, their homes and businesses cannot be safeguarded from rampaging hordes, their places of worship and their farms and public places are subject to razing at any time?
The Jonathan/Sambo government has not shown itself capable of governing, any more than the Yar’Adua/Jonathan government concerned itself with the business of running the country.
We are and we remain citizens abandoned to our fate. It is up to us, not these pretenders to the business of leadership, to figure out a way to make our country right again.
Mr. Sambo is highly unlikely to be a part of that effort at renewal.
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