Omonigho Ohwojeheri
I have always had the impression that the most stupid of people in human history are living in Nigeria today. I was amuse, but not surprised, when I read a report few days ago that a militant group in Niger Delta, Joint Revolutionary Council, JRC, has threatened TO KILL ALL MUSLIMS LIVING IN THE NIGER DELTA STATES as retaliation to the series of bombings and killing of southerners and Christians in the North by members of the Boko Haram.
THE STATEMENT
“The continuous killings of Christians in the North are unbearable to us now. Boko Haram has been leaving bombs around churches and other places with clusters of the innocent,” the group said in a statement.
“….. LEAVE NIGER DELTA NOW!!! Your failure to leave…, we’ll start to kill any MUSLIM WE SEE IN THE NIGER DELTA REGION full stop and no going back,” the statement reads.
“Muslims can’t live in our land freely while Boko Haram will be killing our people in their land. This is our message, If you like stay and test our ultimatum and see what will happen. We are fully ready to kill if Muslims test us…. Every Muslim should leave now or blood.”
“These Boko Haram live among you and pray in the same mosque. So you can’t claim that you don’t know where the Boko Haram is.”
The Statement further urged Niger Deltans living in the north to return home and that the threat will be implemented immediately. Just as Boko Haram, they promised to deal with any person that makes inflammatory statement about them.
The Statement was bursting with grammatical slip-ups and I was saddened by the level of intellectual bankruptcy that has visited my tribe’s men. How can you threaten to kill a Muslim, let alone all the Muslims, in the Niger Delta because of the action of some few individuals in another region? Only comedians talk like this and Niger Delta seems to have a lot of them.
As a Niger Deltan Muslim, I was in doubt where these Ali Baba comedian militant terrorists expect me to go if I should leave my home. Should I migrate to the north were ‘our people’ are allegedly being killed or should I just go to the moon?
What is the reason for the promised and impending genocide of Muslims? We are all bearing the burden of the crisis, more Ibos and Yorubas have died from the violence than Niger Deltan indigenes, but nobody is making threat of genocide. As of fact, more Northern Muslims have been killed since the crisis started.
MEDIA BIAS
Over the last couple of years, the mainstream media in Nigeria have done a good job in demonising Muslims, especially Hausa and Fulani Muslims. They have convened in the minds of the average southern Christians that Muslims are some sort of Christian haters who would kill just for the sake of killing. A classical case in point of such media prejudice is lighted in an article “The SUN’s Phenomenal Bias in Reporting the Jos Crisis” by Bello Umar http://t.co/xjM9GL02.
While the facts on ground shows that over 90% of Nigerians killed from the crisis are Northern Muslims, the media have nurtured the idea in the minds of Nigerians that the Boko Haram crisis is about Christians.
No doubt the most hated group of people in Nigeria today are the Hausa Fulani Muslims and by extension Muslims in general, courtesy of the media. The same goes for every other region of the world. People look for the most flimsy of excuse to mass murder Muslims.
If you want to kill Muslims in the Niger Delta, do it, your slave masters and friends are doing it in Iraq and Afghanistan, even your fellow countrymen have done it Southern Kaduna and Plateau State on several occasions, but don’t hide behind Boko Haram to justify your hatred for Islam and Muslims.
FACTS ABOUT BOKO HARAM
Below are the facts that our Christian and southern dominated mainstream media and religious leaders have conveniently failed to adequately depict pertaining to the current Boko Haram crisis:
The group popularly referred to as Boko Haram official name is Jama’atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda’awati wal-Jihad meaning “People Committed to the Propagation of the Prophet’s Teachings and Jihad”. The group was dabbed Boko Haram because of their strong opposition to the conventional education system, which they blame for the corruption among Muslims and Northern Leaders in recent times. Those who had contact with the group leadership attested that their only desire was to be free to practice their faith without interference from others.
Problem started when Boko Haram members were on a procession to bury a dead member early in 2009. They had disagreement with some police officers over the use of motorcycle helmet, in the police usual fashion, they descended on the mourners, shot and killed a number of them. The followers thereafter vowed to retaliate.
Between the 26th of July and 1st of August 2009, hundreds of the group members and other innocent Muslims were rounded up and summarily executed in the street of Maiduguri by officers of the Nigeria Police Force. The group leader, Muhammad Yusuf, was captured by security operatives; he was interrogated and thereafter executed. You can read the transcript of his interrogation here http://t.co/CqNDnSa6. Alhaji Buji Fai, the former Commissioner of Water Resources and Baba Fugua community leader and Father-in-law of Muhammad Yusuf, who visited the police station on a peace mission, were also publicly executed by Police officers.
While the government gave Niger Delta armed bandits amnesty and special budgetary allocation for destroying public infrastructures and killing members of the armed forces, the same government conveniently swept the massacre of Muslims under the carpet, because the blood of the Muslims do not worth a penny, as they say. Nobody stood for the victims because they were not wealthy to buy Lawyers, the mainstream media ignored them because they were ‘savage Muslims’ and ‘bloody northerners’.
The group believed that the government orchestrated and provoked the slaughter of innocent Muslims, and the government disinterest to hold those responsible accountable for the atrocities made them further complicit to the murders and illegal detention of innocent Muslims.
The failure of the government to make sure that the victims get justice, lead to the Boko Haram uprising.
Boko Haram aim had never been to forcefully impose Islam on Christians as our mainstream media and some deceptive Christian leaders had deceitfully tried to portray. Their primary target had always been Police officers and anybody who stands on their way.
Several Muslim Scholars in the north who dare to speak against them have been killed, likewise some pastors. It is also very important to note that over 90% of people killed by Boko Haram activities are northern Muslims.
While we recognise and condemn the excesses of Boko Haram, we must understand that our corrupt and irresponsible government and their thugs with licence gun, Nigeria Police Force, brought this upon us. On what basis should JRC want to take out revenge on Muslims in the Niger Delta?
This write up should not be construe as intended to elicit sympathy or a plea to the scoundrels who wants to kill us. While we have no doubt that this state finance reprobates can, to some extent, carry out their threats, they should realise that we are Muslims and we cannot be threatened. If we survive this, we will thank our Creator. If we are martyred, we meet our Lord. Innaa lillaahi wa innaaa ‘ilayhi raji’uun. It is a win-win situation as some will say.
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