MAIDUGURI, has been a living hell for people of Borno State in Northern Nigeria. The indiscriminate slaughter of its own citizens by members of the Boko Haram sect this week took on an even more dire twist. 142 bodies were pulled out of bushes and off the road by security forces who have been reduced to just collecting bodies. The Nigerian government has been handicapped by its own inability to eradicate corruption, with more crude oil being stolen than is sold, and now with it's military and government infiltrated by members of the sect she has once again managed to pull herself to the bring of an abyss of a different kind.
The Boko Haram insurgency is a kind of it's own. Being a mix of disgruntled corrupt Government officials, misguided youths and hardened Islamic extremist from the North. Giving rise to a potent mix of stupidity ad criminality on dangerously massive scale. Lacking the full credentials of an extremist Islamic cult and also lacking the organization of a criminal cartel. It has become a monster that can not now be controlled by its founders. It now threatens to engulf not jut the whole of the Northern states of the Country but also the States of the Sahara.
Uhurru Kenyatta's Kenya has suddenly featured on every news outlet in the world. Sadly for all the wrong reasons. Anxiously watching Liverpool vs Southampton sweat it out at Anfield began to seem almost irrelevant when sordid and worrying headlines from Kenya kept flashing across the screen.
It is a sad story ones again. From people who believe that the old, the young, women and children are fair game when it comes to unconventional warfare.
For decades on end Kenya has been a smouldering pot of frequent acts of terrorism. The failed state of Somali has supplied a constant stream of misguided extremist who have continued to pour into Kenya.
It has indeed been a sad week for Africa and the world. With ongoing events in Nairobi no one is to tell where we would end up today.
Putting this occurrence in perspective. A few days ago hundreds of innocent Nigerians lost their lives and that story barely made headlines within Nigeria itself. What sane society on this planet can loose 142 of its citizens to gruesome murder and yet everything goes on as usual? Its baffling.
One is forced to ask Is the wholesale murder of Africans somehow secondary when it comes to the loss of one European life. Both are despicable and should not be tolerated, all the same I do believe that a human life should be held priceless irrespective of who it is or where that person originates from.
Terrorism in all its forms is shameful and cowardly.
My heart goes out to the families of the victims of both the Maiduguri and the Nairobi incidents.
No comments:
Post a Comment