Kagoro and the knell of death

Kaduna people

Terrorists recently stormed Malagum 1 and Sokwong communities of Kagoro chiefdom of Kaura  Local Government Area of Kaduna State where they slaughtered more than forty people and left many others injured  in attacks that have sent further chills down the spine of an already numb country.

Nigeria would always look back at this year as the year in which the hammer fell fatally on select communities in one of Nigeria’s most iconic states.

The deaths have been at the hands of terrorists who have frequently and abominably threatened to overrun the country. But in a big way, the deaths have also been a rotten fruit of the dereliction of those in government who have rather chosen not to decisively put a stop to the madness that has engulfed Southern Kaduna threatening  to incinerate  entire communities.

The shock today is that that entire region of Kaduna State has not been annihilated.It is a region that has seen many horrific attacks, all aimed at forcing the people to question their place within the state.

The attacks which have always been chilling have never failed to be meticulously calculated as specific communities have been targeted, brutally attacked and attacked again while security personnel scurry about with nothing to show for it.

These year alone,many communities of Southern Kaduna have lost count of their dead. People have been attacked while they slept at home.

People have been attacked and brutally killed while in their farms and markets. Even in their sacred places of worship, people without number have been attacked and brutally hacked to death.

The government, in Kaduna State, and the Federal Government have refused to admit that they are doing very little to stop the carnage. Yet,the feeling that a deadly dereliction has gripped the government is unmistakable as entire families, clerics and traditional rulers have been horrifically slaughtered.

Nigeria, the Giant of Africa, Africa’s most populous country, and home to some 133 million poor, should not be that country where people are killed at will by non-state actors, while the agents of the state whom they look up to for protection stand by and do nothing.

The scandalous smoke of insecurity that is threatening to suffocate Kaduna State must alarm every Nigeria because it is a danger signal thrust into the face of an entire country.

This year alone, people have been attacked within Kaduna State, on the road to Kaduna, on a train to Kaduna and  at an airport in Kaduna. All these in a state that is a stone throw away from Nigeria’s capital city.

Nigeria has very much been pushed to the edge of the precipice by the devastating attacks in Kagoro and all the attacks that have happened in Kaduna State this year and in other parts of the country.

Southern Kaduna is predominantly Christian. Indeed, many of the forty people slaughtered in Kagoro were Christians. Their have been allegations of ethnic and religious cleansing. There have also been allegations that the refusal of the region to support the All Progressives Congress which is the ruling party in the state is a chief contributory to its plight.

Too many stunning stories in a country which mouths unity in diversity while tragically ignoring the  truism that variety is the spice of life.

What sins are the people of Southern Kaduna being made to pay for? For prominent human rights activist Ndi Kato whose mother is from Kagoro, that sin is simply that the good and long-suffering people of Southern Kaduna who have shown extraordinary fortitude in the face of this baleful betrayal are existing.

The people have been betrayed by Nigeria and left at the mercy of crude criminals who are  even unfit  to  be compared  to animals.

The Kaduna State Government has failed to be impartial and impassioned about the plight of the people of Southern Kaduna. The Kaduna State Governor never fails to hold out himself as a security expert.

Yet, his failures as a physician are starkly exposed by the fact that in his domain many patients are writhing in agony with nothing done to bind their wounds.

The Federal Government has also failed the good people of Southern Kaduna.That nothing decisive has been done to stem the surge of killings indicts the occupants of the corridors of power in a country where dysfunction is the highest function of frauds and  their fawns.

The failure to protect lives and property in in Southern Kaduna has been stark.It can neither be forgiven or forgotten.

Beginning form the pivotal elections coming up next year, Nigerians must remind those who have failed them  in the last eight years that failure  will no longer be tolerated or rewarded.

For Kagoro,what manner of Christmas?

Kene Obiezu,

Twitter: @kenobiezu

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