Of rats, rants and ransom

As humanity has continued to journey through time, with generation outlasting generation to preserve the delicate thread of human existence, one thing has remained common ground, as common as air and as constant as the northern star: common humanity, which simply translates to the understanding that unpleasant feelings are part of the human experience, that suffering is universal.

In time of pain, especially the kind of pain that cuts really close to the heart, people everywhere know to pull close, to bond together as if to find some kind of warmth that only the heart can feel. Non-human animals also know this. Common humanity is that which binds people together; it is that which sees people rowing in the same direction in the face of tragedy.

Common humanity is the reason the massacre of people in Darfur, Sudan, for example, can reverberate so strongly in Dutsin-Ma Nigeria.

In just over a decade, Nigeria has had a torrid time with terrorism. At about 2009, Boko Haram began to mine its bottomless savagery to unleash hell on innocent Nigerians. Many villages in northeastern Nigeria have been vaporized by the hard-hitting terrorist group which infamously abducted hundreds of school girls from Chibok Borno State in 2014.

But Boko Haram was only a canary in the mine, a harbinger of what was to come. This is because though the terrorist group has remained destructively active, as soon as other criminal groups saw how successful its advances on Nigeria were, the casualties Nigeria`s security forces were counting, and the feeble response of the Nigerian government, they decided to set up shop and join the booming business of terror.

There have since been Fulani herdsmen, ISWAP – a splinter of Boko Haram and bandits who have quickly become the breathing nightmare of many rural-dwelling Nigerians. When a well-coordinated terror attack recently ripped up a train travelling from Abuja to Kaduna on March 28 2022 spattering yet more blood on the battered conscience of besieged country, reports had it that Boko Haram had consummated a marriage of convenience with bandits to carry out the devastating attack.

Nigeria`s response to terror has been largely military. Even the controversial attempts to defuse terrorism by way of de-radicalizing, rehabilitating and reintegrating repentant terrorists into communities has been coordinated by the Nigerian army. In the face of the blinding terror unleashed on its population, a country of so many laws but so much lawlessness has sought to give each of its responses to the overwhelming scourge a toga of legality.

In keeping with this tradition of cosmetic legality, the same tradition which sees many laws decked with everything good but enforcement, the Nigerian Senate recently passed a bill seeking to amend the Terrorism (Prevention) Act, 2013 to prohibit the payment of ransom to terrorists. A fifteen-year jail term is the price those who pay ransom to get their loved ones free may be forced to pay.

While the debate over what is legal and what is outlawed rages in the National Assembly and in the pub of public opinion, and over the mindset of those who forget that the leopard cannot change its spots as they hope that cold-blooded killers can grow warm and kind after a few weeks of rehabilitative camping, the terrorist mischief of rats continues to bite Nigeria  to death.

Sympathy suffers seizures; even empathy has an endpoint beyond which it cannot relate to what another is going through. As long as the shoe is another`s, there is a point beyond which the pinch will prick no more. One cannot really understand what it means for a loved ones to be in the captivity of a terror group unless one personally experiences it.

The swarm of rats which have descended on Nigeria`s smoked fish is a ruthless one. They do not just hack open Nigerian wounds they pour in salt so as to elicit maximum pain. The method in their madness is so maverick as to defy measure. With the image of an infant like a meathook they prod the wounds of bleeding nation. Wielding the image of captive children like a plier, they go for the teeth of a traumatized nation. Without any painkillers.

The source of the stench sweeping an entire country and causing the international community to hold its nose is not at all in doubt. It is from the putrefaction that insecurity is. That people go to their farms and are slaughtered or abducted, or stay at home and are slaughtered or abducted, or go to school and are slaughtered or abducted, is a nightmare beyond all telling.

The question which comes from the quill of common sense then is  if someone is kidnapped and all the government does is wring its hands as has been the case many times, and the family of the victim is able to raise the funds demanded as ransom and pay, who in the circumstances should bear the brunt of a fifteen-year jail term? Is it the toothless government, the ruthless criminals or the hapless family?

The summation of the reality equation in Nigeria today is that life has become so cheapened by insecurity that many of the laws which should govern conduct if things were normal now appear comically out of place. That is what chaos does, and that is just one of the erosions of its authority any government suffers when questions about its sovereignty are not vigorously answered.

Without its soldiers around and active, a colony of ants cannot afford to rant too loudly. In the Igbo nation, as long as the jaw has something to chew, it cannot rest. It remains an abomination in Africa to beat a child and ask that child not to cry. As long as kidnapping is not stopped at source and the criminals involved vanquished, ransom will continue to be paid by those who cannot allow a lost country to lynch their loved ones in the name of legislation.

Kene Obiezu.

keneobiezu@gmail.com

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