2nd May, 2012
Nobody thought it could turn this bad but the thoughtlessness of those who should know better may destroy our fragile unity.
The bombing and deaths of the innocent should prick our national conscience yet we seem content to fiddle while the country burns. Calls for a national conference have been ignored yet not solution has been found for this catastrophe staring us in the face.
The rampaging Boko Haram sect and our decision to handle it with kid gloves may be the ticking time bomb we have been sitting on these past years, and God forbid, we are not on the road to disintegration as a country.
The bombing of churches, schools, public places and now media houses may be the last straw if we do nothing but twiddle our hands as if we are powerless to arrest the situation.
Already, too many innocent people have been killed with the promise of more to come, and the time is ripe to do something before we are all swept away in the tide of violence.
Talks have failed and security agencies are doing their best but the menace has not abated. Is it not time to try another approach? Do we wait until the people feel they have had enough?
Something urgently needs to be done to arrest the deteriorating situation. The president, council of state, security agencies and others should take a firm decision to arrest this drift to disintegration.
The National Assembly must not wait until the situation gets out of hand. It must take action to prevent avoidable deaths of Nigerians. We have had enough. Only people without a conscience would continue to view the situation as just another problem we will eventually overcome.
Those who have lost relatives to the mindless violence think differently with rage.
Must people take up arms against one another before the government realises it has to do something more result-oriented? If we cannot live together as one country, must we be forced to do so? Can’t we talk about it like reasonable people rather than resort to this mindless violence that is doing nobody but the perpetrators any good?
We believe it is time to talk. It is time to discuss our way forward as a country. Many Nigerians believe we should discuss the way forward rather than try to fight a war we cannot win. If a part of the country decides it wants something the other part does not, must we hold it against their will?
Ethiopia and Eritrea, Sudan and South Sudan, the Soviet Union all fought bitter wars before realising the best was to go their separate ways. Can we afford to be different?
We keep believing that the problem would resolve itself. Must we all be bombed out of existence before the government realises we are in a dire situation?
Dialogue, a national conference may be all we need to solve this problem. A situation in which one feels unsafe in his country does not augur well for all of us. It is uncalled for in this 21st century when other countries are moving forward and even checking out other planets.
This primitive resort to violence and backwardness will not help anybody. Killing fellow citizens and threatening innocent people is not helping the country.
We believe it is time to face reality and do something before we all perish in the inferno the Boko Haram has promised.
It is time we convene a conference of the different nationalities that make up Nigeria. This contraption called Nigeria has failed and the only way to arrest the drift is to come together and talk.
We are being held to ransom by a gang of butchers whose demands we cannot meet.
The Boko Haram sect is tearing us apart and making us view our brothers as enemies but must we continue to allow the death of the innocent?