Kano's unbridled drift to abyss?

Aliyu Musa

Once again Kano is in the news for the wrong reasons. The bombs are relentlessly set off with total irresponsibility. The killings cruelly perpetuated and streets littered with garbled remains. Some cold-blooded Martians are at work. But who will stop them? Only God knows.

A few weeks ago I threw a challenge at the good people of Kano to not shy away from death but gallantly face it by tackling those monsters tearing their lives to shreds. Whether they are taking on it or not is another matter all together. But what is obvious is the monsters are untiring and they are vanquishing the people and city and, largely, Nigeria. Kano is now fast becoming a ghost town and soon enough, unless the trend is reversed, it will all be history. But will evil triumph over good on this occasion? Time will tell.

This week’s assaults on the ancient city follow the same script we saw in previous ones. A group that remains faceless goes wild and effectively out of control. It vents its anger on those that perhaps have played no role in its frustrations. And just like those callously carried out killings in February and earlier, the victims are the same: the poor man preoccupied with scavenging for food. But why should it be this category of Nigerians in all cases being the victim? This is simply too mind-boggling!

When bombs went off week-on-week in Churches (and in Mosques, which drew less media attention) for several months last year it was apparent that someone had written a script the rest of us were expected to either watch as spectators or act on as catalysts. Unfortunately, many fell into the second set and went about soliciting ‘self-help’ and inciting people to murder. And before long Kaduna, which had for a long while epitomized interfaith harmony, went up in flames. The cyclical pattern endured until there was no more to act out of that part of the script and the focus was channeled to Kano.

The trouble with Kano’s case is that it is much more complicated. First, it is North’s largest city and the country’s second most populous. Second, it is the nerve centre of the region and a major confluence for people of all tribes and creeds in the country. So, whoever has chosen it to implement this distressing agenda must have thought it out very well and weighed the physical and psychological significance of winning this battle. If Kano goes down, in such estimation, the entire North and probably Nigeria would be dragged along.

But the question is whether Kano will continue to crouch in fear while worthless, faceless cowards triumph at its collapse or bolster itself and fight back. I would hope for the latter but after listening to the BBC Hausa reports following the Monday bomb blasts I knew I would be disappointed; people are already scampering to safety, conceding a defeat.

But one message I hope we will all take from this, whether we concede defeat or gallantly put up a fight, is this violence is like a wildfire; it will not stop on its own unless it is stopped. The more you run away the faster it pursues and consumes you.

I have recently noted some comments that make much sense if deeply interrogated. Have we stopped to ask ourselves why such attacks mostly occur when there are major scandalous decisions (gaffes) meriting national uproars? Is someone always trying to divert attention from such controversies? We know our leaders do ‘not give a damn’ how we feel about the way they run the country but should they not let poor Nigerians worry only about the poverty imposed on them and all the essentials they have been stripped of?

As for those threatening war if the attacks persist on whom will they expel their anger in the end, fellow victims? We have seen similar misdirection of fury in Kaduna, Plateau and other situations but did it solve the problem? It further fueled the violence and handed the igniters undeserved victory.

There is no situation more desperately needing general understanding and unity than what Kano and much of Nigeria face now. If the state does not care and is not doing much to stem it the least people could do is not to allow themselves to be used to fuel it.

Postscript:

This article also appears in the Blueprint newspaper of Friday 22/03/2013.