Open letter to northern leaders (2)

Aliyu Musa

The casualties are mounting. Bodies of the dead who should be your numerical strength litter the streets, from the north-east to the north-west. But they never mattered in life and even matter less in death. So, you don’t lose any sleep seeing those you claim are yours who sincerely take you as theirs given such subhuman handle.

Life of the downtrodden is far too cheap to cause any worries even when so cruelly taken. It has happened time and again that we are now so sure the harmony is to shrug off and carry on as if nothing has happened. Once, we recall, someone so dear to one of you passed on and the mourning went on almost forever. You were all sober because, for once, something had happened.

Life, we all agree, treats us unequally. Ours is our destiny and yours is yours. But should we not shape ours too? Why not? And that’s why in spite of the mindless killings and abductions we still find those unfortunate children of the downtrodden in schools that are selectively targeted and bombed. The bus stations we frequent, despite attacks at rush hours, are still not deserted. The markets are recurrent targets but because our people are determined to survive they go back soon after smokes disappear to carry on, aware of the risk of more attacks but damning it.

Last week it was Kano’s turn again. And the target – the 400-year-old Kano Central Mosque – was a brilliant choice. It struck the people right in the heart and inflicted maximum casualty. It broke a 400-year-old tradition. HRH Muhammadu Sanusi II had obviously incurred, on the people’s behalf, the wrath of the enemy by urging them to tackle the rogues who retail death. And the rogues took death to them, leaving hundreds dead or wounded or traumatised.

And as has always been the case all we have heard is rhetoric. No one mourns beggars. No official engagements are called off. No one takes the matter seriously. So the dead are dead and added on to the long list of the dead whose death means nothing beyond the ordinary.

But I reminded you in the first part of this letter that by not acting you could also be actively plotting against yourselves. Let’s apply a simple logic. You want to wrestle power from an incumbent whose incompetence is not in doubt. But you can only do so if you defeat him in a contest in which numbers matter. However, your own constituency is on fire and those on whose support you are banking have either been bombed or shot dead or forced to run for dear life. And the few brave ones left are under occupation and cowed. But you still think you are coasting to victory?

Between Kano and the three north-eastern states of Adamawa, Yobe and Borno partly annexed and effectively terrorised by the insurgents are 10.2 million voters out of the 70.3 million the INEC in August of this year cleared. The insurgents have insisted no elections would hold in the areas either under their occupation or terrorism. And, with the way things are at the minute, there is no reason not to believe them.

Now, ask yourselves what will happen if 10.2 million voters, the mass of whom you count on, are disenfranchised? I am guessing with you, soberly. Again, you still imagine you are on course to win?

Dead people don’t matter and as long as the bodies continue to pile your support base is diminishing. The choice is up to you to act or let the trend continue. But, even for selfish reason, I would act if I were you. I would mobilise against the merchants of death and call off their and their sponsors bluff.

And why would I be so confident it could be done? The people are dying, either way, and are more determined now to live or die gallantly. In Kano last Friday they hugged death and outwitted it and massively cut down the enemy’s victory. With bare hands they wrestled and subdued fully armed terrorists. Such show of valour, if well complemented, could soon run the rogues out of business and the insurgency would be fittingly consigned to the dustbin of history.

Again, you could choose to act or ignore everything, including this missive at our collective peril.

(concluded)