What does a desecrated contraption provide if we seek a redress between the core North and its rolls of insecurity? While we ponder over that, it is a miserable situation as the house of inconceivable power built by their leaders is being brought down and destroyed by the once-neglected children, whose flurries of killings and massacres won’t stop, exactly the same way an overflow from a collapsed dam won’t subside. What a discouraging challenge.

The domination of the political denomination of the powerful north has consistently produced barons of the brigands, bearded wildlings, forest commanders, and lords of the jungle, collecting illicit levies at street junctions and killing without a justifiable cause. The mishap here and there, evident in the current daily doses of violent death with Katsina being the epicentre of such abnormalities and negativities.

Like the army of the dead hidden far behind the wall, they roll into towns and villages, trolling their paths through creeks in a convoy of motorcycles riding with impunity with their AK47 rifles in a sheer display to the high heavens. Even the blind knows the region is under siege by unfazed and unchecked bandits and insurgents who are widely and gainfully connected with those at the helms of affairs – whose love for inflated and skyrocketed security votes and allocation is nothing but a page-one factor, rooted in their archives.

Yes! Despite the absence of government presence, the land is soaked wet with the blood of the naïve, armless, defenceless and unalarmed folks living largely in suburbs and rural areas. The perpetrators spend hours ransacking, pillaging and ravaging its conquered territories back-to-back because there is the absence of law enforcement and security agents. All we see and hear are the dastardly acts of the military and/or the police showing up after the carnage, to take inventory of dead bodies. “Who do us?”

We have a Protector of the Realm, a retired Major-General and also the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. But who chooses to man, the “oye” ministry, in a pluralistic society like ours?

Of course, that is power! Since the leadership emanating from the privy of the upper-room is visible enough to make an individual analysis of what has been and what seems to be. Is the current national security leadership out of think-tank ideas to get the job done? Such acts of impunity causing deaths, kidnappings, destructions and the likes in a nation with a standing Army, Navy and Air Force should be a reason for serious reflection by our security apparatus.

The increasing numbers in poverty, and the painful emotional trauma of the female gender due to rape in rural communities, are part and parcel of how unappreciated and abandoned they are with no meaningful survival at the mercy of bloodthirsty bandits. Northern governors have essentially journeyed as Governors of Condolence in their states. The message of “We condole with” has been an infamous phrase amid a critical and gory time, especially the alarming rate at which the Lord Commander is often “shocked” after being “briefed” on matters of concern.

Our leaders dangerously play the game of pretence when the trophy of abnormality constitutes an existential threat, not only to the northern region but also to our collective sovereignty. At some point, the aura of negotiation was invited but collapsed, as some resorted to signing peace deals with the murderous bandits and insurgents, to avoid loss of lives and property. There is a need to understand that the link between fairness and reconciliation of such elements is not negotiable in a well-militarized society like ours.

A few weeks ago, protesters, mostly young of all races, were expressing their outrage and discontentment at an injustice, causing the cyberspace to be on the boil following the death of an African-American, George Floyd, with the “knee on the neck” mantra. America - the supposed most powerful and influential nation – went up in chaos and disorderliness because human life was lost. Can we feel and think that? Of course, one of the beauties of democracy, as borrowed, is – protest, as against the people’s course.

The Nigerian elites have become so immune to such sheer display of injustice. There is little or no expression of conviction from their closet, as the deafening silence of many who should speak up loud and clearly on behalf of our voiceless people are seen chasing after cheap governance of compensation and unwarranted politics of appointments by gabbing at the feet of self-aggrandised political leaders with no compassion towards the subordinates.

When shall realities be considered above fallacies?

Instead of raising our voices to defend the indefensible, we rather choose to back-walk into our shell of docility and fear, by sharing brutal video clips across social media.

From the cove of Borno to the suburb of Zamfara; the gulf of Taraba to the rural areas in Adamawa; without viewers’ discretion – images of massacre too gruesome to watch; and the stories from survivors are heartbreaking to hear. Of course, this is the reality: people living in the region are being blighted.

Recently, there were demonstrations against their hero and his government; they were tired of its thoughtlessness to their plight; they were tired of the killings and maiming. The leader of the protesters was arrested and detained since the whisperings from the upper-room shows that it was wrong for the children of the North to protest against their beloved. It didn’t stop there; the almightiness of the upper-room gazed with bated breath and ordered the release of the arrested protester.

Fellow Nigerians, pause and observe – you can see and feel the shockwaves of hurricane already here in our midst. The tide is fast changing all across the region with the Protector of the Realm’s home state of Katsina becoming daily occurrence of mass killings with impunity by groups who gazed at the law, causing the law to fidget without a blink.

The drenched in blood, the mass burials, the displaced of persons, the flying of limbs like blooded-beef; the opening and butchering of the pregnant; the rustling of livestock, and the rape of women. All these denote in those lines that the noise of silence has shape-shifted to the noise of violence, without much discourse for investigation.

Now is the time for exigent action.

God bless Nigeria.

Meduoye Adeyinka writes from Lagos: yinkopet@gmail.com.

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