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Babies Snatchers By Farouk Martins, Omo Aresa
If you want to hang a dog, you give it a bad name. If you want to derail a noble cause, turn them into baby snatchers. Isaac Boro and Ken Saro Wiwa must be turning in their graves wondering what a genuine cause to free their people has turned into. They were fighting the greed of the oil barons of Nigeria stake holders and international companies. These thugs are sinking their cause so low, their detractors are crying – I told you so.
We do not have to wait for psychologists and child behaviorist to lecture us about the effect of certain trauma on young children. Some of them may be scared for life and come back to hunt us. The chronic psychopaths among us today in Agbada emptying our treasury, in police uniforms on our streets killing for twenty naira and the do or die politicians must have been traumatized the same way in their childhood.
Three or four cases of children snatching have been reported that we know of gaining our attention not to talk about those local ones we are not aware of. Before then, it was the old mother of their blood and kin who got a prominent leadership position in Government that was snatched. Are these thugs fed on the breast milk of a mother or were they fed by Neanderthals?
Why would anyone want to hurt an innocent child while they pray and cherish their own? Those children that carry the memories of our war, operation wet e, religious intolerance, and environmental degradation are yet to recover from them. These thugs are repeating the same mistake on individual basis. A vicious circle does not heal until we rise above it and put a stop to it – enough is enough.
It is Nigerians and Africans that are made to look like brutes all over the world. They show their people on televisions how Africans amputated children’s legs and arms; children soldier, slave or body parts; taking grandmothers, children and the foreigners hostages. The same Nigeria that has the best peace keeping force in the world can not protect its own citizens. It is even worse if we can not protect the week and our children.
They see how we treat ourselves, our grandmothers and our children but for some reason we expect them to respect us and treat us better. The child Hill that was snatched has a Nigerian mother but that did not stop the British from immediate protest to the Nigerian Government because of the British father. Unlike us, they value their own.
You see when they say it’s not about the money. You better believe it is nothing but about the money. The history of some of these thugs went way back to the time of that old man, Adedibu. They were used as thugs to fight their rivals then. As they became smarter, they figured it out that instead of being daily paid thugs they could contract out to whoever needs them at a given price. As time moved on they realize how to graduate to politicians and godfathers. Unfortunately, that is what we now have all over Nigeria, not Niger Delta alone.
While the jubilation for the release of Asari Dokubo was on, he got carried away and pledged to end hostage taking. For where? Hostage taking is no more concentrated in one sector, one group or from a single cause. It is now a product of greed, influence and control. It has even gone international. As many of the splinter groups are satiated, others came up asking for dues. In the meanwhile, the poor people in need in whose names this cause is propagated hardly see any relief to their grievances.
The new President asks for the leaders of Niger Delta to be honest, he should have gone further and ask all the leaders of Nigeria to be honest with Niger Delta. Some of us are beginning to wonder if the people within that area can solve their problem with all the money within Nigeria or they are just going to use the money to buy Europe and America so that their impoverish people can move there. On the contrary, all the palaces, cars and refineries owned by their Governors outside Nigeria do not have Niger Deltans there. Some of the cars are in garages unused, the houses begging for occupiers, the refineries manned by foreigners and the taxes paid not remitted back to Nigeria.
As soon as they need to generate more income, they turn into grandma or children snatchers. Nigerians have been much matured and understanding especially in the South-south of the Country because the Vice-President slot went to Bayelsa, hardly the most populous Ethnic group in that area. So one can not but asks if anything we can come up with would return calm to that area. If they get twenty-five percent of oil income, some will ask for fifty percent, if they get fifty percent, some will ask for hundred percent. We can then watch out for inter tribal war amongst each of the Ethnic group trying to share their windfall. What happens when the oil runs dry, back to commonwealth of Nigeria?
There must be a special conference among the leaders of Edo, Urhobo, Ijaw and Itsekiri on how to brain storm and come to civilize solution otherwise these thugs will turn their cause into worthless rubbles. Indeed, the Igbo, Ondo and other Ethnic groups living in the areas must be included otherwise we will have other insurgents of minorities within the minority. It is only reasonable to suggest that we can not solve this problem unless a home grown all Nigerian solution is tabled.
Africans use to listen to our elders and traditional rulers in revere position of authority. That is now almost passé. Money talks and these thugs will do anything for money. They have drowned out the voice of reason, intellectuals and the gods. They call for all kinds of crazies – autocracy, babacracy, democracy etc as long as it supports their whims and caprices. What about indigenous method of government coined and developed in Africa? We are ailing badly and the cure can not come from outside, it has to come from within.
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