The metropolitan Catholic
Archbishop of Abuja, John Cardinal Onaiyekan, has expressed worries over the
recent killing of over 70 persons in Benue State.
The former president of the
Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria (CBCN), said it wasn’t as if two
communities were at war, but that people were sleeping and in the process, were
slaughtered in cold blood.
Onaiyekan told Sun that, “My
brother, I will not be sincere and I will not be doing my duty if I don’t
express the fact that I am very worried. I am very worried at what is
happening.”
“Like I said, who can see what
happened, for example, in Benue state and not be worried; the way children,
pregnant women, old men and men were slaughtered? And slaughtered in cold
blood! It is not as if there was a fight between two communities and some got
killed here and there.
“For whatever reason, this cannot
be allowed to go on. And, especially, because of what we saw in Benue and it
went viral all over the world; it is a shame for me that my friends all over
the world are seeing those gory pictures and saying ah, ah, this is Cardinal
Onaiyekan’s country, look at how they are killing themselves. Are they still at
this stage of savagery? Well, if I am ashamed, I hope the leaders are ashamed.
“Before prayer, I would say what
must we do? My first position is that we must admit that this is not an
inevitable situation. First of all, we must admit that this is not even an
acceptable situation. We cannot continue like this. And if we don’t want to
continue like this, we must then know how to change behaviour, how to change
our attitude.
“And I think all the question of
they killed us 10 years ago, we kill them this year; they killed our cows, then
we kill them; it is all sad! And it is sadder still when people up there, who
ought to be helping to improve matters, tend to talk as if they are condoning
what has happened.
“We heard a group saying that all
these happened because of the law that the Government of Benue State passed.
And honestly, by now, whoever said that, justifying what has happened, should
be held responsible for it.
“By now, I expect that government
ought to have arrested those people and accused them of aiding and abetting the
massacre of Nigerians. For as long as there is this kind of unjustifiable
silence, there is fear that more violence will still come.
“I thought it ought to be clear
to everybody that we cannot continue with a situation where you have cows that
always roam about freely. It is not possible. And the people who are herding
their cattle ought to know that.
“One major issue about all these
things, and I keep asking the same question, ‘Who are the owners of the cows?’
My mind is, if we find who owns the cows, then we know those who are hiring
terrorists to do this kind of thing in the name of protecting their property.
Certainly, it is not the haggard young men who are carrying their sticks around.
And everybody seems to have agreed now that the people who come to perpetuate
this kind of thing, sometimes don’t want to be called Fulani or herdsmen.
“Whatever you call them, they are
not the ones we know around. So, there is a well-organised criminal group that
moves in, well-armed, commit atrocities and get away.
“That kind of thing is happening
in a country that is democratic, with policemen as many as we have, and army as
powerful as we claim to be, that such a thing can continue happening without
the government being able to determine who is behind them, who is arming and
funding them, means that the government is not working, it is not serious.
“And I don’t think they should
expect, at least, most of us in Nigeria to congratulate them for doing nothing.
We are complaining about Benue, but we cannot forget that Benue is just the
last we have seen, so far. Before Benue, we had a lot of similar problems,
first, in Plateau. And after Plateau, we had Southern Kaduna. Did I hear that
there was similar problem again in Kaduna? The same pattern, people come into a
village and killed people. The same pattern!
“What else can my prayer be? My
prayer is that God should deliver us from ourselves because we can’t even blame
God for this. God, please, deliver us from ourselves, let us be able to look at
one another as human beings first and foremost; and, secondly, as members of
the same national family, and then we ask God to also give us the grace of
leaders who can really face these matters without pretending and telling lies.”
Click to signup for FREE news updates, latest information and hottest gists everydayAdvertise on NigerianEye.com to reach thousands of our daily users
No comments
Post a Comment
Kindly drop a comment below.
(Comments are moderated. Clean comments will be approved immediately)
Advert Enquires - Reach out to us at NigerianEye@gmail.com