OPINION: Adesoji OMOSEBI
The Americans can go to war for any of their citizen confirmed dead in another country but not so for Nigeria. Many Nigerian youths have been killed in Libya or South Africa without any protest from Nigerian government. Instead of protest, what you hear is to deny such thing ever happened. This position is not peculiar to the present government. It had been there from ages.
There is no longer any value placed on human life. Within the vicinity of the nation we heard daily death tolls either from bomb blasts, herdsmen attack, ritual killings, robbery attacks, accident victims, kidnapping etc without official statement from the government. People go about their normal duties as if nothing ever occurred provided the victim is not a member of his family. For how long shall we continue with this inhuman attitude?
In any sane society, the death of any citizen is enough to bring about a commission of inquiry to unravel the circumstances of the death of that citizen.
In today’s Nigeria when we heard of the death toll of not more than ten, we felt the figure was not substantial enough to draw our attention. It is only when the death toll is over twenty before it will get media or government attention. Many have died unheard, unannounced and uncelebrated. It will only get media attention when the dead is a public figure.
On our highways, some accident victims who would have been alive died because those who ought to have called for the attention of the government officials would not even wait to stop to confirm or assist the accident victims. No more human feelings.
Could we attribute this to economic recession we are experiencing today or we no longer have human blood in our veins?
Today, people, apart from law enforcement agents now brandish guns as if they have procured a licence to kill, not animals, but fellow Nigerians. When these atrocities is committed, the assailants will not be arrested and when they are arrested, they will be left off hook in no time. Therefore, criminals have a field day to kill and to main because they have godfathers somewhere who are untouchable.
We have destroyed ourselves to the extent that human lives worth nothing to us as a people. This has become part of our lives. Since we cannot create life and cannot bring back life, will it not be ideal to have human dignity to identify with ourselves in any form?
The numbers of people killed within a community today outnumbered those killed by outside attacks. The proliferations of arms and ammunitions are not meant to kill animals but fellow Nigerians. For how long shall we continue with these inhuman acts?
If we cannot create life, at least, we can help safe lives of fellow Nigerians and not to compete to send one another to the great beyond. It is time to stop our delight in killing one another.
Help to save a life of a fellow Nigerian today!
www.sojworld.com © July 2, 2017.
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