North Now Theatre Of Violence In Nigeria – Dogara

Former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara says northern Nigeria is now the centre and theatre of violence.

Dogara stated this on Thursday at the Northern Security Meeting in Kaduna.

He said from Boko Haram led by Shekau and Ansaru insurgency, to farmers/herders conflict as well as banditry, kidnappings, ethno-religious conflicts and cattle rustling, the nation is confronted with a crisis that is unparalleled in her history.

According to him, the death spiral appears unstoppable as it is increasingly becoming harder and harder to distinguish “us from our enemies.”

“There was no shortage of early warning signs and as a matter of fact our Philosopers such as the late Sa’adu Zungur of blessed memory had warned that this dystopian era was fast approaching but we ignored all. We are now paying for our collective negligence,” the speech read in part.

“The North is now in the grip of what Soren Kierkegaard called ‘sickness unto death’—the numbing of the soul by despair that leads to moral and physical debasement. It has become a society that is driven at its very core by the death instinct. The instinct to annihilate and destroy rather than nurture and create. Our economic debries have become too conspicuous to be ignored. As it is, we are now trapped in a prison of mirrors, where revealed lies are answered with new lies. With all these, it’s like our slow motion walk to self apocalypse is assured. We have seen this movie before in Rwanda, Somalia, Sudan, Afghanistan, Syria to name but just a few but not in Northern Nigeria.”

He said of the 19 northern states and the FCT, only Kwara state and Abuja are relatively peaceful or have the lowest rate of insecurity but all the other 18 states are inflamed by one form of violence or the other adding that the question that every citizen must answer is “how did we get here and what must we do to defeat the radical evil of violence before it swallows us up?”

The former speaker blamed the current situation in the country on the attitude of citizens by folding their arms and waiting on the government to solve the problem.

“Government has its own fair share of the blame but what are we doing ourselves? On the flip side, I get angry anytime I hear our brothers and sisters say that they are worried about what is happening in the North but they are not prepared to take a stand and be the difference. They have become like Malcolm in Macbeth who said, ‘Let us seek out some desolate shade and there weep our sad bosoms empty.’ For those of us who only worry, thanks but no thanks, because worry is the most useless human endeavor. Worry produces nothing but pains.

“Why are we here? Those mapping insecurity in Northern Nigeria have concluded that we are where we are because of illiteracy, unemployment and poverty (Illiteracy+Unemployment + Poverty = Insecurity).

“Others including the conclusions of the syndicate groups here have posited that we are where we are because of breakdown in family values; we are here because of the worsening insecurity caused by the increasing use of the military.

“This has weakened the police and negatively reoriented the military from their traditional military roles. They say that it is only in Nigeria that security officials are withdrawn from killing fields to monitor elections while vigilantes are deployed to fight terrorists and other armed gangs. The example of the notorious kingpin, Wadume who suborned army officers including a captain who caused police officers to be killed to free the kidnapper is a case in point and is often cited with justification, etc.”