CIVIL WAR, BOKO HARAM AND THE LAW OF KARMA

The day was 6^th July 1967. In the early hours of the day, as usual, a civil servant on the streets of Onitsha and Aba would have his flat file strapped under his arms to board the next train to his office.

A school master would be on his White Horse bicycle, cycling his way to the school to wait on late-coming students to whip with the cane, inculcate the culture of true citizenship, discipline and teach the future leaders.

A collage kid in the Western Nigeria would be up to school with his pen and brain to have a fair share of the unparalleled and exclusive scholarship which the Western leader, Obafemi Awolowo hugely lavished.

In the wake of a new Nigeria, on that fateful day, while all was well and wobbling with the fresh evergreen of the Nigerian grass and water, a 33 year old young man, Lt. Col. Yakubu Gowon as was then known and called, lifted up his military staff, declared to be mobilized, a legion of army for warfare against a peaceful land peopled by unarmed and unsuspecting civilians in the Eastern Nigeria.

Lt. Col. Gowon, a man born from the blood lines of the Plateau raped the peace of Nigeria at a time when young Nigeria was sucking the breast of new democracy; at a time when the states were weak, people’s minds were young about state governance, government and politics. Like a little baby born and thrown into the red oil, so was Nigeria born and thrown into the heat of Nigerian Civil War by the northerners who claimed to be leaders and lovers of Nigeria.

Lives were lost up to millions. Children, women, men, young and old were squashed to the grave beyond by the outrageous masculinity of a man who is currently old and stricken in age.

To digress a little, the first and the last time I met with Yakubu Gowon was 1^st December 2012, during the Worlds Aids Day celebration organized by Coca Cola Company which I had a free ticket to attend and watch Nigeria Superstars play a football match at Lagos. When I saw him, I could not believe. He was such an old. Never looked like the Lt. Col. Gowon that could lift a barrel. Never looked like the man I read in my government text book who marshalled a host of military forces during the Nigeria civil war.

Today, Boko Haram is hitting the butts of Nigerians, sorry, Northern Nigerians. It is playing out every day. The stories go into the local and international air waves. Tremor, terror and tribulation trickle down every now and then.

Anyone who thinks of Boko Haram thinks of a group of masked Negroes with amours and weaponry tightly clamed on the thighs, arms and shoulders. Or better still, everyone thinks of a well dressed fellow wired with an IED (Impoverished Explosive Device) or what we know as a bomb, ready to detonate in the midst of a huge crowd.

But for some time now, no one has thought about the other side of the mayhem. What I call ‘the other side’ is what I will explain using a universally accepted, naturally applicable and involuntary operational law which is called The Law of Karma.

The Law Of Karma

In summary the Law of Karma has 12 points but I will pick the first point which is more important and of course the summery of the whole.

“As you sow, so shall you reap”.

This is also known as the Law of Cause and Effects. The law has it that whatever you put in the universe is what comes back to you, whether good or evil. If you bend down to sown, you stand up to reap.

I started by giving an illustration of the Nigerian Civil War. The dreadful incident took place under the administration of a northerner. The Nigerian army, hugely manned by the northerners were massively employing strategies to maliciously deal with the peace of the Easterners who were mainly Igbos. They killed and maimed innocent citizens who knew nothing about the state politics. There was unbridled looting and theft everywhere.

Colonel Shuwa (a northerner) took the lead of the war by lunching a first attack on the North side of Biafra with the 1^st Infantry Division.

Murtala Mohammed (also a northerner) was working hand-with-hand with Gen. Gowon. During the war, Mohammed formed the 2^nd Infantry Division that swept off the Biafran forces from the mid west. This Infantry was led mostly by northern solders. The 3^rd Infantry was led by Benjamin Adekunle, who is the only Yoruba in the ally.

The Northerners calculated and executed the Nigerian Civil war, killing and maiming innocent Easterners. They were the cause and existence of Civil war. They participated in it much more than the Yorubas. Lagos was definitely afar from the view. The Yorubas were into education, feeding well, doing their trade without many disturbances. The northern Nigeria was very peaceful. No mines, no bombs, no shelling. The East was a hell of war.

Early in 1967, a peace negotiating meeting of the Supreme Military Council of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and the Eastern Region Military Governor, Lt. Col. Ojukwu was called under the auspices of Gen. Ankrah of Ghana in Aburi, Ghana.

All efforts to intervene by eminent Nigerians and well - wishers to Nigeria like Gen. Ankrah,  late Emperor Hallie Selassie of Ethiopia and the late Dr Martin Luther King proved abortive.

In May 1967, an act came by a decree from the Federal Government dividing the country into 12 states without consultation with the regional heads. Some believed it was a tactic to dissuade the rumoured secession of the Eastern Nigeria.

Soon, the war started.

The northerners’-led Federal government was hell bent on engaging a series of brutish and violent death row in Eastern Nigeria. They were never wanting for peace.

Down in the East, there was famine, hunger, starvation. Women and children were dying at random. The Nigerian Army was deliberately mapping out strategies to unleash mayhem on the East to if possible, crush the people, the land and the cities therein.

Before the war, in Sept. 1966, the Northerners were already revealing their violent and riotous school of thought. Lt. Col. Gowon, in a broadcast that year said: “I receive complaints daily that up till now Easterners living in  the North are being killed and molested and their property looted.  It appears that it is going beyond reason and is now at a point of recklessness and irresponsibility.

Far in the North, Easterners were passing through hell while the Northerners down in the East were living in heaven. No molestation. No harassment. No abuse of human right.

Today, the reverse is the case.

The fact remains that if Boko Haram exists, South-South, South-East and South-West Nigerians do not know. The economy is booming. Trade, commerce, market and industry is effectively booming and the cash exchange matrix is beaming green everyday in the eastern Nigeria.

Our kids are in collage, going to school without been kidnapped. No curfews, red alarms. No bloodbath, no famines, no threats or terrors.

Recall that about 50 years ago when Northerners were unleashing terror in the East and Southern Nigeria, it was clearly channelled in the religious trajectory. Anyone who was a Christian was looked at as an opponent to the Muslims. That was the spirit, culture, orientation and character which the Northerners have made everyone from 19^th century till date to have.

Well, I detest such a belief. I have a lot of Muslim friends. In fact, my Editor is a Muslim. He is such nice and gentle that I was shocked when he told us he is a Muslim.

Boko Haram is not about Muslim, it is about the Northerners whose life style, character and spirit is imbued with violence.

The Law of Karma is playing out in Northern Nigeria. For about a decade, Boko Haram has been on the news killing men and women in cold blood. I haven’t ever witnessed it; only in news, Facebook, etc.

The tribulation and terror is gradually chipping down in few pieces on the northern children. It is a consequence of the primordial and pure savagery which their fathers unleashed on the innocent Eastern Nigerians; no thanks to Boko Haram.

Why we unanimously mourn with the northern brothers and sister, this is time for them to call upon Allah and ask for forgiveness. Not only that, it is time for them to tear-off the flesh of violence, learn to admit that people from other tribes, religions, states in Nigeria are their brothers and sisters.

This is time for northerners to admit that Nigeria is one indivisible country which is bounded by Law dating far back 1960; that any individual whether from North, South, East or West is empowered by the Nigerian constitution to be the President of this country.

It is a time of reconsolidation. It is time when northern children, should be taught that their fathers have erred by planting seed of discord and bitterness between them and other people in Nigeria.

This should be a time for northern mothers to teach their children that leadership of Nigeria is not cultured into any tribe. It is a time for them to teach their children to know the language of peace, understanding, and unity to support whoever that is in power and make Nigeria a place where everyone can leave together.

Emmanuel Shebbs