I saw the headline about one guy killing another over the regular Messi-Ronaldo debate and immediately hoped that the incident didn't happen in Nigeria.
I saw the report on Eurosport.com and decided to click on it. I relaxed for a moment when I read that India was the location for this dreadful act but I was soon confronted with the names of two Nigerians.
Disappointment is what I feel rather than shock. Why do we readily succumb to the evil lurking in the backyards of our minds? Why will two young men go gangster over two individuals whose footballing prowers will soon fade away in 5years or less depending on several factors?
I am not one to pick on the tribe of the two men concerned because it is completely irrelevant; I won't deny them now because their names do not sound like mine. The fellow who stabbed his fellow man to death on an Italian street with a piece of broken bottle was from a different tribe. Many husbands or wives from varying tribes have viciously attacked their spouses sometimes killing them.
Fulani herdsmen roaming with their cattle have left destruction in their wake on several occasions and "unknown gunmen" have their legend intact after ransacking entire communities all over the country. Politicians have engaged the services of touts to wreck havoc after which they get armed police escorts when they get the political power they paid for. Why do we keep hearing of kidnappings and outright murders all over the land?
It is sad however that some people appear to like or love images of dead human beings adorning their various social media timelines. They like to post or share images of mutilated dead bodies of the young and the old and act like they are offering a social service. Some of these individuals may be naïve while a few others are downright dangerous and mischievous.
We have developed a habit of losing sight of the most important detail in any matter and focusing on frivolities. Where people are harming other human beings, some Nigerians chose to focus on tribe or religion and lose sight of justice and law enforcement. We lose sight of why many of our kind have lost the ability to be civil, tolerant and peace loving.
Our educational system is deeply flawed and our young people are not sufficiently engaged positively. The injustice of the past has crippled some of the older generation and impaired their ability to forgive and trust. Ours is a nation which has failed the young and the old, the Ijaw and Kanuri, the North and the South, the Religious and otherwise as well as the poor and the poor.
The only group which has not been failed is that which continues to plunder Nigeria. The individuals there have no gender, religious, age or ethnic restrictions and they are the ones who continue to sow seeds of discord and promote schism amongst Nigerians. We do not know our history, we are in many ways oblivious of where we are coming from and have come to learn how to see each other through supremacist lenses.
The British who colonized us referred to us as "Muslim North, pagan Plateau, Christian Southeast and predominantly Christian Southwest" prior to independence. They are a nation with a Christian background yet they related with the Muslim North without enforcing a religion change. They bound these units together because they partly wanted to protect their own interests but also because they must have seen that these component units of Nigeria could potentially form a great nation.
We have unfortunately indulged more in emphasising our differences instead of adopting unity. This is perhaps why a debate on two iconic football stars could rapidly degenerate into a bottle fight because neither party wanted to yield.
We should be weary about what we push on social media because of our adopted inclinations. Many are inciting violence and preaching exactly what the Ku Klux Klan or the Islamic state would preach. These ones only hide behind titles of religious, political or community leadership. They will use any unverifiable information to push a narrative and exaggerate issues for selfish goals.
How images from a few years ago and from South Sudan became scenes of the violence which rocked Agatu is beyond me. No one is denying that towns were attacked and a government interested in covering issues up will outrightly control the media and pay the full price of their consciences.
There are fires raging in the hearts of many Nigerians; there are arsonists roaming and hell bent on ensuring that Nigeria maintains status quo. We can and should help to put out these fires and neutralise these arsonists. When we do these, Nigerians will stop killing each other over footballers, religious leaders or politicians.
