JUSTICE IRRESPECTIVE: Eunice Elisha

There is no way this can be said without appearing insensitive or arrogant but I will say it all the same. There is no justification whatsoever for the crime that was the murder of 42years old Eunice Elisha but a lot of commentaries I have seen following this incident are unfortunately fueled by extreme and arguably misdirected sentiments.

Many have shared the crime scene photos and the narrative generally appears to be a presumptive conclusion of police investigations. It could have been no other person(s) but Islamic fundamentalists or fanatics like I read in one Facebook post. The inevitable reaction to this spin is a lot of animosity towards people of a certain faith and some have even gone in hard against the Vice president who is a top member of the denomination the deceased belonged to.

I have read calls for the division of Nigeria because the perpetrators of this heinous crime could not have been any other but Northern (most likely Fulani) Muslims and reported remarks by the husband and child of the deceased must have reinforced this. The story had references to a Muslim cleric cautioning the deceased, a mosque behind the residence of the deceased and a mystery Imam who visited her home and asked for food to feed students at his school. She was said to have told the man that there was none after which she and her son developed an illness that almost claimed their lives. There was a suggestion that the encounter with the unknown cleric led to the illness.

It appears that Nigerians are fond of preempting law enforcement agencies and jump to conclusions based on our prejudices especially when there are no reported eyewitnesses. A Yoruba woman was killed in Abuja, Northern Nigeria so that means her killer(s) must be from the North and a muslim because they are the only ones capable of violence. Will that theory hold water if a Northern man (Nupe, Hausa, Fulani, Tiv, Birom, Kanuri, Tarok etc.) was found murdered on the streets of Enugu, Onitsha, Port-Harcourt, Ibafo or Akure? Will Northerners be right to infer that a Southern Christian committed the crime?

Going out before or at 5am regularly with a megaphone to preach in a residential neighborhood is regarded as overzealous and fanatism in some quarters. Some Nigerians have a habit of looking at the names and/ or countenance of other Nigerians to determine their religion as either Christianity or Islam. It does not always follow that a ‘Timothy’ is necessarily a Christian or a ‘Hassan’ is a Muslim; there are those who do not have any regard for religion and such are entitled to their choices. Religious or not, I do not believe that anyone who is asleep in whatever he or she has for  shelter will dance at 5am when someone with a megaphone visits his/ her area in the name of God.

People do not necessarily like loudspeakers blaring sermons at them at any time of the day so that alone can be motive enough to take a life. I am however of the opinion that many of those who commit crimes in Nigeria do so because they are almost convinced that they will get away with it and this is not because the individual in charge of presiding over Nigeria is from the same tribe and/ or religion. It baffles me that some people suggest that such crimes as this as well as the many attributed to Fulani herdsmen are occurring because President Buhari gave them license to steal, kill and destroy. One can almost assume that no crimes took place under the last administration or during 14 years of the past 17 years (since the return of democratic rule) when two ‘Christian’ presidents were at the helm. I will always refer to the gruesome murder of the four young lads in Aluu community.

Those hell bent on killing will kill provided all favorable conditions remain constant. The late Mrs. Elisha or anyone at all could have been murdered if what she did in the early mornings was to feed and care for destitute people. In certain nations, people get murdered for being environmental activists. For those of us who share in the faith that the late Deaconess had; we should not use this incident to aggravate the schism which already plagues Nigeria but should instead call for comprehensive investigations and that justice be served. Many of the remarks I have read almost sound like war cries; like a call for Christians to bear arms to mow every potential aggressor in our way just like a certain minister asked his congregation to spill the blood of anyone with looks like an Islamic jihadist.

This kind of cry cannot be right in any way we look at it. The instrument to ensure justice is the government and that is the substrate we ought to work on through advocacy. We should be seen as supporting or constructively criticizing the government in power instead of undermining it because we think that is the way our future will be assured. The time to change government based on the system we operate is not now so the earlier we started doing the aforementioned, the better for us.

There are laws we should abide by as citizens of any nation as well as reasonable ways to relate with other citizens. I am not sure there is any law that permits or prohibits early morning megaphone based preaching in residential areas but there are laws which protect freedom of speech and regulate noise pollution. The deed has been done but we should work to prevent a recurrence and this does not mean cowardice. The late evangelist could have been convinced of her calling and her method but the truth is that Nigeria permits such to happen in the first instance. I have no doubts that there are better ways to do this task with risk minimized; going out with another person for example would have been a good start. Even Christ Jesus sent out his disciples two by two.

In the face of ‘persecution’, I do not think any endorsement of animosity or violence is the way to go. There is no justification for maiming or killing anyone even if their methods are controversial or deemed too aggressive. We should continue to scream for justice because a human being and a Nigerian was killed and not necessarily because a Southerner, a Christian or a Redeemed Christian church of God deaconess was murdered. I am not sure she would have wanted images of her body proliferating all over social media as a tool to promote ethnic or religious division. If the early church reacted with animosity and violence at the persecutions and public executions many of them faced, I am sure Christianity would have been extinct even before it started.

May the soul of the departed rest in peace and I pray for grace for the family she left behind.