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Abah John Abah: Aluu Killings: Where is our morals? Where is our religion?



Things are happening around the country, and thanks to social media, they are inevitably in the news. Incidents like these are not new, perhaps worse things happened but the impact of the social media means that you cannot get away with just any evil again. Before you know it the footage will be all over the social networks. The flip side is that we seriously sold to the world dark world.

I was to be a classic case of such inhumanity some some six years ago, in this case with the Nigerian Police. I was on one of those job-hunting bus shuttle from Lagos to Portharcourt in an era our federal high way was heavily infested with police road block. A normal stop-and-search in police road-block nearly got out of hand. During the search of our bus, the word “police” filtered into the ears of one of the policemen from a conversation in the front seat of the bus. The policeman demanded to know the “evil” thing that was being spoken about them from one of the young men in the front seat. The police wouldn’t buy the honest explanation that nothing evil was spoken about them and three policemen brought down the whole arsenals they could muster on the young man, except they spared their bullets. He was being panel-beaten with heavily booted legs, gun-bolts and police beats, blood freely flowing from his mouth and nose, while the rest of us were ordered to remain inside the bus and watch helplessly. Women were wailing and in the tension of the moment I lost my cool. I screamed to them that they could be anything but policemen because they were not wearing their name/number tags. Attention turned to me. They all produced their name barges from their pockets and asked me to disembark from the bus. I told them they have their guns and if they wish they could shut me inside the bus but I wasn’t coming out. I quietly gave my cell phone to a classmate who was sitting beside me and instructed her to call my wife if something predictable happens.

All this while, their OC was watching from a makeshift shield, made from palm rafts, some twenty meters away, seeping his palm-wine. He came over when he saw his men were not having a headway with me. He asked me to come out of the bus but I wouldn’t bulge. I told him I would only obey if his gun-trotting men would go away. He sent them away, had a few words with them and came back. I joined him and after some calm explanation from the driver and other passengers he agreed he would let us go on a condition, that I redeem myself with some settlement for his men. He told us, without flinching, that his men had decided to shut me after dispatching the bus and dispose of my body in the swamp. His men believed that, with my effrontery, I was either a journalist(he didn’t know my wife was a respected journalist) or a lawyer and I would be a risk if I was allowed to go. Maybe under the influence of the palm-wine, he told us that such is routine for them, that we shouldn’t think they would be under sun and rain serving their nation and allow anyone interfere with their job. To fast-forward, some passengers put some money together and “settled” him. Foolish as it seems, I stood up and would have paid a price with my life, but an unseen hand saved me.

In the whole of Aluu town, nobody could stand up. where is our humanity? Where is our famed African morals? Where is our religion? We pride ourselves as a country that prays. We seek for a space in the Guinness Book of Records as the country with the largest single church auditorium in the world, with church and mosques on every street. Where is our religion? What lessons are we taking from the churches and mosques? If in one week two most extreme and barbaric pogroms in either extremities of our land, Mubi and Aluu took place, these questions beg for answers. For if we take any lesson from the churches, why would Aluu react so wrongly a biblical episode, even to the intended conclusion? In the gospel, the scribes and Pharisees decided that a woman caught in adultery be stoned to death, in accordance with the law. In this case, boys ‘alleged’ to have stolen were extra-judicially killed. Points to note: 1.The woman was caught in the act, there was no proof that “scribes” of Aluu caught these boys red-handed; 2. The woman was tried because she was brought in company of law men(the scribes and pharisees), these boys were not tries; 3. She was tried according to the law, what laws of Nigeria prescribes killing for phone/computer theft? And 4. They demanded an endorsement from Jesus, I think that is why every death sentence must be endorsed by the governor before they are taken to the gallows.

It beats me that with all our religion, no one in the Aluu could pick Jesus lesson of conscience judgement. “Who is without sin among you, throw the first stone”. While in the university in the 90s, I witnessed students protesting a police shooting of one student abducted a policeman and brought him to campus. Rioters/arsonists bent on vengeance had drenched the policeman with petrol, ready to set him on fire but spirit of humanity stirred even among these riotous elements, fight ensued from disagreeing party and the police man was let go. How come we watch even women among the “scribes” of Aluu celebrating the stoning of boys young enough to be their sons? Is there no one there who has sinned before?

As often the case, the government law agents arrived too late and the empty words ‘the killers will face the full weight of the law’ beams to microphones and cameras. Does the government realizes how these impacts on our collective image as a people? Is there any image laundry and diplomacy better than seriously tackling this sort of barbarism? As a country, do we have any moral perfidy to tackle any nations over judicial punishment melted to Nigerians abroad no matter how harsh? We have seen our foreign affairs apparatus placing expensive advertorial in global media outfit condemning a movie painting Nigeria in bad light; and tackling a talk show big weight over comments that we are a nation of cannibals. What will such advertorial amounts to if we allow barbarism to run freely in this manner? Some of us are in multinational work environment and our work toss us around the world. You can imagine the difficult questions we face when You-tube and social networks is awash with gory footage like these from Nigeria. Worse still it is for our people living and seeking means of livelihood in a foreign land.

Somebody said the 2012 doomsday is being fulfilled. If that is so, should we allow our land become the theater of this fulfillment? We all have work to do. ‘Where sin abound, grace much more abound’ but with all our prayers we are not accessing the grace. It does means that from our churches, mosques, public service, etc, a sort of moral re-engineering is seriously needed. I hope we can stand up and stop another ALUU.

By Abah John Abah