 |
| Femi Fani-Kayode |
By Femi Fani-Kayode
For any nation to kill 3 million civilians in the name of war or anything else is unacceptable and barbaric. It is a bestial act, a war crime and a crime against humanity.
No matter how just or righteouss your cause may be even the heavens will cry against such a bestial and cruel act. It is only hell that will applaud it. Where was our sense of decency and mercy during that civil war?
How did we end up behaving like monsters and beasts. Nigeria has yet to apologise and make reparations or amends for this barbaric act against the people of the old Eastern Region and particularly the Igbo and until she does NOTHING can go well for our country.
Even in war there are rules of engagement and laws of war and the first is that you do not target civilians and you do not kill children! We murdered over one million children and babies and over 2 million civilians in the space of three years in that conflict!
This was the single largest and greatest act of black on black mass murder, violence and genocide in human history yet no-one has been brought to justice for it.
We cannot just act as if it never happened. It happened and before anything else we must beg God and the Igbo people for forgiveness. It is not fashionable or even politically expedient to say this sort of thing but I am constrained to do so and I mean it from the bottom of my heart.
You can hate me for saying it but I have spoken the bitter truth. One day our nation will remember my words and say that I was right. The glorification and justification of evil never lasts forever: it always has a time limit.
One day our eyes will open and we will appreciate the terrible harm and damage we did to the Igbo during that civil war.
One day the spirit of humility, love, compassion and decency will fill our hearts again and we shall confess before God and humanity that the mass slaughter of the innocent and the defenceless was wrong and utterly inexcusable. The sooner that day comes the better.
If the German people could apologise to their victims and to the world and show contrition and remorse for the atrocities of Hitler and the Nazis after they slaughtered 6 million Jewish, Slav and Gypsy civilians during the Second World War why can’t we do the same?
If the Belgian people could apologise and show contrition and remorse for the atrocities of King Leopold 11 after they butchered 10 million African Congolese civilians during colonial times who are we not to do the same?
May the Lord grant us the wisdom, foresight, insight, fortitude and prescence of mind to appreciate the fact that what we do today, whether for good or for evil, will affect the fortunes of our people and nation in the future.
There can be no meaningful celebration of Nigerian independence or any real development in our country unless and until we spare a thought and offer a prayer for the souls of those innocent civilian men, women, children that we so cruelly cut short and sent to the great beyond for no just cause.
Until we repent of this great evil our fortunes shall not improve and neither shall we enter greatness.
