My fellow compatriots,
It is with heavy and disconsolate heart that I write this letter to
you. I chose this channel to reach you, because of the perilous times in
which we live and for the urgency of the message. I have followed very
closely your activities since you came into the limelight in 2008, after
the death of your leader, Yusuf Mohammed, who was allegedly felled by
bullets from security agents.
Since the unfortunate incident hell has been let loose. There is no single day that passes, since 2008, that your group is not linked with one attack or another. You began by attacking churches and killing Christians in the North. The suicide bombing at a Catholic Church in Suleija, outskirts of Abuja, in which over 43 innocent worshippers were sent to their early graves, and linked to your group, made the whole world believe you were out to cause religious war. You were at some point even alleged to have masterminded the killing of some members of the National Youth Service Corps serving in Niger and Bauchi states.
As if those were not enough you were also alleged to be the masterminds of the bombing of the United Nations (UN) building and the Force Headquarters – all in Abuja. These particular incidents drew the ire of the international community and attracted greater attention to your activities.
Honestly, you have wreaked inestimable havoc and caused many hearts to break since you unleashed your reign of terror. This was exactly what you did when you took your war to the bus-stations. The latest one being the attacks by your group on three fully-loaded luxury buses in Kano last year, which left uncountable number dead or severely wounded.
It got to a point that my people (Igbo) believed you were out to reenact the devious and repulsive pogrom of 1966 – during which thousands of Igbo were brutally killed in different parts of the North. They believed this much, because of the frequency and severity of the attacks on them and their businesses. In many instances, whole-families of Igbo were wiped out. Those who were lucky survived without their bread-winners. A visit to the homes of some of these victims in Anambra, Abia, Enugu and Imo states in particular, will outrage you: some members of these families that lost their breadwinners have been left in abject poverty and penury ever since. Their condition is quite heart-rending. These were people who once lived in affluence and happiness. We have quietly worked very hard to assist them as much as we can, but frankly speaking it is not easy at all. The truth is that it will take a very long time for the wounds inflicted on their psyche to heal. This is what makes the whole episode agonising. In any case, the fastest way to make them recover from the shock of what had happened is to give them a sense of belonging and restore what they had lost in terms of properties, jobs and business. To tell you the truth: the human tragedy is of epic proportion.
There is no part of this country that has not felt the impact of your presence. It has got to a level that the fear of your sect is the beginning of wisdom. Your operations have left everybody in deep fear. Even military bases and police stations have not been spared. Borno, Yobe, Adamawa, Bauchi, Kano, Niger and Plateau States have been worst hit. These states can boast of your recurring belligerency. This is signposted everywhere you go around them.
Only last week, you struck at Federal Government College, Buni Yadi, Yobe State turning the place momentarily into a graveyard. Scores of harmless and innocent children toiling to improve themselves cognitively were murdered in cold-blood. Your group carried out a similar dastardly operation at a boys’ secondary school in the same Yobe sometime last year, while they were asleep.
I must confess that I am yet to juxtapose the justification for your arms-struggle with the massacre of innocent school children. Probably, the operation was not approved by the leadership of your sect. Otherwise, I do not see any sense in the attack. There are many other ways to attract attention to your group; definitely not by killing innocent persons, particularly teenagers. Even in war conventions it is clearly stated that children and women should not be harmed, no matter the height of the aggression.
Therefore, I find what happened at Buni Yadi repulsive, offensive and condemnatory. If I were your sect I would offer unreserved apology to the families that lost loved ones and go the extra mile to assuage the pain of the grievous loss.
Curiously, last Sunday, just as the dust of your attack at Buni Yadi was settling down, your men struck again at Mafa in Borno, wasting 29 innocent lives and leaving many severely wounded.
I have written several articles on the need for the government to dialogue with you as a way of resolving whatever grievances you harbour. I have even offered to mediate in the talks to show how deeply touched I’m over the impasse. I believe that no nation can survive in an atmosphere of hate, clannishness and war. We need to work with one accord to further the unity and development of this country. This is why I have always advocated mutual relationship among all the tribes that make up this country. As a bridge-builder, I have crisscrossed the nation with my message of peace, unity, hope and love. Despite differences in tongue, religion and status we remain one, indivisible people. The vision of our forbears was to build a nation in which all its peoples would live in peace, harmony and love. They never envisioned the kind of polarization our nation has witnessed in recent times, culminating in the wanton destruction of lives and property through all kinds of agitation and insurgency.
If an independent investigation panel is set up to assess the number of people that have been killed in different insurgencies across the country, the figures will be mindboggling. I believe that Nigeria has lost more people to these insurgencies than to any war. By the way, what else is war if not what is happening all over the country where grenades, bombs, and other dangerous weapons have been used on hapless and defenceless persons? It is painful that a once-beautiful and peaceful country has been turned into a killing field. All kinds of evil have taken over the soul of this nation.
I have pondered in deep bafflement how all these strange things started, yet no particular answer could be fathomed. Your sect may have its reasons for taking up arms against the Federal Government of Nigeria. As justifiable as these reasons may be they can only be resolved through the roundtable, not endless arms-struggle. Our people, Igbo, felt aggrieved at some point and took up arms to fight for survival. Our reason was justified. Nevertheless, it did not last forever. It was resolved through the roundtable, all the same.
For the sake of innocent Nigerians killed every day and the future of our generation and generations unborn, I beg you, with bended knees, to stop the killing of innocent citizens and embrace dialogue. You have done enough harm to warrant recognition. There is nobody in Nigeria or outside Nigeria that does not dread your sect. The doggedness and resilience of your men are a lesson in the art of war. That you have opted to lay down your lives for the cause you believe makes an indelible imprint. Forget about the vilification of your sect, there is something in you our security agents can take home to improve their war-readiness: raw courage. Imagine what would have happened if your energies had been rechanneled into positive enterprises! Why is the military of some nations in the world dreaded? It is just for their resoluteness and ruggedness. And these you have demonstrated in quantum since the military operations began mid last year.
One lesson you have taught humanity by your struggle is the need to do justice and equity. I am an incurable advocate for social equality and justice. I frown at anything that breeds these cankers. Unfortunately, in Nigeria’s social milieus there has been a potpourri of these ills garnished with ethnocentricity. There have been cries of marginalization by different ethnic blocks in the country and nobody seems to pay any attention to them until they are forced to take up arms. This was what exactly happened in the case of your sect. Your leader was brutally and unjustifiably killed by security forces. And you must avenge his death! But for how long will you kill? For six years you have waged war, killing and maiming. Will you do it endlessly? Is it not high time you stopped and accepted dialogue? I believe the government is sincere with its offer of amnesty. Why not accept it and stop the wanton killing and destruction? Remember that the people you kill are Nigerians – we are all one. If the DNA of those innocent students killed at Buni Yadi is taken it may reveal some sanguineous links between them and some members of your sect. This is the irony of the whole thing.
I do not want to believe that you are insensitive to the grief and melancholy that are hanging over the sleeping town of Buni Yadi and the homes of the innocents killed. After all, you are human beings with flesh and blood running in your veins. There is no way you can tell me that you do not feel the pain of some of your ferocious actions. For sure you do, because you are Nigerians and those you kill are Nigerians.
Consider the number of widows, orphans, homeless and helpless you have created by your attacks. The number is staggering. Think about this: those killed in your surprise attacks are harmless and unarmed. What then is their offence? The rich and powerful you came out, ab initio, to fight are ensconced in the confines of their homes, barricade by gun-wielding guards and armoured personnel carriers, yet and you are here killing innocent citizens. Why? Remember two wrongs do not make a right.
I have suffered persecution and understand vividly what it means to be righteously aggrieved. During the reign of Olusegun Obasanjo they almost succeeded in grounding all my businesses for the simple reason that I spoke out against his tenure elongation plot. Thank God, today, we are working very hard to rebuild.
Deep inside me, what we have at present is a no-win situation. If you continued the way you are going it will get to a point that nobody will be left alive in the north. The economy of the north is in tatters at the moment. Existing investors have fled, with no new ones ready to risk the situation. The northern economy which used to be the mainstay of our economy is collapsing. At least, I am aware that many of the businessmen and women who used to bring their commodities to the south to sell have abandoned their business for fear of your sect. This has led to skyrocketing prices of basic foodstuffs.
If you sheathe your swords and embrace dialogue now it is not too late. Nigerians have suffered too much pain in your hands. You must, therefore, temper justice with mercy. Let me ask you this question: If you succeeded in wiping out all of us who will you administer then? For whose sake are you waging the war, if not for the uplift of the downtrodden? Why kill the same poor and downtrodden in commando and guerrilla attacks?
To be frank with you: I am not happy that you lose men as well. Are they not Nigerians? They are full-blooded Nigerians who have offered their lives as an ablution for the cause they fight. We can stop the killings on both sides by embracing dialogue. After all, the two major religions we have in Nigeria promote peace, unity and brotherhood. Why then do you continue to kill?
Didn’t the Niger Delta insurgents, once, hold the region hostage? Yes, they did. They killed, maimed, abducted oil workers and other foreigners with reckless abandon. What has happened today? They have laid down their arms and accepted amnesty offered them by the late President Musa Yar’Adua. Are they not profiting from the amnesty? The government, we learnt, spent over N34 billion in 2012 alone to rehabilitate the former Niger Delta insurgents (militants) who have turned in their arms and accepted amnesty. Many of them have already been trained in different fields abroad. Today, they offer meaningful services to our nation and humanity in general. I believe you can do same.
Let nobody deceive you: There is greater premium in peace than in war. Countries that fought or are fighting internecine wars have awry stories to tell. Angola and Rwanda have not recovered from their ethnic imbroglio in which over 800,000 lives were lost. What caused the war? Ethnocentricity! What of Yemen, Afghanistan and Pakistan? They have been devastated by wars. They have been emasculated by internal squabbles and external terrorist infiltrations. Indeed they are seen by the global community as pariah states. It is the same situation we have in Somalia, Sudan, and parts of Mali and Kenya. Do you want Nigeria to become one of these countries? I know that may not be your ultimate goal.
I urge you to call a meeting of your high command without further delay to consider the option of a truce. Nobody will ever look down on your sect many years after you have accepted dialogue. You have made a huge statement by the tenacity and sophistication of your struggle. It is now time to show the other side of you: the soft and human side.
The blood you have shed (both of your men and innocent Nigerians) is a great price to pay to make Nigeria stronger. We have just celebrated 100 years of existence as a united nation. Will it be too much to ask that you accept dialogue as an anniversary gift to Nigerians on this auspicious occasion?
My heart will know no peace until you have towed the path of peace, harmony and progress. It is only then shall I raise my hand in prayer to God for truly reuniting us as one people.
I pray God to grant you the courage to do this for the sake of innocent Nigerians killed in the struggle and for the continued existence of Nigeria as one nation.
I remain,
Your fellow Nigerian,
Orji Kalu
Since the unfortunate incident hell has been let loose. There is no single day that passes, since 2008, that your group is not linked with one attack or another. You began by attacking churches and killing Christians in the North. The suicide bombing at a Catholic Church in Suleija, outskirts of Abuja, in which over 43 innocent worshippers were sent to their early graves, and linked to your group, made the whole world believe you were out to cause religious war. You were at some point even alleged to have masterminded the killing of some members of the National Youth Service Corps serving in Niger and Bauchi states.
As if those were not enough you were also alleged to be the masterminds of the bombing of the United Nations (UN) building and the Force Headquarters – all in Abuja. These particular incidents drew the ire of the international community and attracted greater attention to your activities.
Honestly, you have wreaked inestimable havoc and caused many hearts to break since you unleashed your reign of terror. This was exactly what you did when you took your war to the bus-stations. The latest one being the attacks by your group on three fully-loaded luxury buses in Kano last year, which left uncountable number dead or severely wounded.
It got to a point that my people (Igbo) believed you were out to reenact the devious and repulsive pogrom of 1966 – during which thousands of Igbo were brutally killed in different parts of the North. They believed this much, because of the frequency and severity of the attacks on them and their businesses. In many instances, whole-families of Igbo were wiped out. Those who were lucky survived without their bread-winners. A visit to the homes of some of these victims in Anambra, Abia, Enugu and Imo states in particular, will outrage you: some members of these families that lost their breadwinners have been left in abject poverty and penury ever since. Their condition is quite heart-rending. These were people who once lived in affluence and happiness. We have quietly worked very hard to assist them as much as we can, but frankly speaking it is not easy at all. The truth is that it will take a very long time for the wounds inflicted on their psyche to heal. This is what makes the whole episode agonising. In any case, the fastest way to make them recover from the shock of what had happened is to give them a sense of belonging and restore what they had lost in terms of properties, jobs and business. To tell you the truth: the human tragedy is of epic proportion.
There is no part of this country that has not felt the impact of your presence. It has got to a level that the fear of your sect is the beginning of wisdom. Your operations have left everybody in deep fear. Even military bases and police stations have not been spared. Borno, Yobe, Adamawa, Bauchi, Kano, Niger and Plateau States have been worst hit. These states can boast of your recurring belligerency. This is signposted everywhere you go around them.
Only last week, you struck at Federal Government College, Buni Yadi, Yobe State turning the place momentarily into a graveyard. Scores of harmless and innocent children toiling to improve themselves cognitively were murdered in cold-blood. Your group carried out a similar dastardly operation at a boys’ secondary school in the same Yobe sometime last year, while they were asleep.
I must confess that I am yet to juxtapose the justification for your arms-struggle with the massacre of innocent school children. Probably, the operation was not approved by the leadership of your sect. Otherwise, I do not see any sense in the attack. There are many other ways to attract attention to your group; definitely not by killing innocent persons, particularly teenagers. Even in war conventions it is clearly stated that children and women should not be harmed, no matter the height of the aggression.
Therefore, I find what happened at Buni Yadi repulsive, offensive and condemnatory. If I were your sect I would offer unreserved apology to the families that lost loved ones and go the extra mile to assuage the pain of the grievous loss.
Curiously, last Sunday, just as the dust of your attack at Buni Yadi was settling down, your men struck again at Mafa in Borno, wasting 29 innocent lives and leaving many severely wounded.
I have written several articles on the need for the government to dialogue with you as a way of resolving whatever grievances you harbour. I have even offered to mediate in the talks to show how deeply touched I’m over the impasse. I believe that no nation can survive in an atmosphere of hate, clannishness and war. We need to work with one accord to further the unity and development of this country. This is why I have always advocated mutual relationship among all the tribes that make up this country. As a bridge-builder, I have crisscrossed the nation with my message of peace, unity, hope and love. Despite differences in tongue, religion and status we remain one, indivisible people. The vision of our forbears was to build a nation in which all its peoples would live in peace, harmony and love. They never envisioned the kind of polarization our nation has witnessed in recent times, culminating in the wanton destruction of lives and property through all kinds of agitation and insurgency.
If an independent investigation panel is set up to assess the number of people that have been killed in different insurgencies across the country, the figures will be mindboggling. I believe that Nigeria has lost more people to these insurgencies than to any war. By the way, what else is war if not what is happening all over the country where grenades, bombs, and other dangerous weapons have been used on hapless and defenceless persons? It is painful that a once-beautiful and peaceful country has been turned into a killing field. All kinds of evil have taken over the soul of this nation.
I have pondered in deep bafflement how all these strange things started, yet no particular answer could be fathomed. Your sect may have its reasons for taking up arms against the Federal Government of Nigeria. As justifiable as these reasons may be they can only be resolved through the roundtable, not endless arms-struggle. Our people, Igbo, felt aggrieved at some point and took up arms to fight for survival. Our reason was justified. Nevertheless, it did not last forever. It was resolved through the roundtable, all the same.
For the sake of innocent Nigerians killed every day and the future of our generation and generations unborn, I beg you, with bended knees, to stop the killing of innocent citizens and embrace dialogue. You have done enough harm to warrant recognition. There is nobody in Nigeria or outside Nigeria that does not dread your sect. The doggedness and resilience of your men are a lesson in the art of war. That you have opted to lay down your lives for the cause you believe makes an indelible imprint. Forget about the vilification of your sect, there is something in you our security agents can take home to improve their war-readiness: raw courage. Imagine what would have happened if your energies had been rechanneled into positive enterprises! Why is the military of some nations in the world dreaded? It is just for their resoluteness and ruggedness. And these you have demonstrated in quantum since the military operations began mid last year.
One lesson you have taught humanity by your struggle is the need to do justice and equity. I am an incurable advocate for social equality and justice. I frown at anything that breeds these cankers. Unfortunately, in Nigeria’s social milieus there has been a potpourri of these ills garnished with ethnocentricity. There have been cries of marginalization by different ethnic blocks in the country and nobody seems to pay any attention to them until they are forced to take up arms. This was what exactly happened in the case of your sect. Your leader was brutally and unjustifiably killed by security forces. And you must avenge his death! But for how long will you kill? For six years you have waged war, killing and maiming. Will you do it endlessly? Is it not high time you stopped and accepted dialogue? I believe the government is sincere with its offer of amnesty. Why not accept it and stop the wanton killing and destruction? Remember that the people you kill are Nigerians – we are all one. If the DNA of those innocent students killed at Buni Yadi is taken it may reveal some sanguineous links between them and some members of your sect. This is the irony of the whole thing.
I do not want to believe that you are insensitive to the grief and melancholy that are hanging over the sleeping town of Buni Yadi and the homes of the innocents killed. After all, you are human beings with flesh and blood running in your veins. There is no way you can tell me that you do not feel the pain of some of your ferocious actions. For sure you do, because you are Nigerians and those you kill are Nigerians.
Consider the number of widows, orphans, homeless and helpless you have created by your attacks. The number is staggering. Think about this: those killed in your surprise attacks are harmless and unarmed. What then is their offence? The rich and powerful you came out, ab initio, to fight are ensconced in the confines of their homes, barricade by gun-wielding guards and armoured personnel carriers, yet and you are here killing innocent citizens. Why? Remember two wrongs do not make a right.
I have suffered persecution and understand vividly what it means to be righteously aggrieved. During the reign of Olusegun Obasanjo they almost succeeded in grounding all my businesses for the simple reason that I spoke out against his tenure elongation plot. Thank God, today, we are working very hard to rebuild.
Deep inside me, what we have at present is a no-win situation. If you continued the way you are going it will get to a point that nobody will be left alive in the north. The economy of the north is in tatters at the moment. Existing investors have fled, with no new ones ready to risk the situation. The northern economy which used to be the mainstay of our economy is collapsing. At least, I am aware that many of the businessmen and women who used to bring their commodities to the south to sell have abandoned their business for fear of your sect. This has led to skyrocketing prices of basic foodstuffs.
If you sheathe your swords and embrace dialogue now it is not too late. Nigerians have suffered too much pain in your hands. You must, therefore, temper justice with mercy. Let me ask you this question: If you succeeded in wiping out all of us who will you administer then? For whose sake are you waging the war, if not for the uplift of the downtrodden? Why kill the same poor and downtrodden in commando and guerrilla attacks?
To be frank with you: I am not happy that you lose men as well. Are they not Nigerians? They are full-blooded Nigerians who have offered their lives as an ablution for the cause they fight. We can stop the killings on both sides by embracing dialogue. After all, the two major religions we have in Nigeria promote peace, unity and brotherhood. Why then do you continue to kill?
Didn’t the Niger Delta insurgents, once, hold the region hostage? Yes, they did. They killed, maimed, abducted oil workers and other foreigners with reckless abandon. What has happened today? They have laid down their arms and accepted amnesty offered them by the late President Musa Yar’Adua. Are they not profiting from the amnesty? The government, we learnt, spent over N34 billion in 2012 alone to rehabilitate the former Niger Delta insurgents (militants) who have turned in their arms and accepted amnesty. Many of them have already been trained in different fields abroad. Today, they offer meaningful services to our nation and humanity in general. I believe you can do same.
Let nobody deceive you: There is greater premium in peace than in war. Countries that fought or are fighting internecine wars have awry stories to tell. Angola and Rwanda have not recovered from their ethnic imbroglio in which over 800,000 lives were lost. What caused the war? Ethnocentricity! What of Yemen, Afghanistan and Pakistan? They have been devastated by wars. They have been emasculated by internal squabbles and external terrorist infiltrations. Indeed they are seen by the global community as pariah states. It is the same situation we have in Somalia, Sudan, and parts of Mali and Kenya. Do you want Nigeria to become one of these countries? I know that may not be your ultimate goal.
I urge you to call a meeting of your high command without further delay to consider the option of a truce. Nobody will ever look down on your sect many years after you have accepted dialogue. You have made a huge statement by the tenacity and sophistication of your struggle. It is now time to show the other side of you: the soft and human side.
The blood you have shed (both of your men and innocent Nigerians) is a great price to pay to make Nigeria stronger. We have just celebrated 100 years of existence as a united nation. Will it be too much to ask that you accept dialogue as an anniversary gift to Nigerians on this auspicious occasion?
My heart will know no peace until you have towed the path of peace, harmony and progress. It is only then shall I raise my hand in prayer to God for truly reuniting us as one people.
I pray God to grant you the courage to do this for the sake of innocent Nigerians killed in the struggle and for the continued existence of Nigeria as one nation.
I remain,
Your fellow Nigerian,
Orji Kalu
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