BY REV FR GERALD NWAFOR
Only the tree stands still when the discussion on how to kill it happens around it (Soso osisi nuru na aga egbu ya kwulu ofu ebe).
When the Christians of Nigeria heard and saw in real time what was happening to fellow Christians, they started crying for help from all over the world. I was surprised why some people wanted to change the narrative that Christians were not the only people being killed. If the other groups decided to keep quiet and continue to witness their extinction or genocide, so be it with them. The Christian community decided not to choose that part of keeping quiet.
I am always happy when the defenders come out on the social media or mainstream media to argue that Christians were not the only victims to buttress the case for the Christians. If the traditionalists decide to keep calm about their massacre, I will not force them to cry since they are not trees.
If the Muslim community chooses indifference to the genocide of their group, that is the option they should live with. The Christians decided not to keep quiet about the killings of their fellow Christians, and people are trying to play a blame game. So, when will the Christians make the noise, if not now, when the killing is at its peak? Should they wait till the last Christian standing is killed, then the land will start shouting.
Meanwhile, the solution to the genocide is not as clear as the Nigerian people think. America and Canada have expressed opinions to help the Nigerian Christians, which is one of the effects of the noise, but in case we did not get help from anywhere, we should not be blamed since the proverbial chicken said that his shouting was not for safety but for the world to simply hear her voice and know what is going on in her domain (Okuku siri na ife ona etiri mkpu aburo ka ife jiya raa ya kama na obu ka uwa nuru onu ya).
If shouting and creating awareness will not solve the problem, do you think that keeping quiet will do much to address the clear and present danger? I do not think so either. If the Nigerian government is ready to go and talk to the American government because of our noise and awareness, I think we have achieved a lot. The horror we saw in Owoh, Benue, and Plateau is enough to awaken any sensible government to do more in the name of protection. But what we see is a government that turned those ugly acts of terror into political stunts. In Benue, school children were forced out in the rain to come and wave green leaves and dance for the president.
When the public protested for the school children, ladies were dressed in black to mock the dead. So, one may add to the voice of Donald Trump, “What the h#%&l is going on?”Since the president of America called out the Nigerian government on this issue of Christian genocide, we can see in real time some real discussion on the issue. The effort of the government to pay their propaganda machine to lie and confuse the Nigerian people and the rest of the world did not work this time. Some noble names fell for the bait and wrecked the deposit of integrity they had with the Nigerian people. Some who have no integrity at all exposed themselves more, and we see them for who they are.
Some examples are Reno Omokri, who said he brought in a mayor from Texas to show him that there was no genocide, succeeded in proving to the two guys that there was genocide happening in seismic proportions. Now people know that Reno Omokri is a serial, habitual, and constant liar.
Those are not my words but the words of his friend from the United States, called Arnold. If you type “Mike Arnold and Reno Omokri” into any search engine on the internet, you will see more, so do not take my word for it. Go ahead and search because the snake seen by one person may look like a python (Agwo ofu onye furu na agho ya eke). The other gentleman, called Daniel Buwala, decided to ambush the Christian leaders in Nigeria by engaging them in a closed-door meeting, but because he went there on a bad fate, his first meeting was immediately wrong-footed. Daniel called the genocide “The so-called Christian genocide.” When he came on television to do damage control, he committed more errors, so that the TV host was trying to help him come out of the doldrums he had walked into, like Reno.
I should not go further to tell you the paid propagandist by the government to water down the killings, but thanks to God, they did not succeed, and now the genocide of Christians in Nigeria is trending and what will become of it we do not know yet but the chicken has succeeded in her endeavor to let the world know what is happening to her. What will the world do with that information? We do not know since it is beyond us.Finally, we thank the Bishop Wilfred Anagbe of Makurdi in Benue state, who testified before the US Senate about what happened to the Christians in his diocese. He was a brave man who called a spade a spade.
There was a backlash after the testimony, but he stood his ground. The Nigerian government visited him to walk back the talk, but he is a noble prince of the Church. He answered clearly, “What I have said, I have said, and what I said is truth and nothing but the truth.” Anyone who wanted to embellish the testimony given by Bishop Wilfred in front of the US Senate is either a traitor, a coward, or a chameleon, QED. Some people who started dancing the drum beat of the government very recently were the same people who, a few months ago, told us how the government has been complacent in the face of the Christian genocide in northern Nigeria, and we welcomed their views and opinions because they presented the facts to support their argument. Today, they are singing different tune from the facts they presented earlier.
Now one may ask, “What changed?” I do not know what changed, but I only believe the Nigerian slang that nothing changed, but money changed hands. How can you lie with a bold face that there is no Christian genocide in Nigeria today? There is nothing Musa will not see for gate oh.
America and the rest of the world, please help, but do not bring down the house completely, since Abraham told the angels not to destroy the good people and the bad people in one swoop.
