YES, NIGERIA CAN AFFORD ANOTHER WAR by Moses Oludele

A very important dividend of this Conflict in which we now find ourselves is that for once we will be able, to tell the truth to ourselves, truths that have been hidden for years.

 How did Nigeria enter into this kind of trouble, this “junction of confusion”? How does a great shining light become a long-distant glimmer in the dark? How, if we are not cursed as a people, does a land flowing with milk and honey become a wilderness of squalor, a desert of miseries, a land wherein the words of a British racist and enslaver – “the worst never happens but the best is impossible.” (But even today the worst now happens frequently.)

How? How did we come to this sorry pass?

Simply and without wasting time, it is because we left the Truth. We turned our backs to Truth and by and large we became a nation of haters of Truth. In short, we became a nation of liars.

Fathers stopped telling the truth to their children at home. Employers became exploiters telling lies to their own staff. Pastors began to deceive their congregation and the congregation prefers it so. Imams and sheiks preferred telling their people that the enemies responsible for their poverty and squalor are those of the “opposite religion” and not the false values they gave them that prevented them from having an education that would liberate them; they send their own children to acquire Western education because they know that is the way to the future but tell the children of the Talakawas that the Koranic education is the best. Government officials and the government itself became the father of lies that cannot be trusted in anything.

In point of fact lying, or what Wole Soyinka calls, “the phenomenon of unprincipled lying” became elevated as a tool of statecraft. Today Truth is fallen in the street and equity cannot enter. Righteousness has become fugitive in the land and in this climate of general deception and mass acceptance of fallacy even telling the truth becomes, in the words of George Orwell, ” a revolutionary act.”

 In this process, we have cultivated the use and misuse of language. Sorry, did I say misuse? The right word is abuse of the language. Nigerians have so much abused the English Language and the honour which God Himself has conferred on that universal language that I think today the owners of the language should be angry with us but for the fact they know us and even told us that we are “fantastically corrupt” – right in the presence of our Chief Servant himself.

Someone who should have been shot for treason against the state and subversion against the Constitution we call statesmen, Grand Commander of the Federal Republic of thieves and robbers. A terrorist and land grabber who has turned many families into sorrow we elevate to a hero and brand him a freedom fighter. Plain common thieves, we decorate with honors and even our universities fall for the scams.

 One man is collecting 10% ( or is it 15%) of the total earnings of a state in the Yoruba Southwest as I speak, a man of doubtful intellectual pedigree, contested paternity, and duplicitous origin, yet no one can stop him. If he summons 100 pastors of CAN and imams to his residence this evening they would assemble to a man….at the hour.

We have a national assembly that knows the truth but cannot tell it or invoke the necessary clauses while terrorists are closing in on them in that ill-famous tabernacle of bribery.

It is very sad that though Nigeria secured her Independence from Britain and was associated for a long time with that noble nation; Nigerians as a people have failed to learn from the British the most important lesson: THAT YOU CAN DO NOTHING AGAINST THE TRUTH BUT FOR THE TRUTH.

Patrick Wilmot, the radical leftist did much evil against Britain with his pen. He wrote several books and papers attacking Britain and her interests and which the British officials were aware of. Yet when Nigeria which he served in all his adult life threw him away and deported him it was to that Britain he wrote to seeking asylum. And guess what? Britain took him and had mercy on him because it was the lawful thing to do and it was in accord with their heritage and it was the truth.

When Germany too rose against Karl Marx it was to Britain he appealed and was sheltered where he wrote his diatribe even against the West. That is why his grave is in London today. Because it was the right thing to do, to provide shelter for troubled souls.

When France threw away Rousseau because of his subversive views he ran to Britain and Britain took him despite even the protests of citizens.

Standing for the truth, for values, for heritage. Is it a crime to express an opinion? Is it a crime to write a book? No. Britain took them all and today Britain still stands. The views of Marx or Rousseau never threatened Britain, no it only even proved to the world the authenticity of their foundation.

For a foundation that cannot be challenged by contrary ideas and survive alien views is no foundation. It is a foundation built on quicksand. WE CAN DO NOTHING AGAINST THE TRUTH BUT FOR THE TRUTH.

This is the most important lesson Nigeria could have learned from Britain; alas it is the one she never learnt at all.

Today, our public officials and prominent people parade some of these facades and shibboleths and you must have heard them: Nigeria is non-negotiable, democracy has come to stay, etc. I believe in one Nigeria but even then I still want to add that everything is negotiable. Enough of all this trash. And it is time we began to challenge them.

I heard one of those oft-repeated shibboleths, political correctness statements from our Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo: NIGERIA CANNOT AFFORD ANOTHER WAR (Nigerian Tribune, April 29, 2021 )

You must have heard many people say that and there is a sense in which it is true. This nation is in a bad state – financially, spiritually, economically, politically, etc., and we cannot afford anything that serves as a distraction or waste of resources and even of human lives.

We all know this. However, that is only half the truth. It is more than that. The very reason we have these issues was because of Nigeria – its faulty foundation, wobbly structure, iniquitous resource allocation system, fraudulent Constitution, geographic imbalance, wanton injustice, oppression of minorities, etc.

Can anyone deny these? Why do we have these? It is for Nigeria. Can we right all these wrongs? If we cannot afford another war can we afford justice, fairness, equality:’ to all, etc? Telling us we cannot afford another war solves nothing, it is not the point. It has been used to. justify all manners of injustice against Nigerians.

The people who annulled a free and fair election of June 12, 1993, told us the same thing. That we cannot afford another war, that we should accept our fate, and soon they gave us one of them that we did not vote for that led us to where we now are today.

 We cannot afford another war? But we are already in war.  As I write, 55 communities in Plateau State have been taken over by foreign Fulanis and the natives now in IDP camps; another unspecified number of villages in Niger State as I write this are under Boko Haram flag.

About 70 persons have died in Benue and Enugu this last week of April. Three university students and worshippers were killed in Kaduna this week for no other reason than that they belong to a nation that has more fools than wise. Just yesterday a couple was gunned down in Ogun State and another couple in Oyo State. No one has been apprehended for these crimes.

  How else can we be at war? If there is to be war would it be worse than this? So it is not true to say Nigeria cannot afford another war. We are already at war. A war has been declared against us by these people and our government even seems to have favour for them. It is for the rest of us to decide how we intend to respond to this threat because it won’t go away. To fight it or to submit to their demands. It is our choice.

Enough of this ” we can’t afford another war” tying down the hands of the people while the rouge elements and terrorists are having a field day.

Yes, we can afford another war. Another war is better than remaining a slave in your fatherland; another war is better than living under a religious system alien to your upbringing. Some people are dreaming of an Islamic Caliphate on the back of NIGERIAN resources and wealth, they envisage an Islamic Republic of Nigeria and they are working towards that goal in spite of tepid denials.

Now, why would I live under a  Caliphate? Let there be war instead. War is not the worst thing. I hate war. I abhor it with all my heart. I seek peace and pursue it. But I abhor slavery even more. I detest it with every fiber of my being. I shall not die a slave under any system or any power be it a Caliphate or Biafra or Oduduwa.

The God of heaven and earth made me free; no man, no power on earth or above the earth or under the earth will take my freedom away from me or abridge my liberty.

Yes, we can afford another war and even many wars still. If to live in peace means the rest of us must submit to second slavery or submit to an alien and perverse system or religion – a pernicious religion that has brought more woes on the world than good, then, fine let there be war instead.

  I shall not be a slave and my children will not be slaves here. It will not happen. There are things to be fought for. Contrary to apologists of confusion and exploitation, not all wars are bad and to be feared. In my next piece on JUST WAR, I will clarify this. There are wars that are good to be fought to redeem your honour and image which your Creator vouchsafed to you.

Israel has fought 4 major wars and several other undeclared wars, silent wars with quiet weapons, with terrorists, and today she lives in peace. America has fought a Civil War and today the people are still preparing for another Second Revolutionary Civil War to recover their nation from Antichrist elements and liberal anarchists. War is better than slavery which the purveyors of stealth jihad are secretly and cleverly working for.

Is there anyone who does not know what Boko Haram is fighting for? The Fulani terrorists who are enclosing and holding men hostage and occupying communities, who don’t know their objectives and goals?

Is there anyone who does not know what their aims and objectives are? And you think we should wait until they take us out one by one?

Please enough of these lies, holding people in fear because Nigeria cannot afford another war. No, we can afford another war because it is far more preferable than for all ethnic nationalities to be slaves to one tribe. War is better and even more preferable than a Fulani Suzerainty or Hegemony.

I do not know what others may say and I do not speak for anyone. But as for me, I stand with Patrick Henry, “Give me liberty or give me death.” I shall not be a slave of anyone. Christ has made me free and I shall be free as long as I live.

“Stand therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ has made you free and be not entangled again in the yoke of bondage” ( Galatians 5:1)