By Banji Ayoola
War? Never again. Never again in our dear Motherland. Never again on the soil of Nigeria.
Never again shall we allow our disagreements to degenerate into such barbarity again, into such callousness.
When peoples, bonded together, who were meant to build a harmonious, peaceful nation state, who were meant to build a joyful federation of diverse peoples, cultures and other social backgrounds, turned our fertile and pregnant fields into battlegrounds, turning the guns and other weapons against one another. Weapons supplied to combatants on both sides by nations which pretended to be our friends.
When hate freely walked the land to unleash horror on our peoples.
The horror of those years of senseless bloodshed and destruction on both sides of the needless dispute still lives with us, still haunts; Of those horrible years of maddening rage between 1967 and 70; the regrettable scars still live with us, fifty one years after the war ended
The hundreds of thousands, indeed millions of our peoples who, as living victims of the war, either now live a miserable life with their limbs butchered off; or are lame and crippled; or who are homeless, jobless and hopeless; or have lost everything they had worked for to the war; or who are widows; or who are now orphans having lost both fathers and mothers to the war.
The sight of human beings on crutches, who before the war were able bodied, but are now compelled to troop out to the roads to beg for food is horrible enough.
The pictures and videos of scenes from the war are frightening enough.
I shed tears when I saw human beings torn to shreds by bullets, when I saw flying shrapnel from the singing gun.
When human beings, like animals, were hunted and hounded out of their homes in the middle of the night by ferocious looking, gun wielding soldiers who were drunk with rage, and coldly pointing their deadly weapons at human beings. At human beings. And not animals of prey.
When I saw bombs smashed to dust buildings and human beings; destroyed farmlands and animals; poisoned the waters and air; suffocated many human beings and animals to death; made extensive areas uninhabitable for human beings, animals or plants, or any living thing.
The streaming tears from my eyes rolled into a mass of hot balls, which almost choked me, when I saw gravely undernourished children, who looked like skeletons of lizards.
When I saw mothers, who were dead to consolation, crying for their children and husbands suddenly snatched from them, and killed just overnight by vengeful mad gunmen, among whom were mercenaries from countries pretending to be friends of the combatants on both sides, pretending to be friends of our Country and her entire peoples, pretending to be our friends and helpers.
I wept when I saw hungry mothers, helpless fathers, hopeful but skinny children, lined up in the burning sun, in long chains for watery and lean rations that could best be described as appetisers.
I wept when I saw the senseless mass destruction of facilities and infrastructure, of bridges connecting the peoples of this great Country, when I saw how the famous Onitsha Bridge, a remarkable monumental link connecting our peoples together, was blown up, and how a section of it hung in the sky.
I wept when I saw children who were meant to be in primary schools, and roaming about joyfully in an atmosphere of peace, and in the safety of their parents’ homes, under the watchful eyes of their mothers, and under the overall Protection from Above, carrying guns, weapons of destruction and marching to the war-front as soldiers.
I wept when I saw how we threw away peace and embraced war, how we abandoned the round table and opted for the battlefields to kill and destroy ourselves.
I wept, and still weep, at the great opportunities and privileges lovingly thrown into our laps, as peoples brought together by threads of fate, to be better human beings, which we have thrown away in the frenzy of senseless anger, hate and bitterness.
The bitterness is still there, rearing its ugly head oftentimes to cause more problems and frustrate genuine efforts at nation building.
Now is the time for us to heal wounds, expunge the bitterness, rebuild and restore broken bridges, to really re-think and build a nation where no one is oppressed, where all shall prosper together in our diversities, which we will now use to build trust and friendship.
We fervently wish that our leaders and peoples will be guided aright.
Arise o compatriots. Heed the call of an emerging new nation, our new Fatherland and Motherland, our new Nigeria, which we will now serve unselfishly, and strive honestly to turn into a blessing for all the nations on earth.
