Call to Self-defence

Arise and Defend Yourselves Oh Benue Youth: A Call to Action.

By Ogiri John Ogiri.

Fellow Benue youths, I must admit in the most sincere way, that these are not the best of times for us; indeed, these are perilous times for us both as a nation and as a people. Since the inception of this administration about three and half years ago until today,we have lost thousands of our dedicated, hardworking yet innocent and hospitable parents, brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts etc in Agatu,Guma,Logo,Okpokwu,Gwer-East just to mention but a few, to an unfortunate genocidal war, declared on us by the jihadhistFulani herdsmen and terrorists, a war which they have covertly and overtly executed unchallenged and with impunity, in most cases applying the clandestine guerrilla war strategy of preemptive strike and hide using the advantage of the element of surprise. What is our offence? Our only offence is our unconditional hospitality to strangers or visitors. My heart-felt sympathy goes out to the Catholic Bishop of Makurdi Diocese, Most Rev.Dr Wilfred Anagbe,with his members of the sacerdotal order, the entire catholic faithfuls in the diocese, parishioners of the parishes in Mbalom,  for the loss of their dedicated priests and family members in the latest attack in Mbalom in Gwer-East local government of our dear state.
I equally join in sympathy with the families of those who have lost their loved ones in the various attacks across the affected local government areas in the state. I say to you 'take heart'.

My brothers and sisters of the Benue Valley, brave youths of Tiv, Idoma, Igede, and Etulo, etc, I urge you to wipe away your tears. Gird your loins with renewed hope that with the right action, "this too shall pass away" Shedding tears can never yield the kind of pragmatic result or solution our hearts yearn for.
You may ask,"what do we do now?" What we should do now is to critically ask how we can take ourselves out of this bloodshed and become free again. I say to you , arise. Get whatever you can lay your hands on and make yourselves weapons for self-defence or die like chickens. After all,the right to self-defence is protected in the 1999 constitution bequeathed to us by our forebears. Let me be honest with you, if you think that you can pacify the belligerent party, the fulani attackers (or should I say the Muammar Gaddafi-trained mercenaries) with the expensive language of tolerance, accommodation and peace, to persuade them from killing our people and taking over our lands, then you must be living in the most dangerous illusion of the 21st century. The only language these attackers understand is violence. They have been indoctrinated to see violence as normal and use it to conquer territories of their hosts. Give them violence if they won't give you peace. And they won't freely give you peace because peace is not free. You must win back your peace by serving them with the same hot dish of violence they serve you daily. After all, no man has monopoly of violence. Every man is inherently capable of being violent. Every man is capable of being evil. Forgive my dictions but the realities of our time don't permit political correctedness here. And if we must all become violent to save our people and our lands, so be it.

Furthermore, I have been reading, in the social media,some of your proposed solutions to the current spate of killings in our dear country and in our beloved Benue in particular. One solution that I found nauseating in all is your statements and beliefs that "only God, can help us out" That is a defeatist mentality or mindset. Do you really think you can't fight back? You don't keep shouting holy ghost fire, casting and binding in the name of Jesus when your house is on fire. The most sensible thing to do is to quickly get water and extinguish the flame to prevent further escalation that can cause collateral damage. God will begin to help us the moment we start taking actions against the invaders. We can only pray for strength of will and success in this adventure. Brothers and sisters of our dear state, there is no help anywhere, not even from the government. Our only help is our fighting spirit, teamwork and unconditional unity. Our economic base, Agriculture, is under threat. Once they take away this power from us, we are doomed. Our people-women and children will be strangled to death, not by bullets or bayonets, but by the pangs of hunger, general lack and deprivation.
I call on you my comrades of our dear state to wake up from your slumber. Arise and let us go, for "the hour has come". Distinguished citizens of our beloved nation, I urge you to throw off every shackle of party affiliations, segregations along religious denominations and let us unite against the enemies of our collective survival. Do not fold your hands, waiting for divine interventions in the on-going ethnic cleansing and jihad declared on you by the Fulani herdsmen;  no, we have got to a point when we should collectively proclaim " Enough is Enough! ". Strategize on how you can defend yourselves or else you will wake up one day and discover,to your disappointments, that you have all been completely crushed and annihilated and your lands forcefully occupied by the invaders. What do we tell our yet-to-be-born generation? That we were cowards in the face of adversity? That we slept while jihadists over ran our lands? No way!
This is beyond herdsmen issue. They destroyed Northeastern States of Maiduguri, Yobe, and Adamawa, among others. The middle belt is the next target. This is obviously an execution of a plan hatched somewhere several years ago.

Brothers and sisters,make no mistake! Our armed forces are among the best trained and the most professional forces in the world. Medals and accolades they have received from several international organizations and private individuals for their various acts of valour on the battlefields in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Chad, Congo, Serbia and Montenegro, etc have lent credence to their professionalism and bravery. So,if our armed forces could go to a different country with unfamiliar topography and geography and still performed creditably well, what,then, makes you think that they can not stop the genocide within 48 hours if they can get the right order from their commander-in-chief and president, Federal Republic of Nigeria? There is no political will on the part of the Federal government yet.
The fact is that,there is more than meets the ordinary eyes in the whole saga. We have reached a very dangerous stage in the history of dear nation when our collective security as a people is being threatened almost on a daily basis by Fulani terrorist attacks while the Federal Government looks the other way, pretending that all is well. The federal government have not really taken any decisive actions beyond mere verbal rantings, condemnations and promises of actions. But we have also come to a historic point when we must decide, without further hesitation, whether we want to survive and stay alive with our lands and families intact or to surrender our common heritage and pride to those described recently by the President as trained Gaddafi mercenaries and die by their unholy swords and bullets.

Our Christian beliefs should not suddenly make us to become cowards and therefore complacent. We must take advantage of the freedoms of Christianity and win back our nation and dear state, Benue. Take for instance,the Israelites, the Jews, who are the real people of God,the chosen nation. No one can claim to know the Torah and the entire old Testament philosophies more than they do. Yet, they do not just fold their hands,praying and fasting, waiting for a misinterpreted holy ghost fire to devour their enemies on their behalf. Rather,they take decisive actions for the survival of their corporate existence as a nation.
We must do the same. Loosing Benue lands and people from the continuous stranglehold of Fulani herdsmen(foreign and local) terrorism is a task every serious-minded Benue man or woman must fulfill.
Let us therefore arise and take back our Benue.