On May 25, 2022, at about midnight, gunmen forced their entry into the rectory at St Patrick’s Catholic Church, Gidan Maikambo, Katsina State, in the Catholic Diocese of Sokoto. At the end of their diabolical intrusion, two priests, Fr Stephen Ojapa, MSP, and Fr Oliver Okpara, as well as two lay persons, Mr. Hassan and Ms. Ummie Hassan were abducted.
A month later, on June 26, news came that they had regained their freedom. But while we were rejoicing at the news, news came that men of evil struck in Kaduna Archdiocese on Saturday, June 25, killing Fr Vitus Borogo. Aged 50, Fr Borogo was killed at Prison Farm, Kujana, along the Kaduna-Kachia Road. Until his assassination, he was Chaplain of the Catholic community of the Kaduna State Polytechnic, and Chairman of the Nigerian Catholic Diocesan Priests Association (NCPDA), Kaduna State Chapter.
On Sunday, June 26, barely twenty-four hours after the killing of Fr Borogo, Fr Christopher Odia of Auchi Diocese, aged 41, woke up to go and offer the holy sacrifice of the Mass. He was abducted in the rectory. His corpse and that of a young altar server were found later in the day. Fr. Odia was Administrator of St. Michael Catholic Church, Ikabigbo, Etsako West Local Government Area, and Principal of St. Philip Catholic Secondary School Jattu.
Thus, within 24 hours last weekend, while two priests and two lay persons abducted in Sokoto Diocese were being released by their captors, a priest was killed in Kaduna on Saturday, while another one was killed on his way to say Sunday Mass. This happened just three Sundays after the killings in St Francis Catholic Church in Owo.
Is anyone still in doubt that the Nigerian state has failed? Is anyone still nursing the belief that the Nigerian state can rise to the occasion and secure this land and its inhabitants?
There is an almost irresistible temptation to see this as an attack on the Catholic Church in Nigeria. And the temptation is explicable. The Catholic Church has never been silent in the face of bad governance in Nigeria. In the dark days of military rule, and in the dashed hopes of a distressed democracy, the hierarchy of the Church in Nigeria has spoken in unmistaken terms. Could this be the way to force the Church to abdicate her prophetic mission?
There is also the temptation of seeing this only in terms of abduction and assassination of priests. Not much was heard of the Hassans of Gidan Maikambo who were abducted with two priests. There were persons who died in the valiant but unsuccessful attempt to rescue Fr Odia.
But we cannot and we ought not isolate abduction and sometimes killing of Catholic priests from what the rest of the population is experiencing. We all, priests and lay faithful, Christians and Muslims, have found ourselves in the abyss of insecurity, the valley of death into which Nigeria has been turned, while those who ought and professed to protect us are busy doing other things. The challenges we face in Nigeria spare no ethnic, religious or regional community.
It is one thing to have a kitchen, it is another to cook. It is one thing to cook, it is another to have a meal. It is one thing to have a government, it is another to have governance. We have a government. But there is no governance. And we all are victims of absence of governance. When we go to the market, the price of garri is the same, irrespective of ethnic, religious or regional affiliation. In this long season of insecurity, we cannot deny that perpetrators originate from a particular ethnic community. We cannot deny either that victims of terrorism are of diverse ethnic, regional and religious affiliation. Muslims are being abducted, and Christians are being abducted.
Faced with what can be called pan-Nigerian challenges, nothing less than a pan-Nigerian response will be effective. However, we are caught in the quagmire of ethnocentrism and religious bigotry, and the political elite prefers things this way. It is preference for a divide-and-rule status quo. The people are kept divided by propagating the myth of ethnic superiority that prevents us from seeing that Nigerian victimhood is not confined to persons of one community while those of other communities are perceived as perpetrators of marginalization.
But, contrary to the heresy of ethnocentrism, the heresy of ethnic superiority, my tribe is not superior to yours, and yours is not superior to mine. I am not more human because of the tribe to which I belong, neither are you more human because of your own tribe. What makes me human is what make you human, and what makes you human is what makes the third person and all other persons human.
Yes, we are of diverse ethnic and religious affiliation. But we have a common humanity. Why then should Nigerians trade insults across ethnic and religious boundaries? While passions are inflamed by the divisive rhetoric of the political elite, it is the same elite that benefits from our inflamed passions. It is not the average Nigerian.
Once again, we are in a campaign season, and these issues need to be considered when we cast our vote. Nigeria needs a leader with a pan-Nigerian agenda to tackle our pan-Nigerian challenges. This country is in urgent need of a President who would lead with the interest of all Nigerians at heart. We need to overcome the blindness that makes us remain in the cave of tribalism. We need a leader who will lead us out of our incarceration in the cave of ethnocentrism. But, even if such a leader were to emerge, it would be difficult for Nigerians to recognize him or her if we refuse to deal with the scotosis of racial superiority. We have an urgent need to transcend our biases and prejudices.
© Rev. Father (Prof.) Anthony Akinwale, OP, is the Vice-Chancellor of the Dominican University, Ibadan, Nigeria
The killings and criminalities have become a routine and appear to be invincible for the Commanders-in-Chief of the Armed Forces in the States and the Federation.
It appears these killings and criminalities have come to stay unless and until those of us who answer to the designation- Nigerians- take our destinies in our hands.