When violence replaces healthy political, academic, and business competitions, a nation is really in serious trouble and because of the acrimonious fear that set in, there can be no development.  There is no gain saying that violence in Nigeria has reached epidemic proportions and with the way our nation, Nigeria, is going, one would not be too surprised if she becomes the violent capital of Africa albeit the world.  Any successful violence in Nigeria is an indication of serious insecurity in the country.

 When OBJ’s administration felt that problem was brewing in Odi, a town in the state, OBJ instead of engaging in serious dialogue, OBJ sent in our trigger happy military.  The Odi massacre was an attack on the predominantly Ijaw town of Odi in Bayelsa State and authorized by the then President, OBJ.  The red letter day was November 20, 1999.  The massacre was carried out by the Nigerian military, the very men and women we trained with our resources and given the responsibility to protect us.  Every Nigerian understood and acquiesces to the attack by keeping quiet.  The attack came in the context of the ongoing conflict in the Niger Delta over indigenous rights to oil resources and environmental degradation of the area.  If this is not height of violence embarked upon by a government, I wander what is.  If those we pay, those that take our resources as if the belong to them can go to such a violent end and people that are unaffected did not bet an eye, there the nation has no conscience.

 In the sixties, we were our brother’s keepers, in the seventies with Udoji award our characters changed and we became our own keepers; and in the eighties, we became selfish vagabonds, and in the nineties, we grew to be heartless and callous and blood thirsty.  Even when at the height of our selfishness, we destroyed our middle class, some became overnight millionaires while many citizens became dirt poor.  Those who became rich engaged the services of some citizens that they made poor as thugs and hired assassins.  Today, however, reverting back to Professor Achebe’s novel, the nation is not at ease because the center can no longer hold.  Those that created violence are now being consumed by political violence.

 In 2004, I was called by a professor who taught Andrew and me from a class I was teaching at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.  The professor requested that I visited a website, for what reason I did not know.  Later, when I visited the website and later visited many Nigerian News papers, and I saw a man slumped on the back of an SUV in the pool of his blood.  I went further to read the full text.  At last, it was a picture of a classmate, a long standing friend, Andrew Agom, the former MD of Nigerian airways under IBB.  The professor that alerted me taught Andrew and me in many of our mathematics classes at Embry Riddle Aeronautical University.  I remember Andrew Agom with fondness because he was smart, his knowledge of physical chemistry was impeccable and he was both sociable and loyal.  When Andrew passed, I prayed to the almighty that that would be the last time I would lose a friend through violence.  Little did I know that there would be recurrence of the event.  I thought that Andrew’s death may be politically related than business but I may be wrong.

 If the chief enforcement office of Nigeria, Chief Bola Ige was gunned down and until now, no one is safe again in Nigeria.  If Chief Bola Ige’s assassins have not been found, why should ordinary citizens concern themselves about finding assassins attached to protecting ordinary bloody civilians.

 A few days ago, I was again called by mutual friend and informed about the violent death another friend suffered through in the hands of hired assassins.  Less than two weeks ago, Mr. Richard was in Houston and we met in the house of a mutual friend.  We discussed mainly business and how he was climbing the ladder business of success.  Richard attended Rice University and graduated and became an engineer who spent valuable time working with NNPC.  Unfortunately, it was Richard Ogunmakin’s turn to be visited by violence.  The full story of how his death occurred in the hands of thugs is till sketchy and one can only speculate because a nation that is incapable of finding the killer of the attorney General of the Federal Republic of Nigeria should not be relied upon to find the assassin who snuffed life out of ordinary citizen, can we?  All we can do here is to speculate which Nigerians do well.  The late Richard Ogunmakin was a businessman.  He was lucky to be awarded new contracts.  His death may not be unconnected to his rivals or may be due to misunderstanding of issues by business associates.  Does death have to settle all disputes in Nigeria?  When human beings lack the capacity to reason, deliberate, and resolve issues in an amicable manner, they resolve to violence. 

 Is Nigeria becoming a Mafioso nation where death has to be the final stage of settling disputes?  Can we not go back to being humans again by being logical, a special characteristic that separates humans from animals?  Do we want to descend to the level of animals when others nations are moving to higher levels?  When there is dispute, we have the judiciary, court arbitration, a visit with mutual friends or an alignment with elders for resolution of vexing issues.  We are eliminating far too many brains and productive members of our society in Nigeria and living the thugs amongst us behind to set the nation on fire.

 There are only two competing forces in the world.  They are good exhibited by our spirit of commonality through our association with the almighty, the benevolent and evil/violence exhibited through guns/voodoo and spirit of insatiable wants.  In the long run, however, the guns/violence will always be conquered by the spirit.  While President Yar ‘Adua has not yet claimed to be a messiah yet, the god of Nigeria like his predecessor, he must help quell the violence permeating Nigerian airspace but he help reshape our society for the next generation not to be visited by gang of marauders, armed robbers and thieves. 

 Our nation needs to learn how to compete in a healthy manner.  Our politics is far too violent.  Our business practices are more of contact sport than of willingness to build a strong, technologically developed, and infrastructurally viable nation.  If a single family (the Ubas) or individual (Chief Adedibu) can violently hold a state in ransom as in Anambra and Oyo states, then we are not yet a nation of lawful engagements.  If the way we compete is by eliminating our strong opponents, what do we hope to achieve with those who win through violence?  When we eliminate fellow citizens, we are not only eliminating him/her but destroying his children and erasing their livelihood.  We cannot continue to create orphans by helping God to do his job.  God is God and we are humans and we’ll never be God no matter how hard we try.

 May the souls of all your friends and mine, Andrew Agom and Richard Makinde rest in perfect peace until we meet in God’s bosom.  Nigeria cannot afford to be living in fear because in a state of fear, there is no development and there can be no individual and institutional progress.  Those who got their economic advantage through violent means are themselves living in fortresses or prisons of their own making.  The minds and souls of the best and brightest amongst us are engaged only in survival not in construction and development. 

Nigeria needs every able body to build a united nation where no man/woman is oppressed.  Assassination cannot be the answer to our problems but constructive engagement is.  The issue of knowing a President, a Governor, a Senator, and a member of the judiciary in order to succeed in a nation must be eliminated.  When 99% of business contracts are awarded based on who we know, what happen to the orphans who are all alone in this world but who otherwise are gifted and capable of out performing the rest 99% who are connected?  Our nation’s problems might be unconnected to the way we do business of awarding contracts through nepotism and parochialism.  

 May the souls of the politicians that established violence be protected, may the collateral damages of the violent war of attrition of setting political and business disputes (the Bola Iges, the Andrew Agoms and the Richard Ogunmakins of Nigeria) reduce to zero and may the almighty forgive us all – amen.