Why President Jonathan’s Wife or Children Must Be Killed

President Jonathan must be made to feel pain...

When most writers describe Nigeria’s President Goodluck Jonathan, colourful and flowery words and adjectives unwittingly glide into their paragraphs and sentences.

However, I would urge Nigerians both at home and in the Diaspora to discard such warm descriptions and kindness towards a man who is yet to justify the votes millions of Nigerian cast for him at the last presidential elections.

At the last International Honourary International Investors’ Council (HIIC) meeting in France in November 2011, President Jonathan said: “Boko Haram will fizzle out…”

I find this not only distasteful but heart-wrenchingly disturbing.

It is no longer news that our country Nigeria is incredibly riddled with problems like other developing nations of the world but in our case, our problems appear to defy all forms of solutions and rather, expands into monstrous dimensions before our very eyes.

When the ‘Boko Haram virus’ found its way into the nation’s already unhealthy form, more than a few had cast it aside as nothing but another fleeting episode that would be relegated to the dustbin of the past in no time but today, they have put fear and more uncertainty into the Nigerian psyche.

We have stood by and watched as more and more Nigerians continue to fall under the explosive strength of members of the Boko Haram sect, a group that started as an anti-western voice but has since assumed a terrorist dimension.

Whenever the Boko Haram sect strikes, lives are always at stake and if these lives were perhaps those of Nigerians who have stood in the way of the nation’s progress or those who constitute enemies against the nation, it would be a different story entirely.

Rather, we have all seen innocent lives fall under the heartless and brutal attacks of Boko Haram. The group has made its intention and modus operandi clear. It is a terrorist group that would go to any means to achieve its goals.

Before now, I hardly dabbled into political waters given its complicated nature and sensitivity but I can no longer sit back and remain quiet while my brothers and sisters continue to get killed for crimes they have not committed.

In the early hours of December 7, 2011; barely three days ago, members of the Islamic group, Boko Haram hurled another bomb into the Igbo spare parts market along Katsina Road, by Ori Apata, Kaduna, killing ten people, including a pregnant woman and two children. Property worth millions destroyed and several people injured.

As I write this piece, my eyes are filled with tears not because members of my family were killed in the explosion but because they could as well have been members of my family given their innocence. What was the crime of the pregnant woman and children that were killed in the explosion? What sin did they commit against Boko Haram? Did they deserve to die?

These were Nigerians who had left their various homes to seek food and shelter for their individual families without any premonition that they would never return home.

As a result of the bomb blast, more than one family has lost breadwinners, mothers and even innocent children who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time but was it their fault?

The questions many are scared to ask are in two folds; when will this madness stop? And of course – who will be next?

What does President Goodluck Janathan plan to do about his inability to put a stop to the societal madness that the Boko Haram has become?

Whenever they strike, the president issues statements consoling the families and lace his messages with political lines and paragraphs but I must say that Nigerians are sick of this.

Perhaps, it is time for Boko Haram to switch targets as I am about to ask a very germane question – What would happen if the Boko Haram group were able to strike down a member of Jonathan’s nuclear family; perhaps his wife, Dame Patience Jonathan or one of his children? Would he still sit back and play the puppet president that critics have tagged him?

If Jonathan cannot feel the pain of Nigerian families whose loved ones have shed their blood and lost their lives in the last 365 days, then perhaps, it is time for the president to have a taste of death in very close quarters and then we shall all see if he would still maintain his present political stance over the Boko Haram attacks.

If Jonathan, his wife and children deserve the gift of life, then why can the pregnant woman, the two children and others who were killed on Wednesday, December 7, 2011 not enjoy the same privilege?

For me, the president might as well resign and leave the job of solving this problem to others who have human compassion in their heart and enough fire in their bellies to bring Nigerian out of this ‘national coffin’ that it has become.

We are not concerned about his educational qualifications or the number of words he utters whenever the blood of the innocent is unnecessarily spilt. All we ask for is for him to put a stop to this madness. If he cannot do that then like I earlier suggested, he might as well offer his wife, children or even himself to be slaughtered in the next Boko Haram attack as we all know there will always be another and then we shall see if he would still say: “Boko Haram will fizzle out…”

My patience has hit a brick wall and I ask: do Nigerians share my view on this matter?