Bloodbath at the cathedral

They drank, danced and exchanged pleasantries. It was August, the month of Emume Iri ji ohuru, the celebration of the new yam festival. The wide base mountain and ridges of pounded yam, the yam and fish pepper soup, the smoked yam and palm oil, all graced the table in different fashion. The titled chiefs lifted the cow horns to their lips, savouring the smoothness of the Nkwu elu and Ngwo while others sipped their pleasure from the Okuku. The folk dance, the masquerade display and other colourful flaunt spiced up the celebration. The day young and the night so long, even the sun stayed put longer than usual and the moon expressed its fullness, illuminating the night with ssplendour.

And by 5.00am, the chimes rang through the village. The throng filed and moved briskly towards the cathedral. It was absolutely important to give thanks to God for another beautiful harvest. The officiating priest preached life and invited the communicants to the altar. Yet the men in black joined the file with death in their hands. The bullet ripped through innocence, corrupting the threshing floor of prayers with broken bodies and a ceaseless stream of blood which meandered in different directions. And…………

Hmmm…. I still marvel at how we got on this train of self-destruction in Nigeria. The bloodbath didn’t start today; neither is the murder a new way. When a rat dies, initially the neighbourhood will experience peace, but a few days later, the pungent smell from its dead body will not allow any one breathe. The pandemic of moral decadence has been ravaging us right from the home, school, public offices, church and other places of worship. The spate of murder and the several bloodbaths have merely left their place of shyness and are now on full display like a good market ware. The smell is choking us badly already. We are dancing naked in the market place, yet people still question the level of insanity that has weakened our value system. Why are we such a wicked nation? It is supposed to be the month of thanksgiving yet instead of thanking God, we take part in the sacrament of the devil, breaking the body and shedding the blood of mere mortals.

The whole week in Lagos welcomed gamut of different kidnappers. This included people who pretend to be mad on the streets, who are aides to the men perpetrating this evil. And of course Boko Haram has been drinking blood since 1900. The east has added their portion to the sour soup. And two weeks earlier, the discussion of rape rented the social media space Hmm… I fear for this country because when you pray for abundance and blessing and you keep fetching water into a basket, when will the overflow happen?

And this bloodbath at the cathedral happens every day because our cathedral is everywhere. Our cathedral is in our mind. When you cheat your fellow business partner and take their portion with yours, are you not shedding blood at the cathedral? When you rape a young altar boy who was placed under your tutelage and tell him not to tell anyone, are you not shedding blood at the cathedral? When you kidnap and kill for rituals, are you not shedding blood at the cathedral? When you abandon your wife and your children and go after a young youth corper who is serving in your organisation, are you not systematically shedding blood at the cathedral? When you get into politics and the money earmarked for building a local medical center in your local government was used to fund the owambe wedding party of your daughter at Dubai, haven’t you opened fire on innocent souls? When your daughter was molested and you agreed to collect money in lieu of justice, are you not a murderer?

The bloodbath at the cathedral is not only physical but a complete mirror image of how far we have killed our conscience and how much hatred we have for each other. The major reason we have a vicious and unending cycle of similar occurrences is because perpetrators go unpunished. When there are no consequences for bad actions, evil will thrive and build a fortified house of gold. If today, men at the echelon of power are subjected to punishment for their evil acts, the younger generation will have a mind shift. If we continue drinking and eating in our wickedness, we will give birth to our kind. And like in our Nigeria parlance “Nobody is doing us o, we are the ones doing ourselves”. May the Lord Almighty have mercy on us. Remember, we are not perfect, but our intentions must be genuine.