By Ismail Omipidan
Your Excellency, sir, I pray this meets you well.
I have elected to address this letter to Your Excellency, Mr. Peter Obi, the 2023 presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), for three key reasons. First, you remain the only presidential candidate in that election who openly and discreetly canvassed for votes along religious lines.
Your messages, clearly tailored in that direction, were well and widely delivered from pulpits across the country at the time. Two, should you decide to speak on this matter, your response, depending on its content, will help many commentators better understand your true stance on the genocide claim that has been flying around for a while. Three, it is worth noting that the same U.S. President who openly admitted to supplying arms and ammunition to Israel to commit horrific atrocities in Gaza cannot, in good conscience, accuse Nigeria of genocide.
Having said that, I was born in Otukpo, Benue State, where I spent my formative years until 1996, when I relocated to Kaduna. I have also had the privilege of living and working in Maiduguri, Kaduna, Lagos, Osun, and Abuja. Over the course of my career as a journalist, I have visited all 36 states of the country. Therefore, I can say with confidence that I have a fair knowledge of Nigeria’s diversity and complexities.
In Osun, the only time religion significantly influenced voting patterns was in 2014, when the PDP attempted to play the religious card. The result was clear for all to see. In that election, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola was the APC candidate, while Otunba Iyiola Omisore flew the PDP flag.
I have never witnessed a religious war in Nigeria, and I pray I never do. However, if the dangerous path the United States is treading, especially with the connivance of some Nigerian leaders, is not checked, God forbid, we may be heading toward a serious crisis in our country.
I do not know how many Nigerians know Malam-Fatori, headquarters of Abadam Local Government in Borno State. I have been there like four times. During my last visit, I encountered an Igbo man, who is over 70 years old. He told me he was born in that town. He married and had his own children there. The place is about nine hours from Maiduguri, the Borno State capital.
As I write, there is a large percentage of Igbo community in that town, a town that strategically shares border with Niger Republic. Niger Republic is over 95 percent predominantly Muslim community. And they do many things in common with not only Borno State but most of states in the Northern Nigeria. The point I am trying to stretch is that if indeed, there is genocide against Christians in Nigeria, certainly no Igbo man will remain in that place. Ditto, all the 19 northern states in the country.
Zamfara, where bandits have been having a field day, is predominantly a Muslim community. This means that the number of Muslim lives lost in that state far outweighs that of Christians. The same can be said of Katsina State. I can go on and on. Besides, consider the killings in the South-East, where Igbo and other tribes have been victims of the sit-at-home madness in the last few years, were those attacks perpetrated by Boko Haram too?
I know some people will want to reference the Yelwata killings in Benue State. As a Benue man myself, I believe that the current wave of killings in the state is politically motivated because no bandits can successfully operate without the connivance of locals.
In this same Benue State, at a point, politicians from Sankera axis, recruited cultists and militias and empowered them to help them control power. But like it is in most places, the boys here too grew beyond control and they became monsters.
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