The conscientious world is struggling to grapple with the March 17th massacre in Mosul. It is the worst global tragedy in recent days. Over 200 civilians, mostly Muslims, including women and children were killed in the US coalition airstrikes as admitted by the coalition and found from Pentagon investigations. Bodies of pregnant women, children and newborns lay strewn in the rubble after US-led airstrikes brought down apartment buildings on Baghdad street, West Mosul, LA times reports.
NYTimes ranks it as among “the highest civilian death tolls in an American air mission since the United States went to war in Iraq in 2003,” if confirmed.
It feels sad as a Nigerian who had hopes in the new administration of standing up for justice and as an African and human leader, that Buhari is yet to react to and condemn the Mosul massacre. It won’t be the first time Buhari has been noted to respond empathetically to terror in the western world and ignore the same in the Arab world and Nigeria.
President Buhari was the first African leader to condemn the recent UK parliament attack last week which saw four dead in a car and knife attack. Within 7 hours of the attack, president Buhari had released a statement empathizing with the United Kingdom and hours later he went ahead to write a letter of brotherhood.
To say the least, it is disheartening and betraying. The behaviour of the president as relates to radical acts locally and globally encourages injustice and oppression and ultimately terror. It can be called a terror magnet. Nigerians must eternally remain grateful for the tolerance and patience of Zaria minority Muslims who never responded adversely after the government massacred and admitted to secretly burying them in the hundreds following an overhanded reaction to protests.
While the senseless act by the takfiri Muslim in the UK deserves the condemnation it swiftly received, Buhari’s preferential allegiance to Nigeria’s colonial master with his instantaneous condemnation and additional letter, piques. Buhari has since his presidency partly resided in the UK for ongoing management of an undisclosed chronic illness. Hopefully Nigeria’s foreign policy is not being crafted surrounding the president’s personal healthcare needs. This would be a grave threat to national security, but perhaps is yet better than if Nigeria’s policies had other secret allegiances with global hegemonies and radical capitals.
At a local level, a recent analysis we at ENDS released shows a failure of the Buhari government to properly label and address acts of terror within Nigeria and deal with them as due. While terrorists have been sentenced to death in Cameroon and Somalia, Nigeria from Joanthan’s time to the present, has not seriously dealt with hundreds arrested Boko Haram terrorists, thereby encouraging terror. We also critiqued the failure of the Buhari government to call other acts of terror including those by so-called Fulani herders and by farming communities as they rightly deserver, “acts of terror,” to discourage such acts under threat of discipline in accordance with Nigeria’s anti-terror laws.
We encourage president Buhari to serve Nigeria as he has sworn to do under the eyes of God to whom we shall all return sooner or later. While UK healthcare technology is certainly wowing, God is the healer.
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Dr. Peregrino Brimah; @EveryNigerian
