A former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, has stated that Nigerians seem to have accepted mass killings in the country as the new normal.
He lamented that such killings no longer make headlines in the media, adding that the situation has created a feeling that nothing matters anymore.
Dogara stated this in his keynoted address themed, ‘Peace And Development In Nigeria: The Pragmatic Approach,’ delivered at a two-day summit organised by the Sultan Maccido Institute For Peace And Development Studies of the University Of Abuja on Tuesday and shared on social media on Friday.
According to him, “Today, Nigeria is faced with unprecedented crisis so much so that nothing in our history prepares us for such a time as this. We seem to have accepted killings and mass murder as our new normal and so many cold-blooded murder of our brothers and sisters no longer make the headlines in the media.
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“As students, lecturers and political leaders, some of us are complicit while the few who have dared to speak up are already outraged, fatigued and have surrendered to fatalism- a feeling that nothing matters anymore. It is like Nigeria seems to be suffering from some kind of God-ordained ineluctable fate. What we have done before doesn’t matter, all that matters is our present station. As long as we are not actively engaged in seeking solutions to these intractable issues, we are actually, wittingly or unwittingly, actively promoting it.
“I have made the point before that Nigeria cannot survive if our peoples merely tolerate each other. Our happiness cannot be the other groups’ unhappiness. Our strength is not and will never be in our numbers but in our unity. When we are United, we’ll be strong and when we strive to keep our bond and remain undivided, we will be invincible.
“This is what should concern every patriotic Nigerian at the moment not schemings for future elections. All efforts of patriotic citizens must be geared towards stopping our dear country from the ongoing death by a thousand cuts.
“Like I said earlier, our most immediate problem is the dangerous drift of Nigeria into chaos and anarchy. Apart from the rabid insecurity plaguing the nation, there are real or imagined charges of ethnic cleansing and domination of some sections by a certain section.
“Attacks are unrelenting and there appears to be no end in sight. The situation has clearly gotten out of hand, following the repeated overrun of military formations by Boko Haram/ISWAP terrorists, wanton killings and kidnap for ransom and mass abduction of school children in different parts of the country,” the statement read in part.
