Buhari is fundamentally belligerent

Sir: What President Muhammadu Buhari said in Kenya the other day that he was making moves to dialogue with Boko Haram for the release of the girls means that he understands that only dialogue can free the girls. Yet, he is as impulsively belligerent as his predecessor, Goodluck Jonathan. Sadly, Nigerians and the international community are not asking crucial questions about why Nigerian rulers have been dodging dialogue. Jonathan and Buhari should be queried on how many of the girls have been killed in the intensified war against Boko Haram.

Where then are the girls? How many of the girls have survived the onslaught by Jonathan, Buhari and America and her allies? Since the advent of Arabic and Western imperialisms, Africa has suffered in the hands of internal and external aggressors/exploiters. After the slave trade by Arabs and Westerners, most of Africa, with the exception of Ethiopia, became colonised politically and religion-wise. During colonisation by the Europeans, seeds of African destruction were sown and blossomed: Western education, Christianity and Islam. Fulani Muslims started their destruction of Nigeria in 1804, with the jihad wars initiated by Shehu Usumanu Danfodio.

Christianity and Islam divided Nigerians along innumerable denominations. Henceforth, the loyalty of most Nigerians shifted from family, ethnicity, and nationality to their diverse Christo-Islamic denominations. Christian and Muslim clerics are still struggling for the allegiance of Nigerians, deceiving people with falsified stories, such as saying that Jesus has redeemed humanity and carried-away sins; traditional Africans don’t know God but only idols; African divinities are demonic agents, etc. are still pumped into the brains of African pupils since more than a century. Hence many contemporary Africans are still castigating our ancestors/ancestress as nothing but idolaters, even in federal and state universities.

• Pius Abioje,University of Ilorin, Kwara State