The ‘butterfly effect’ philosophy posits that little actions and circumstances can have a major and enormous effect on a much bigger realm. In like manner, history has taught us that the irate actions of a few can have irreversible devastating effects on a whole country and society at large.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel said, “The only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history!”
All over the world, amongst the countries that have been brought to its knees with internal insurgencies, research has discovered that it is often the radical few in the society responsible for the wanton loss of lives. Recall the ‘holocaust saga’. Most Germans were peaceful, yet the Nazi’s (a minority group) headed by the infamous Adolf Hitler drove the agenda which wiped out sixty million people and put almost fourteen million people in concentration camps; six million of whom were Jews.
The peaceful majority of Germans were irrelevant. Take a look at Russia. Most Russians were civil people but at the end, twenty million people lost their lives. The peaceful majority were irrelevant. When you look at China, most of the Chinese were people were peaceful as well, yet few of them were able to kill seventy million people. The peaceful majority were irrelevant. Prior to World War 2, most Japanese were normal people with quiet lives until they butchered their way through south-east Asia killing twelve million people. The peaceful majorities were irrelevant.
Intelligence surveys around the world have revealed a total of one billion and two hundred people who belong to the Islamic religion, generally known for peace and good relations in the society. However, when we survey the very few who are Islamic extremists, they are estimated to be between 15 to 25 percent. A simple arithmetic would reveal 75 percent as the peaceful but then, when we calculate the figure of people constituting the radical 15 to 25 percent, the result would be between a hundred and eighty million to three hundred people solely dedicated to a collective goal – the destruction of human lives! This figure is as big as the population of America and is probably twice as big as that of Nigeria itself. As of September 11, 2001, there were two million and three hundred Muslims living in the United States of America. It took only nineteen radicals who served as hijackers to divert a plane to the world trade center in New York, destroy the pentagon and kill three thousand Americans. It took only nineteen men to humble one of the most powerful nations of the world!
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You wouldn’t need to ask therefore why a country should be worried about the few jobless or ‘lazy Nigerian youths’ roaming hungrily on our streets. You wouldn’t need to ask why the country should lose their sleep in concern for alumanjiris that are easy tools for political warlords in their quest for power. Why then should we blame the President of America if he decides to place a ban on immigrants from countries that pose a threat to their national security? The answer is simple. It is the radicals that kill. It is the radicals that pillage, burn, behead and massacre.
However, it is quite an unfortunate fact for us as a country and as a people that we have repeatedly failed to learn from the lessons of history – notorious facts of history at that. The ‘Fulanis’ have been a minority group of settlers; roaming from country to country in quest for land for cattle grazing. Speaking without an iota of bias, there is just one collective goal they seek: domination and land grabbing. Other African countries that have either been victims of their schemes or have learnt of them have been wise to shut their doors against them. On the contrary, we not only allowed them in, we failed to give a keen and watchful eye and as a result, we let their excesses grow wings. The Fulani herdsmen today are termed the fourth most dangerous terrorist group in the world owing to the hundreds of innocent lives that has been shed. Worse still is the irking despondency with which the government is handling this threat against the lives of her citizens. Implying from a wise African quote, we have allowed their menace to be indulged like the tsetse fly that perches on one’s manhood; requiring great wisdom to be killed.If attention had been paid to the disgruntled Niger Delta militants, there wouldn’t have been so much crisis and mayhem. If attention had been paid to the Islamic extremists chanting ‘War against western education’, BokoHaram would have been nipped in the bud and there wouldn’t have been need for #bringbackourgirls or #freeleah.
The narrative has always been the same. Soon again, another insurgent group would rise like the transitory nature of terrorist groups; each settling like dust upon the rise of another. Before then, we all have the responsibility as an individual, as a family, as a group to watch and protect our society from every radical minority in our society. Every dangerous looking, violent prone man or group of people must be immediately handled appropriately by the domestic authorities. It is time to throw political correctness into the trash-can where it belongs and call a spade a spade for our future’s sake! It is time to take the responsibility for our lives and that of our children into our own hands. Let us join hands in securing our future. If we will maintain peace, we must prepare for war; not one with guns but a war against every evil ideology. It starts with us. If so much wreck could be done by a radical minority, imagine what would be achieved if a fearless majority of good people in Nigeria rise up to bring sanity into our nation again.
The peaceful majority will continue to remain irrelevant until they become proactive. If we will ever bring an end to the shameless killings and maddening crises, we must identify the potential radical few and find a way to utilize them for the collective good of the society. We must always bear in mind the blunt fact that the peaceful majority does not matter but the radical minority do!
Olonade, a lawyer sent this piece from Oyo State.
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