OUR SILENCE WILL CONSUME US

 

Photo by Juan Encalada on Unsplash

(My dear reader, this is quite a long one. An exceptionally long one. I considered splitting it into multiple articles, but I have left it as one article because I believe it should be consumed as a whole, or some context will be lost. Please, bear with me and read to the end. I think this message is critical.)

“Finally, they came for me and there was no one left to speak out.”

Is that line familiar to you? Have you ever heard of Martin Niemöller? How about Adolf Hitler? Nazis? World War 2? The Holocaust? Concentration camps? I hope you have because I would like to draw a connection between Martin Niemöller and his Germany, and contemporary Nigeria and Nigerians, especially Nigerians who identify as Christian leaders in government, business, and faith-based organizations. (In case you have not, I have embedded hyperlinks to articles that you can read.)

Martin Niemöller was a prominent German Pastor and an anti-Nazi theologian. In 1937, he was arrested by Hitler’s secret police, the Gestapo. He was sent to concentration camps at Sachsenhausen and Dachau. In 1945, he was moved to the Tirol in Austria, and it was there that the Allied forces freed him at the end of the Second World War. Do you know, however, that he was one of those who voted Hitler into power?

Martin Niemöller joined the German Navy as a teenager and when the First World War broke out in 1914, he fought in the war and eventually became a commander of a U-Boat. At the end of the war, Niemöller and other commanders were ordered to turn over their U-Boats to England. He and many others disobeyed this order and were discharged from the Navy. He tried his hand at farming but could not afford to buy a farm. Subsequently, Niemöller, son of a Lutheran Pastor, went for seminary training and eventually became a Lutheran Pastor.

Germany suffered socially and economically after the war. About two million young men had been killed during the war, and another 4.2 million had been wounded. There was malnutrition too, within the civilian population, and starvation because the cost of living had risen exponentially. Germany had to pay reparations and lost some of its colonial territories. There was hyperinflation and the value of the German currency declined too. People who would have been considered as middle class became destitute. There was massive unemployment as millions of Germans lost their jobs between 1929 and 1930. Niemöller was extremely critical of the Weimar Republic, the German democratic government from 1918 to 1933, which comprised of the Social Democrats and Independent Social Democrats. Niemöller believed that they had crippled Germany economically and politically. There was also a cultural change in Germany. German cities became some of the most socially liberal places in Europe, with a thriving nightlife and sexual liberation.

Hitler attempted a coup in 1923, and Niemöller was in support of that attempt to overthrow the government. He believed that Germany needed a strong leader and felt that the Weimar Republic had allowed for damaging social fragmentation. When Hitler and the National Socialist Party (Nazi) emerged with the right slogans, Niemöller thought they would save his beloved Germany, and he voted for the Nazis in the state elections in 1924, and in the national parliamentary elections in March 1933. Hitler was impressive. According to the Holocaust Encyclopaedia, he advocated for the importance of Christianity to German nationality and Christianity’s role in a renewal of morality and ethics. His conservative and nationalistic ideologies impressed Niemöller. He called the years of the Weimer Republic the “years of darkness”, and hailed Hitler for beginning a national revival.

Hitler assumed dictatorial powers almost immediately after he came to power. The first target was the communists; the government banned the Communist Party and arrested communists. Niemöller was silent. When declared the Nazi Party to be the only political party in Germany, Niemöller was silent. When the first concentration camp was opened in Dachau, to house political opponents, Niemöller was silent. When the police were authorized to search people’s houses arbitrarily and arrest people, Niemöller was silent. When trade unions were banned to prevent workers from organizing any opposition, Niemöller was silent. When Jewish civil servants were dismissed, Niemöller was silent. When books written by Jewish, pacifist or left-wing writers were burned, Niemöller was silent – his book, From U-Boat to Pulpit was a bestseller.

When the government interfered with Church, Niemöller finally found his voice. Christians of Jewish descent were to be barred from ministry and religious teaching positions, converted Jews were to be expelled from the church, and Jewish elements, including the Old Testament, were to be excluded from Christian theology. Niemöller protested this interference in church affairs by the Nazi Party. He formed a coalition with other pastors, called the Pastors Emergency League (PEL). Yet, Niemöller still supported Hitler and the Nazis. His only grouse was that the State should not interfere in internal church matters. He justified the prejudice against Jews because they were “guilty of killing Jesus”. When Germany left the League of Nations (the precursor to the United Nations), Niemöller sent a congratulatory message to Hitler and emphasized his patriotism.

By 1934, Niemöller finally realized that Germany was in a dictatorship. His phone was tapped by the Gestapo, and the PEL was under their surveillance. Church leaders had to sign statements of unconditional loyalty to Adolf Hitler. Niemöller and others founded the Confessing Church in opposition to Hitler’s control of the church. He was critical of the Nazi regime in his sermons, despite warnings from the police, and he became their customer as he was repeatedly arrested between 1934 and 1937. He called Hitler a “heathen”, and once shouted at him, “Not you, Mr Hitler, but the Lord is my Fuehrer!” (Fuehrer, also spelt Führer, is a German word that means leader” or guide and was Adolf Hitler’s political title.)

The arrest in July 1937 was different though. He was charged with “treasonable statements” and kept in solitary confinement for seven and a half months until his trial. He was convicted in February 1938 and sentenced to seven months detention and a fine of 2000 Reichsmarks. Because he had served the equivalent of that sentence while awaiting trial, the Court released him, but the Gestapo arrested him immediately, and this time, without bothering with a trial, he was incarcerated in Sachsenhausen concentration camp. From there, he was transferred to Dachau, in 1941, where he shared a room with Catholic dissenters. By this time, Hitler had started the deadliest conflict in known human history, the Second World War. In April 1945, along with other high-ranking prisoners, he was transported to the Alpine Fortress, possibly to be used as hostages in surrender negotiations. Although the guards had orders to kill them instead of letting the Allied Forces liberate them, they were taken into protective custody by regular German troops (the Wehrmacht), and eventually liberated by the US Army.

“I am paying for that mistake now; and not me alone, but thousands of other persons like me.”

By the time Hitler’s reign over Germany ended, at the end of the Second World War, more than 6.5 million Germans had been killed, and at least one-third of the dead were civilians. Thirty-nine percent of residential buildings were destroyed or seriously damaged in 49 of the largest cities in Germany, and people were rendered homeless. Agricultural production was only 35% of what it was before the war. Survivors carried the burden of losses – limbs, loved ones, properties, livelihoods.

While he was in Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp, Niemöller shared a prison cell with Leo Stein. Leo Stein reports that while in prison with Niemöller, he once asked him how he ever joined the Nazis. Niemöller answered:

“I find myself wondering about that too. I wonder about it as much as I regret it. Still, it is true that Hitler betrayed me. I had an audience with him, as a representative of the Protestant Church, shortly before he became Chancellor, in 1932. Hitler promised me on his word of honour, to protect the Church, and not issue any anti-Church laws. He also agreed not to allow pogroms against the Jews, assuring me as follows: ‘There will be restrictions against the Jews, but there will be no ghettos, no pogroms, in Germany’…. Hitler’s assurance satisfied me at the time. On the other hand, I hated the growing atheistic movement, which was fostered and promoted by the Social Democrats and the Communists. Their hostility toward the Church made me pin my hopes on Hitler for a while. I am paying for that mistake now; and not me alone, but thousands of other persons like me.”

One of Niemöller’s deepest regrets was that when he could, he did nothing to help the victims of the Nazis until he became a victim. He said that his time in prison changed his perspective. The quote at the beginning of this piece is the last line of a piece attributed to Niemöller. Here is the full piece, which I consider as a summary of the critical lesson from Niemöller’s experience:

First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out because I was not a communist.

Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.

Finally, they came for me and there was no one left to speak out.

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What has this got to do with us anyway? The Third Reich ended more than 60 decades ago. Hitler is dead. Niemöller is dead. But I see elements of his and the German experience re-enacted in Nigeria in recent times. We the people were angered by the removal of petrol subsidy in January 2012, and the level of corruption. Some people packaged a dictator as the Great Reformer, the one who was going to bring change to Nigeria. Instead of asking "how", some of us just ran with bogus campaign promises and amplified them, changed the social media landscape with partisan violence, and brought in the government of Change. Yet what has become of Nigeria? I see a blend of anarchy, totalitarianism, despotism, and a lot of atrocities, yet, it appears to me as if we are silent bystanders. It is as if we think that it does not concern us. Also, maybe, the recipients of the atrocities are people who are not of our tribe, people we disagree with, people we think have done wrong, some of them responsible for atrocities too. So, we amuse ourselves with the spectacle, defend the ridiculous, or turn our faces away. There is a fire burning, but because we cannot feel the heat, even though we see the flames from afar, we continue as if all is well, and we do nothing to put out the fire.

On August 2, 2019, a lecturer at the Federal University Dutsinma, Katsina State, and a popular social media critic, Abubakar Idris, also called Dadiyata, was taken from his house in Barnawa, Kaduna State. He has not been seen or heard from since. Government and security officials have denied knowledge of his whereabouts. No one has demanded any ransom from the family. The hashtag #WhereisDadiyata trends from time to time, but there is no trace of Dadiyata, neither is there any statement from the government on efforts to find him. Instead, sons of the governor of Kaduna State have made obscene comments about his disappearance. Someone’s husband. Someone’s father. Someone’s son. Someone’s friend. Someone’s brother. Disappeared. No trace. We are silent. We do not feel the heat.

On February 19, 2018, 110 schoolgirls were kidnapped from Government Girls’ Science and Technical College, Dapchi, in Yobe State. The circumstances surrounding the kidnap are frightening. Ibrahim Giadam, the governor of Yobe State at the time, claimed that the Nigerian Army removed a military checkpoint from the town shortly before the kidnapping, without informing the local police or state government. Five of the girls reportedly died on the same day they were kidnapped. On March 21, 2018, 104 of the girls were returned. One girl was left behind. Her name is Leah Sharibu. She is still in captivity. She was only 14 when she was kidnapped. She is not just another hashtag. She is someone’s daughter too. We are silent. We do not feel the heat.

On April 14, 2014, about 276 girls were taken from a government secondary school in Chibok town, Borno State. It is shameful that we do not the exact number kidnapped. 57 of the girls jumped from the kidnappers’ trucks and escaped. The others were taken as captives. #BringBackOurGirls #BBOG. Over the years, 107 girls have been found or released. About 112 girls are still missing. Families are in limbo. It is beyond the hashtags for them. They cannot mourn as if their daughters are dead. They oscillate between hope and hopelessness. They do not know in what form their daughters will return home, if they ever will, yet they know that their girls are scarred forever, and they are helpless. We are silent. We do not feel the heat.

On August 10, 2020, Yahaya Sharif-Aminu was found guilty of blasphemy by a Sharia Court in Kano. He was sentenced to death by hanging. What did Yahaya Sharif-Aminu do? He composed a song, and some Muslims consider the song as blasphemous because the song praised an imam from the Tijaniyya Muslim brotherhood and elevated him above the Muslim Prophet Muhammed. A mob attacked Sharif-Aminu’s house and set it ablaze. He escaped, but his parents were arrested until he was eventually arrested. Will this move us to speak up?

Same August 10, 2020, 13-year-old Omar Farouq, on the cusp between childhood and adolescence, was sentenced by the same court in Kano to 10 years in prison for blasphemy. He was tried as an adult under Islamic law. His crime was that in an argument with a friend, he used foul language toward Allah. 

Photo by Tingey Injury Law Firm on Unsplash

Mubarak Bala criticized Christianity and Islam in Nigeria in some of his Facebook posts. Lawyers in Kano complained about one post about the Muslim Prophet Muhammed. Yes, people who went to university and studied law, then went to law school and were called to the bar in Nigeria. To them, Mubarak Bala had committed the ultimate “crime” of blasphemy. That should not be surprising though, because in July 2018, some Muslim students at the Nigerian Law School, Lagos campus, attempted to lynch one of their classmates for writing a “blasphemous” article against the Muslim Prophet Muhammed. None of the suspected attempted "lynchers" were penalized, and the “blasphemer” had to flee for his life. 

Another reason all these should not be surprising, even though they must be reprehensible, is this old tweet below, by a Personal Assistant to the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria on New Media, whose state of origin is Kano, and who is a university graduate.

Police arrested Mubarak Bala in Kaduna, where he lived, and took him to… guess where… Kano! His lawyers and his wife who had given birth to a baby some weeks before his arrest have not had access to him, and he has not been formally charged to court, even though he has been detained since April 28, 2020.

Meanwhile, Kano State has the highest number of out-of-school children in Nigeria, according to the UNICEF. Also, in 2018, a video appeared of the governor receiving wads of US dollars as a kickback from a government contractor. The governor went on to “win” his second term bid as governor of the state. Kano has one of the highest under-five mortality rates in Nigeria. Out of every 1000 children under five in Kano, according to the last Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (2016/2017) carried out by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), with technical support provided by the UNICEF, 203 children die before their fifth birthday. In Kano, only 7.8 percent of children born live are weighed at birth. The indices for underweight, stunted, and wasted children under age 5 are very poor, poorer than the national average, meaning that even though “there is rice in Kano”, there is malnutrition there too. More than 50% of young women age 15 to 24 in Kano are not literate. Only about 35% of children of primary school entry age are enrolled in school, and it is not that the rest are home-schooled. All of these have not sparked protests. The lawyers in Kano who reported Mubarak Bala to the police have not reported these issues. But there is rice in Kano, so let me leave Kano for now and take you somewhere else.

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Let us go to Southern Kaduna. There is a long history of conflict in Southern Kaduna that takes a religious bent because Southern Kaduna is predominantly Christian, and the other party is predominantly Muslim herdsmen. I will not comment on the cause of the conflict, but on the attackers and victims, especially in the recent attacks. If I have a neighbour who is an Uber or Taxify driver, and I steal their car and sell it, depriving them of their livelihood, and my neighbour retaliates by coming to my house at night to rape my children and kill them, is there any justification for my neighbour’s actions? What if my father killed my neighbour’s brother a while ago, and my neighbour retaliates by coming to my house to rape and kill my children? Is there any legal or moral justification? Why could my neighbour not seek justice the right way? That is why I will not discuss whether the people of Southern Kaduna have provoked the violence they have received. If they have, their attackers and violators should have sought redress through the appropriate systems of justice. The genocide in Southern Kaduna is evil!

Scores of people, including children, babies, have been killed in Southern Kaduna this year, yet statements from the state and federal government debate whether the carnage is religious or cultural and ask for cooperation between the farming indigenous communities and the nomadic herders. In 2016, the governor of Kaduna State said that his government paid aggrieved Fulani herders to stop the killings in Southern Kaduna. The government’s approach to that resolution is confounding, but maybe it could be excused if it solved the problem! Here we are four years later, and the killings have continued. This month, a peace summit held to resolve the “conflict” and a few days after the summit, another village in Southern Kaduna was invaded. Houses were burnt, and two persons were burnt to death and beyond recognition in their homes. Families are broken and grieving. Farmers fear to go to their farmlands. More people are converted to internally displaced persons, as their homes are no longer safe. How long will the killings continue? Why are the federal and state governments unable to fulfil their duty to protect Nigerian citizens?

A radio station domiciled in Lagos State interviewed Dr Obadiah Mailafia, a former deputy governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, on the killings in Southern Kaduna. He was critical of the government’s response to the horrible situation in Southern Kaduna and mentioned that he had heard that a northern governor was involved in the terrorist activities. He did not mention the name of any governor. Instead of focusing on bringing an end to the violence in Southern Kaduna, the radio station was fined heavily, and Dr Mailafia has been interrogated three times by the Department of State Services (DSS). You would expect that the formal media would speak up and condemn and reject these dictatorial harassments with one voice. Instead, you have some of them defending the government, and rationalizing the ludicrous. Also, with all that is going on in the North, what pained some Northern lawyers who decided to form their bar association was the disinvitation of the governor of Kaduna State from an NBA event. These other issues did not rile them collectively.

One great thing about writing is that you cannot tell writer, “Off your mic,” the way the House Committee Chairperson probing the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) quieted the Niger Delta Minister in July, during an interrogation on allegations of financial recklessness and misappropriation of funds levelled against the NDDC management when the minister told lawmakers that they are the biggest beneficiaries of the corruption in the NDDC. If you don’t know what I am talking about, you can watch the video here. Before then, the NDDC Managing Director had slumped dramatically during his interrogation. Many shocking revelations were exposed during the public hearings. The Speaker of the House of Representatives of Nigeria asked the minister to present proof of his allegation. The minister named some names, but the lawmakers identified denied their involvement. The minister has also recanted. What will the outcome of this probe be? The Niger Delta region is still lacking tangible development, 20 years after the establishment of the NDDC. Some NDDC scholars, Nigerian students sponsored abroad for further studies by the NDDC, are yet to receive money for their tuition. They are stranded in a foreign country, and we are silent! After all, na we send dem message?

As I write this, it is election day in Edo State. This election is similar to the last one: the popular contenders are the same. They only swapped political parties. Earlier in the week, the Federal Government of Nigeria sponsored an empowerment programme for women and youth in Edo State, implemented through the National Directorate of Employment (NDE), and chaired by the wife of one of the gubernatorial candidates. A few days to the election, the Federal Government just randomly selected Edo State of all the other states in Nigeria to be the recipient of micro-loans. With the election on September 19, the government partnered with the wife of a candidate in the election to empower women and youth in Edo from September 15 to 17 with ten thousand naira each, accessible only with the Permanent Voter’s Card (PVC). Our commonwealth is being used for vote-buying, and we are silent! I hope the people of Edo State have the guts to vote their conscience. I hope they know they do not have to be held to ransom because of ten thousand naira or the cheap fabrics and any other items they have received from the political parties.

But there is rice in Kano

Photo by Thought Catalog on Unsplash

The Nigerian government also appears to be playing a game of “suwe” with our collective wellbeing and economy. There may be rice in Kano, but there is malnutrition in Nigeria. According to the UNICEF, an estimated 2 million children in Nigeria suffer from severe acute malnutrition. Women of childbearing age also suffer malnutrition, and this affects the birth weight and development of their children. Malnutrition causes death. It also causes stunting and wasting. Stunting is linked to “poor cognitive development, lowered performance in education and low productivity in adulthood,” which contribute to economic losses, and could have other dire consequences, because low productivity can impact on the quality of infrastructure and services, and cause preventable accidents and deaths. Economic losses contribute to economic decline, which contributes to insecurity and the inability to afford food. One major cause of malnutrition in Nigeria is food security. Food insecurity in Nigeria is worsened by poor infrastructure, security crises that have destroyed farm produce and displaced farmers, natural disasters, like the recent floods in Kebbi, and the impacts of climate change.

Instead of reducing the proportion of Nigerians who suffer hunger and malnutrition, the government seems bent on increasing the numbers. Food consumed 56.65% of the household expenditure in Nigeria in 2019, and this was dominated by starchy roots, tubers, plantain, and rice because these are typically cheaper than protein foods, fruits, and vegetables. Protein intake by Nigerians, especially the vulnerable populations (children and women of reproductive age), is insufficient. Food is more expensive in 2020 than it was in 2019. Food inflation rate recorded for August 2020 is 16%. The average Nigerian has less purchasing power and reduced ability to purchase the same quality of food. Maize is a major input for poultry farmers in Nigeria, and eggs and chicken, are a major source of animal protein, a critical nutrition requirement that Nigerians are not consuming enough of. Eggs are also a major input for bread, a key staple in the Nigerian diet. Yet, while Nigeria was experiencing a shortfall in our production capacity for maize, the Nigerian government restricted maize imports. The reason they gave is that they want to encourage local production. As expected, this affected the availability and price of poultry feed, and consequently, the quality and price of eggs and bread, as poultry farmers had to reduce the quantity of feed their birds consume. What does our government do next? Do they admit their mistake and remove the restrictions on maize imports? Well, the Federal Government of Nigeria gives special approval to four companies to import maize. The government created the scarcity and then fattens a few people at the expense of the rest of the nation.

Remember that this is the year of our Lord 2020 and COVID. As at the second quarter of this year, about 21.7 million Nigerians are unemployed. Another 22.9 million are underemployed. These unemployed and underemployed people have dependents too. Doing business in Nigeria is hard. VAT was raised from 5% to 7.5% this year. The government is still playing ten-ten with the deregulation of the petroleum sector, and the price of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), also called petrol, has increased. Electricity tariff has also increased by more than 100%. The value of the naira fell this year, and prices of many things have increased. Cost of transportation has also increased. Yet, for the average employed or underemployed Nigerian, income has not increased. And there is still COVID-19 in 2020.

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These examples are not exhaustive of the rape of Nigeria, but they suffice as examples of how all is not well in Nigeria. What is happening in Nigeria is not normal and it is not okay. We may speak up individually in private corners, or in whispers, and we may make jokes out of the mess too, but until we collectively speak up against the ongoing injustices and denounce tyranny, WE ARE SILENT. As long as we continue to give excuses for government failure, WE ARE SILENT. As long as we do not use our platforms and privileges to speak the truth to power, WE ARE SILENT. Nigeria is on fire, yet we are not able to organize ourselves and send a strong statement to our rulers to stop setting Nigeria ablaze by their actions and inactions. WE ARE SILENT when we prioritise our stomach over our future, when we prioritise our private gain over our collective pain. The massacres and kidnappings may be happening in other faraway states, the people arrested may not be of our tribes or ethnicity, we may be economically privileged to have created bubbles, where the impact of government anyhowness and bad policies do not get to us. Whatever sense of security keeping us silent is false. One day, our bubbles will burst, and the evils that we have enabled by our indifferent or cowardly silence will consume us.

Na turn by turn. If we do not collectively do something about Nigeria, something will eventually do us in. The truth is, we are more than they are. If we speak together and act together in our collective interests, they are no match for us. But you see sha, if our critical mass remains silent, they will eventually come for us. Do not make Martin Niemöller’s mistake, stop excusing government tyranny because it does not disturb your interests. That route will surely end in tears: you may be the next victim. If we are silent now, who will speak for us when they come for us?

Perhaps, another day, I will tell you about Dietrich Bonhoeffer, another Lutheran Pastor who spoke against Hitler, and who was killed at Flossenburg Concentration Camp, two weeks before the camp was liberated by US soldiers. But today, I will remind you of one of Bonhoeffer’s most famous quote:

“Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”

Let me also remind you of this line from one of Bukola Elemide and Cobhams Asuquo’s songs: “One day, the river will overflow, and there’ll be nowhere for us to go, and we will run, run, wishing we had put out the fire.”

*I used the word "tribe" to mean a variety of groupings, various groupings based on socioeconomic categories, religion, denomination, politics, profession, and other interests. It is different from ethnicity.

PS. Dear Professor Remy O. Oriaku, thank you for introducing Martin Niemöller’s famous lines to me, and also for being one of the greatest teachers in the world.

*Update: The people of Edo State rejoiced after the election mentioned above. Maybe it was the threats of visa revocation or asset seizure. Maybe it was INEC improvements. Maybe it was the fact that the people of Edo State rejected silence. There is hope, if we reject silence.