THIS is an appeal and an invitation to our people to consider their actions in the days ahead. Riots have broken out in some parts of the country, supposedly over the results of the presidential election.

Bombs have been going off in enough numbers for people to lose count. While contemplating the implications of one blast, another one interrupts the thoughts with its intensity and timing.

Our people are dying, usually the poor, and the weak – those who the promoters of these protests use to cause mayhem. Their relations are normally kilometres away from the disaster they push to draw attention to their cause.

Why would anyone allow himself to be the purveyor of these dangerous materials? Do the porters of the bombs think of the lives they are wasting? Sometimes they die in the process. Do they realise that they would account for their actions someday? Have the perpetrators of these evils thought about the consequences of their actions for the stability of the country?

Bombs and riots cannot be the best way of expressing displeasure with electoral results. There are more civil options including peaceful protests. The courts (electoral tribunals) are also available to contenders who want to state their grievances.

Democracy, on the bases of which elections hold, and our supporting laws accept these moves as part of the process that could strengthen our ambitious journey through civil rule.

Someone will win an election. Someone will lose. Winner and loser still work for the good of the people (and democracy) because the winner would know that the loser could be tomorrow’s winner.

It is no longer enough to subscribe to democracy with the belief that we would win all the time and the other party must lose. Our people have to understand the democratic cultures of accepting that winning and losing are sides of the coin – either could come to the candidate in an election.

As the riots continue, we have to spare a thought for our country. For more than two years, lives have been continually lost in Bauchi, Jos, Ibadan, Maiduguri, Abuja, Kaduna, Kano, Uyo and other places that have planted  themselves in the mind for mindless killings. The blood letting solved nothing, the latest ones are unlikely to do better.

How do those behind the confusion feel? What do they think about the waste of lives? What emboldens them to continue in their perfidious ways?

Government has been slow in prosecuting lawlessness. It can start now. It has enough backlog of cases which if prosecuted can serve as warning to future trouble makers that their enterprise is not profitable.

Traditional, religious and political leaders should call their people to order. The Sultan of Sokoto Alhaji Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar in a Sallah message last year remarked, “God created Nigerians with diverse religious and linguistic backgrounds to co-exist peacefully. Therefore, we should unite and vote for people who will give top priority to national development rather than personal agenda.” He repeated a similar message few days to the elections.

Nigerians should heed this advise and let peace – the only condition under which we can state our case, if any – to reign. We cannot find solution to our situation in confusion.