By JIDE AJANI

PROLOGUE
What is evil? Where is evil?  Who is evil?  When does evil strike?  How does evil strike? We may ask these questions, not necessarily as rhetoric. But more as a function of a sense of hopelessness and helplessness!  And not because we do not have an idea of what it is; but much more because the mere thought of it evokes a feeling that would make you shriek in fear.

All men have evil constantly hovering over them like a ghost. All nations suffer the same fate. Even for Christians, The Lord’s Prayer, as encapsulated in one of the aspects of the Sermon on The Mount, by Jesus Christ, makes reference to evil – “DELIVER US FROM EVIL”.

Evil comes in different forms and ways. Can we confer omnipresence on it?  Of course, yes!  In so far as the intendment is to connote its negativity. But the common denominators are that it inflicts pain, horror, misery, malevolence, wickedness and all that can be negative. Dictionaries allude to all these.

There are, still, some questions around and about evil that may not open themselves to straight forward answers. For instance, who knows why evil thrives?  Forget about what theologians would say; but please focus on contemporary. Anything that is dubious, not straight forward, impure, negative, unfair, and sinful and which inflicts undeserving pain can fall within the realm of evil.

Take, for instance, the true story of Catholic priest Oliver O’Grady, who admitted to having molested and raped approximately 25 children in Northern California between the late 1970s and early 1990s. A documentary film was made about his evil deeds.  Now, when you try to make sense of these evil acts by a ‘man of God’, you can be right to wonder about the omnipresent nature of evil – it is everywhere; even the house of God.

However, just as the deep calls to the deep, evil, no matter how small and insignificant, begets other further evils!

The Jama’atu Ahl-Sunnati Lil Da’awati Wal Jihad, also known as Boko Haram, has been inflicting evil on a grand scale on the people of Gombe, Kogi, Kano, Kaduna, Sokoto, Yobe, Adamawa, Bauchi, Borno and Jigawa States. 

Just three weeks ago, the Joint Military Task Force, JTF, in collaboration with military forces from Niger and Chad, stormed Baga in the north-easternmost flank of Borno State.  It was an operation intended to flush out Boko Haram insurgents. There are conflicting reports about the fatalities. Evil came to Baga town in its full regalia.

In 2011, evil visited the United Nations office in Nigeria’s Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Abuja; that same year, it visited the Nigeria Police Force Headquarters in the same FCT – and earlier at the Mammy Market of the Sani Abacha  Barracks in Abuja; it visited Suleija on Christmas day in 2011; evil visited a motor park in Kano in 2012 and again in 2013 on a scale that was so massive.

To all these, President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, last week, decided to take on this evil head on by declaring a state of emergency in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa States.  Some have applauded; a few have criticized the declaration.

However, there is much more to the evil in Nigeria today than many – especially those in the corridors of power – would want to admit.

There is the evil of poverty ravaging the land; there is evil of mis-governance; there is evil of sycophancy; there is evil of extra-judicial killing; there is evil of inept leadership at almost all levels; there is evil of insurgency; there is evil of under-development; there is evil of intolerance; there is evil of conspiracy; there is evil of deceit; and there is the grand evil of corruption.  The list could go on.

If all these evils persist in the land, a question – and a reasonable one at that – that needs answering is: Who perpetrates these forms of evil? Nigerians – The leadership and the followership.

At the end of the day, there is need for deliverance.  Does that mean the land should be cleansed of the present crop of people inhabiting the area called Nigeria?  No!

The emergency rule in the three states would not solve all the problems of insurgency in the North East but it is a good move, though belated.  It follows the same pattern of declaring emergency rule in local governments, allowing, in the process, for migratory expedition on the part of insurgents.

There was carnage – another form of evil – in Nassarawa, where policemen were murdered like goats. Some policemen were also ambushed and killed in Bayelsa, President Jonathan’s home state.  Kidnappers are still on rampage in parts of  the South-South. In Benue, another killing field is being prepared anew.

Is it that the conspiracy to make Nigeria ungovernable coming to pass?  Not really.  Because, if the insurgents in the North can fit  into that theory, what about the killings in Bayelsa, Nassarawa, Benue and the rampaging kidnappers in the South-South and South-East?

What is needed is a common aspiration, one that places the Nigerian nation above ethno-religious and political considerations.  That sense of common aspiration that would not make a presidential aspirant expected to be a loyal party man abandon party agreement and take cover  under the constitution when the option of leaving the party is there, is what Nigeria needs.  That sense of common aspiration that would not make a presidential candidate and his party incite killing of innocent Nigerians in the name of protesting an election that they couldn’t have won, is what Nigeria deserves.

That common belief in a collective that greatness and full potentials can be achieved without recourse to tribal marks, tribes or tongues, is what Nigeria needs.  The conviction that stealing from the public till while institutions of state are starved of funds would create a volatile and dangerous environment and, therefore, is bad for development, is what the country needs.  The deployment of opposition politics for the general good of the nation and not for malicious gains of effervescent nature is what would lead to development.

These are the things that can deliver us from evil; not cheap threats to the corporate existence of Nigeria.  Those who issued threats in 2011 are living witnesses to the despoliation of the North-East Zone.  The rascals issuing new threats today should learn.  Just as President Jonathan should disembark from his disposition of meekness and engage a more active mode – the declaration of last week may be a little late; but not too little.