By Denrele Animasaun

“Begin, be bold, and venture to be wise.”   Horace

When terror visited London ten years ago, it started like any other day. Except it was anything but ordinary. Four suicide bombers struck in central London on Thursday 7 July killing 52 people and injuring more than 770. It was a coordinated attack that was to have maximum impact; hit the transport system during the morning rush hour, the suicide bombers detonated their bombs on the underground and on the buses.

Like everyone else in London, I was rushing to get to work.   As one does; I was thinking about deadlines and planning the mundane things that we often think it is so important that can’t wait. Like any other day, the roads was busy and bustling and everyone going about their daily lives. Nothing unusual or out of the ordinary that day, that is, until the radio announced that there has been an explosion in London. Our side of the world stood still that day. Eerily, the whole place went cold; it became silent and the street, desolate. You do what comes to mind: you reach out to your loved ones, but the networks were down. My whole being was to be with my family right there and then. But I could not. The city that never slept was in lock down.

So I, along with thousand others, made our way down the roads, walking together with complete strangers but we were together in not knowing what to expect. Yet, I felt lost and alone. I walked for miles while praying that all will be well. I got a call from Nigeria; my brother-in-law has been watching the news and wanted to know if all is well. So the outside world knew more than we did?   This must be serious.   I assured him, we were well. What do you say to someone thousands of miles away? We were the lucky ones, when I finally got home later that day, I got to hug my kids and we sat to reflect on the day of the attacks.

Our lives changed that day: I have learnt not to take anything for granted. I have also learnt that love is better than hate. I appreciate that I live in a place where we live side by side regardless of our differences. On that day terror had indeed visited the capital on 7/7 and 52 people died and countless injured and maimed while going about their daily lives. Their lives extinguished, hope and future dimmed.

For those who survived, they live the horrors and carried the evidence of that day with them daily.

That day, I saw the best and the worst of humanity. It is a lesson for us all that we can only win when we stand together. Only that way, we stay stronger than any merchants of terror and hatred and stronger.

Ten years on, more horrors and acts of terrorism continue to blight lives around the globe. In London, the terror attack happened 10 years ago but we moved on and we cannot forget. Terror cannot be allowed to reign and fester. We cannot let these mindless zealots win; we will stand together and dispel the extremist ideology.   Leading the 10-year memorial of the bombing, the bishop of London, the Right Rev Richard Chartres led a pledge by leaders of faith communities, including Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu and others: “We stand united in our determination to resist and overcome the evil of terrorism. We belong to different faiths and traditions but we share a common grief at the suffering which has been inflicted on so many of our fellowmen and women, here and abroad.”

Home so they say, charity begins at home. In Nigeria, we have become so desensitised to the death tolls and incessant terrorist attacks by Boko Haram. Last week, a girl aged about 13 was killed when explosives strapped to her body went off near a major mosque in Kano. Alarmingly, Boko Haram militants have increasingly used young girls and women as human bombs.

Time watched helplessly as the news roll in that Boko Haram continues to attack town and cities with impunity, kill, maim and abduct innocent people while they hold the whole country and neighbouring nations to ransom. So far, Boko Haram insurgents have killed around 200 people in the last one week. And since 2002, Amnesty International puts the toll at 23,000 dead. Another 1.5 million people have been driven from their homes.

Boko Haram also launched a string of cross border raids, last week alone more than 200 people died in a string of attacks inside Nigeria. With the latest attack, more than 550 people have been killed since Buhari’s inauguration, and the president has vowed to crush the rebellion with the help of an 8,700-strong regional military force.

Nigeria is sleep walking and existing in a living nightmare and it     is about time that decisive action was taken to eradicate the scourge of our society; they do not have a place in Nigeria. Time that Nigeria began to rebuild and start healing. In London, 52 people died in 7/7 but 52 was one too many and since then, the country has got itself together to ensure that the security measures are robust and the successive administration spent millions of pounds to reduce radicalisation in youths.

Most of all, peoples’ lives matter and in Nigeria, it needs to place value on human lives once more. We have become too aloof and disconnected about the incessant waste of lives. We can no longer do so, the denial of these tragedy has stopped us dealing with the problem head on but   also   it means that it allowed the perpetrators to continue to carry   out  their  dastardly   and  atrocious   activities with  little or no resistance. Terror feeds on fear and the time to be passive is long gone. I know that Buhari and his administration have pledged to act and we need to hold them to it. People of Nigeria have suffered for far too long and we need to change our mind-set: this is not one people or one religion problem, the problem is everybody and the solution has to include all.

The latest is that Boko Haram is offering to hand over more than 200 girls kidnapped last year in exchange for the release of a number of militant leaders being held by the government. I do hope that the government refuse to negotiate with terrorists.