By Elizabeth Uwandu

Little wonder, the audience that gathered at Quintessence Bookshop, Park View, Ikoyi, venue of the book reading could not help but gasp, exclaim and heave a collective sigh after Edify Yakusak, finished reading a portion of her debut book, After They Left.

The book published by Kurdan Publishing Limited, on May 2016 and which has its setting in the Northern part of Nigeria, tells the sordid tale of the life of a young woman, Mafeng and her two young children, Kim and Jugu, who struggle to overcome the chaos of inter-ethnic religious crisis.

After They Left, according to the author brings to the fore, the stand of the government whose major duty is to provide security for her citizens in the advent of a crisis, the question of justice for the perpetrators of heinous crime such as maiming and killing of innocent citizens without reasons?

Her words,  “why is it that since  2009 when the first crisis broke out in the North;  no person has been tried and persecuted for these ethnic-religious crises?”

Speaking of what inspired her to come up with the title of such a compelling and gripping book, Yakusak said that it was the need to create awareness of the dangers of violence; and the desire to know the state of mind of people before, during and after every ethnic-religious clash.  “I have never been in a crisis and most times I narrowly escape from attacks. But I have the chance to interact with people who have been affected by such attacks”.

Continuing, she said that an example of such crisis she heard and saw was the pictures of an incident in Kaduna, where her mum come from. There, majority of the villagers got killed for no reason in the thick of the night. Another case was when she saw a picture of a little girl not less than six years lying lifeless with her head chopped off. “So, each time I remember these pictures, I wasn’t inspired to write but I was haunted to do so.  Even though I hate seeing blood, I have to shut my eyes to describe the scenes in the novel. The haunting also comes from the fact that people need to know the effect of violence . The question of what happens to the victims after the killers leave? Yes , we know that there was a killing  but after the killers leave nobody writes about it and there is no news of the attack,” she said.

The young author who lamented that government’s lip service to the plight of her citizens, especially the crisis zone areas enmeshed in ethnic-religious clashes has helped fuel the spate of killing of innocent people; she called on government at all levels, especially the local authority to be more proactive, vigilant and sensitive to issues concerning their citizens rather than assuming that all is well.

“So far the government has not been on top of the situation. The killings I mentioned earlier, even the local government chairman did not even visit the scene of  attacks. I think the government has to admit first that there is a problem before proferring a solution. Well, am not sure what the reasons are for the crises. But on the Fulani issue, I will agree that there should be designated grazing areas. I know the Fulanis are nomadic because I know their life style. But if you look at the developed countries,   I know we have our own culture. Nonethe less,   if you look  at Canada which have more farm workers than Nigeria.   You will never see them on the street.   Well, the government should just give them an area. I live in Abuja and you have to wait for the herdsmen to pass.

“ My stand is that  a country where over the years millions of people have died from civil crises. Need to rise up. There should be outrage, everyone should speak out even if it is one person who is been killed not to talk of where scores of people loose their lives