In the last two weeks, it has been a harvest of killings in some Nigerian higher institutions; first in the University of Maiduguri on September 29, followed by Federal Polytechnic, Mubi and lastly University of Port Harcourt. All the scenarios surrounding the killings are gruesomely disturbing.

As ugly a human undertaking as any kind of war is, none is as gruesome as a fratricidal conflict and that describes every civil war. Our three year-long experience could not have been devoid of some shameful acts on both sides, soured as it was by ethnic prejudices. But the mature and cultured mind takes it all in and allows the finest touch of the human spirit to mellow it down. That is the quality of the mentality that one would expect in an accomplished writer like Chinua Achebe.

The opening scene is four naked bodies, beaten and bloodied lying in the mud almost lifeless. A man bends down to raise a young man’s head and places a tyre over it; then came the words: “die, die…” Then a big plank is raised and brought down repeatedly on the head of one of the boys still trying to move on the floor, from the corner a big slab of concrete is hurled and it hits the face of another; in another corner lies another young man whose lips are swollen and he has a dazed look on his face…

Pat Utomi and I go a long way. Back to the middle eighties when I was the Vanguard Editor and he was one of our trusted resource persons. We relied on him for a lot of things, especially when it had to do with business and politics. If you needed an article like yesterday, (the life of an Editor) Pat was your man. And he usually delivered.

What is this madness? What kind of darkness has enveloped this nation? No light, no food, no water, bad governance; is that a recipe for barbarism thinly disguised as justice? A lady allegedly steals a phone and the punishment is to be stripped naked, her legs torn mercilessly apart while onlookers record the inner recesses of her human form for posterity. Till this day there is no evidence of the purportedly stolen phone.

Last week, 4 University of Port Harcourt students were brutally murdered in broad daylight by a baying mob in Aluu, a community in Rivers State.

Every anniversary day of Nigeria‘s Independence is generally regarded as a day when Nigerians have absolute freedom to comment on the progress or otherwise, of their country. It is that day in which the President of the country reviews the events of the past year and assures the nation of good life ahead. The President‘s address to the nation is usually awaited for by all Nigerians and comments are thus made by different people, according to their mood, political standing and predilections.

EVEN where the President of a country dies intestate these days, it may not come as a surprise. After all, most deaths now come suddenly.

DIDN’T remember to tell you yesterday, but I’ve just finished reading Achebe’s THERE WAS A COUNTRY. I’m amazed at his cavalier attitude to basic facts of history and the strident tone of victimhood along with the inability to see anything wrong with Biafra.

THE current tribal face-off between Igbo and Yoruba commentators over Professor Chinua Achebe’s book: There Was a Country is an automatic reflex.