Terrorism, Senseless killings, Boko Haram, What is the way forward for Nigeria?

Terrorism, Senseless killings, Boko Haram, What is the way forward for Nigeria?

No one can say for certain when humans began to kill each other, but logic tells that humans' population has been a major factor why people kill others. Studies of the primitive people who live with little or no civilization and in small groups show that they hardly kill themselves. 

Some other primitive people who are many in population and who have neighbors are usually found to be fighting each other so as to defend their territories, and such squabble usually leads to the death of one or more people.

There are historical facts that tell of how more populous people of the past engaged in warfare mainly for the purposes of territorial defense and territorial expansion. Scuffles for territory which led to warfare also led to the invention of different war tools, artilleries, ammunition, and war tactics. Human invented terrible ways to kill members of their own species as well as cause untold damages to the environment.

 Underlying injustice is usually the root cause of why people engage in the extermination of their fellow. When others subjugate, intimidate, repress, and dominate others, then, the result is always strife and counter repression.

The social injustice from the British and Americans led to the intifada or Uprising of the subjugated Palestine in the Middle East in the 80s, and the Uprising at a time-line when the standard of education was progressing led to the rise of Islamic extremism.

People who now think that they must counter their oppressors at all cost devised means of carrying out attacks on the innocents and on installations belonging to those that are oppressing them. Then a new form of violence has become so common that it is called acts of terrorism. The terrorists, of course, are against the ideologies of the Western World whom they dimmed oppressive, and their education ideology they debunked.

The terrorists have now grown, and they are capable of carrying out complex acts of destruction. As the fire of terrorism gets rekindled by the prevalent social injustice, terrorism is bound to go on.

What is social injustice? Every human being deserves the right to have a quality living standard, but when the system does not care about all its citizens, those less-cared for becoming the fuel that fires on terrorism.

The best and most valuable care the community can give to its individual members is a well-structured system of learning and skillful human capital development. By providing equal opportunities to survive and live better, the whole community will be at peace with itself and with other fellow humans.

Nigeria's troubled situation of incessant acts of terrorism by those who do not fully benefit from the system can be cured by the establishment of equal opportunities for a high-quality school system. Every child would be given a chance to develop his/her potentials fully.

When every Nigerian child is given the potentials to be great and influential within his/her circle, then no one would want to hold others hostage and no one would victimize others.

In a nutshell, incessant turmoil in Nigeria because of frequent violent acts are due to people not well taught in schools, and the inability for institutions of leadership to provide avenues for humans to engage in worthwhile activities. Children are not well-developed through all-round learning system, and no one seems to care as long as their children are in foreign countries acquiring high-quality education.

When these children who do not have a better understanding on how to live their lives and affect their communities positively are exposed to beliefs that urges the rectification of societal differences through acts of terrorism, they see themselves as angels sent on a mission to solve the problems. Now instead of solving the problems positively, they become instruments of violence and social havoc that destabilizes the society even more.

The situation of things in the North East is just the function of unresolved social injustice where the rich subjugate the poor. The rich use the half-baked education they acquire to intimidate to more numerous poor folks.

The rich live in opulence and lavished lifestyle while the poor wallow in extreme poverty and want. The can easily be convinced into the crime world, or be recruited into factions that are bent on making a bold and violent statement about social injustice. Then they become terrorists and devil’s incarnate.

All acts terrorism and all terrorist groups including our Boko Haram had its beginning rooted in the social injustice of the society, and to permanently eradicate the monster, the problem has to be solved from the root cause. Now, surprisingly creating equal opportunities for the rich and the poor can effectively be carried out right from the early developmental stage of the human mind.

At that early developmental stage, the mind is free and open to being molded properly. When there are equal opportunities in the academies students engage in, they become more collaborative and responsive to each other's needs. But when the academies segregate the rich from the poor, the divisive effect transcends to the society where the rich subjugate the poor and the poor fight it out through acts of terrorism.

Bridging the gap between the rich and the poor through adequate all-round education of the rich kids and the poor kids is the way forward to the eradication of terrorism in our land. The question now is who and how can we create a society that bridges the gap between the elites and the common people? The government seems to be living in another world from the people and looking up to them to bridge the gap looks more like fantasy. The people also seem not to care about their fellow. Each to his or her own, and families care about just their own well-being irrespective of others right to live.

Well, I’m optimistic that the condition Nigeria found itself can change to better. We can recreate our system and bridge the widening gap between the well-to-do and the not-too-well-to-do. We can endeavor to live more harmoniously when we rectify the differences in our school system. So let us work hard to form a system of education that bridges the widening gap between the rich and the poor. When we achieve this, we can be sure that the problem of terrorism, senseless killing, and Boko Haram would be gone forever.