By Arikenbi Peter Gbenga |

Dear esteemed readers, I am about to literarily swerve towards a direction that will probably be painful even to your bone marrow for our collective guilt. You have two options; you either stop reading this now or you continue reading and vent your unholy and unrefined anger on me by calling me all sorts of names. If you stop reading this, you are safe but if you read it and decide to hurl insults at me, there are two things involved. First, you would be wasting your God-given talents insulting someone who doesn’t give a hoot about your anger. Secondly, you would be making your ignorance a public knowledge. I won’t even think about you before I write another. To my potential attackers and extremists, I am not sorry for this and I remain very ungrateful for your envisaged insults and I promise not to reciprocate the insults because the last time I cursed a group of people, they dried up like leaves in the winter.
Before I go any further, let me quickly state that I would have chosen to be laconic or better still remain silent in this kind of national issue but my conscience, being the independent soldier that it is will never allow me and the constitution of our country will definitely doubt the validity of my nationality if I fail to exercise the freedom of expression it has granted to me.
Ethnicity and religion are two of the factors that define the diversity of our existence as a nation. While the first is strictly an incidence of birth, the other could also be an incidence of birth or a matter of choice. Nevertheless, out of our celebrated 'cluelessness', we fail to realize that our diversities should not be subjected to sentimental surgery in the theatre of shallow thoughts. We have indeed thrown caution into the wind. The boy born in the north cannot embrace the boy born in the east, while the southerners dare not walk freely in the northern region. I believe we all read the ultimatum given to the Igbos by the Arewa Youths telling the Igbos to vacate the north before October 1st. This is how bad it has gotten to. Things have long fallen apart and the center becomes invisible. This collaborative 'cluelessness' has deteriorated to the extent that when an issue on terrorism is raised, we are quick to point a finger of guilt to the nearest Muslim. When aggression and violence is discussed as a threat to the unity our nation longs for, we chant that the Hausas are at the vanguard of such. To us as a nation, the Igbos are the pioneers of fraudulent and dubious acts while the Yorubas comes to mind when one needs a perfect example of a dishonest and deceitful tribal group. How naïve can we be.
Now, let talk about religion. As a Muslim man, approach a typical Christian lady for a relationship that would eventually lead to marriage and watch out for her countenance and reply. At that point, you are in for another intellectual and cerebral torture of your life as innocent biblical injunctions would be murdered to corroborate bogus and laughable positions borne out of no logical basis but ignorance. Also try this, if you are an emblematic Christian young man, seek a Muslim lady’s hand in marriage and hear her tell you what even the prophet did not envisage in his teachings. It is so ironic that the need for peace, unity and love are the ready topic of these religion rabies are always ready to preach wherever they go. It’s like granting a person the right to life but telling him not to breath. I wonder where the concept of national unity and peace we lament is absent will come from when we go about hunting for a flying fish in the sky.
We have made ourselves so inherently low in orison that we do not know that if a person caught in the act of terrorism claims to be a Muslim, it is not because of his religion that he took to violence but because of the brutal nature inherent in him as a person irrespective of his religion. Our collaborative cluelessness has degenerated to a stage where we think we can place religion and ethnicity on a chart and match crimes peculiar to each. If an Hausa is arrested for attacking a man in a lone place, that does not mean that all Hausas are violent or heartless; it is because of the animalistic nature inherent in every man which he has failed to curb. I was saddened when a colleague said that Muslims are likely to be involved in the act of terrorism than Christians. That is how foolish it can get.
I have ran out of patience in expectation of the day we would realize the mystery behind our birth, the strong bound between us, the people we grow to know and that the sacrifices we are ready to render to make them happy should also accuse to our brothers and sisters from other parts of the country. No one brings his father, mother and siblings from heaven, yet we grow to adopt them as an integral part of our lives. Why then is it difficult to adopt someone just because of his religion and ethnical background? You are an Igbo today, your great-grandchildren may be the leader of a Yoruba community tomorrow. You are the choir mistress of a renewed church today, your grandson may be the chief Imam of a mosque tomorrow. Today, you are an Hausa, your next three generations may be exclusively Yorubas. Why then are we unreasonably determined to dig the grave our unborn children will come and be buried with impunity?
I read in the papers that seven Nigerians were elected into the British parliament and I said to myself it can never happen in Nigeria. When will a Gbenga be elected as a governor in Kano State or when will an Emeka be elected as a governor in Oyo state? Until this happens, the concept of one Nigeria should be thrown into the trash can. To an extent, we have grown generally myopic that we no longer dwell on credibility and merit in choice making. As long as he is a Yoruba, he has the votes from the south west. As long as her name is Ngozi, she is sure of securing a job at Nnamdi’s company. We don’t care about the credentials or the nature of the task that lies ahead. A Christian never thought the sermon that will change his life for good will be preached in a mosque and a Muslim will never accept that his life transforming blessings would come from a pastor. Unfortunately, lives have been wasted in the quest for the wrong cause and blindly orchestrated struggles.
A Muslim friend was once criticized on his Facebook wall by a group of over-knowledgeable Muslims. The reason for the criticism was so unfounded and strange. The team of over-knowledgeable people condemned my friend for saying “Happy new year”. I am fully aware that the Islamic calendar is quite different from the western one which Christians have adopted but should the difference pave way for condemning a person for the side he believes 8n or for wishing a fellow human well? Definitely, if these religion stone throwers are asked to tell us the date, they proceed to tell us the western one we all admit. It is appalling that anytime a celebratory clatter arises on a religion basis, those in the other religion seek to spoil the moment for those involved by making stupid self-constructed philosophies and derisory analysis. Please, learn to close your criticizing big mouths and follow the glorious messages of the bible and the noble teachings of the Quran like a reasonable person ought to do. No matter how good or convinced he is about his religion, a wise man will not adopt violence to win people to his side, it is done with the examples you lay with your lifestyle and not through the newly adopted loose-talking strategies.
I am a Christian but I have Muslim friends. If you see me attend a mosque for the union of a Muslim friend and his wife tomorrow and you are aggrieved, it will do you more good to shut up than allow me call you a certified hypocrite and world-class mediocre that you are. If you are a Muslim and I approach you tomorrow for employment and you turned me down because I am a Christian, it is your loss; a great loss indeed. You will be the one to lose a vibrant, competent, dynamic, resourceful, creative, promising and industrious young man in your firm. Do not even think you can substitute me; I am one of a kind, so the loss will be irredeemably bad and apparent.
To my Christian readers, your Sunday worship songs is not different from a mere ranting and packaged political brouhaha if you cannot treat your Muslim neighbor right. To my Muslim readers, you are only polluting your mosques on Fridays and wasting your time if religion is a condition precedent before you render help to the needy. To my Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba friends that can’t embrace each other, I think you should be categorized among the global natural disasters like earthquake, Tsunami, Hurricane etc.
Finally, I am a Yoruba boy, it’s likely I meet an Ibo lady reading this. I may get to like you and I would surely make my intention known to you. You are free to tell me no for any reason because I know you have the freedom of choice and I will definitely appreciate that. However, if you turn down my proposal because I am a Yoruba boy, someday, when I give birth to a daughter, I will make her after you. That is to show that I am old enough to be your father.

Source: facebook.com/universalreporter1