THE title of this article is wrong. Shekau, whether the name is a title, an office or a human being, leads a murderous gang who live on the ideology that “Western Education is Evil” (Boko Haram). That is why I said the title of the article is on the wrong premise. He cannot be a student of history. But even if it is Arabian history, he should have learnt or even heard by oral tradition since he would not subject himself to the formal Western form of education, stories of people like him who had taken up arms against humanity. As a seminarian, I went through the study of Islamic religion and studied the Koran and little bit of Arabic language. I would expect that the one who occupies the office of a Shekau, if it is an office, or the person of Shekau’s caliber should acquaint himself with the knowledge of the religion he hates so much, Christianity. If he has no knowledge of Christianity and the Holy Bible, then he hates Christianity out of ignorance.
However, the point I am trying to make is that, if he has any knowledge of the stories in the Bible, he should have heard about lunatics before him in the Holy Bible, ancient and modern history. In the Book of Exodus, we read about the Pharaohs who oppressed the Jews. When Moses asked him to let the people of Israel go, he replied; “Who is Yahweh for me to obey what He says and let Israel go? I know nothing of Yahweh and I will not let Israel go” (Exodus 5:2). When the Yahweh whom Pharaoh defied started showing His powers, it was Pharaoh himself who sent for Moses and Aaron in the night. “It was still dark when Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron and said, ‘Up, leave my subjects, you and the Israelites! Go and worship Yahweh as you have asked! And take your flocks and herds as you have asked, and go! And bless me too!’” (Exodus 12:31-32). Imagine Pharaoh asking for blessing from the Yahweh he had derided and challenged. A second story from the Holy Bible is that of King Nebuchadnezzar and the three young men, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. The King had set up his own golden statue and wanted everyone to abandon his or her religion to worship it. But these three young men refused to obey him. Instead they continued to worship the living God of the Jewish people. Then the Bible recounts, “At that the king flew into a rage and ordered the three men to be brought before him. He said to them, ‘Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, is it true that you refuse to worship my god and to bow down to the gold statue I have set up? Now then, as soon as you hear the sound of the trumpets, oboes, lyres, zithers, harps, and all the other instruments, bow down and worship the statue. If you do not, you will immediately be thrown into a blazing furnace. Do you think there is any god who can save you’ from my hands?” (Daniel 3: 1ff). The account went that the young men refused to worship as directed by the king and they were thrown into the pit of burning fire but they were protected by an Angel sent by God to them in the fire. Eventually King Nebuchadnezzar himself declared “Praise the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego… now I command that if anyone of any nation, race, or language speaks disrespectfully of the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, he is to be torn limb from limb and his house is to be made a pile of ruins. There is no other god who can rescue like this… listen to my account of the wonders and miracles which the Supreme God has shown me. How great are the wonders God shows us! How powerful are the miracles he performs! God is king for ever; he will rule for all time” (Daniel 3 & 4). I would not burden you with further stories from the scriptures but let us look at history, not too distant history.
Adolf Hitler took on the world. He hated other colours especially the Blacks and the Jews. He was reputed to have gassed to death over six million Jews and the war he waged killed many thousands if not millions of other persons. Because of his Second World War, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed in 1945. Up to today, children born in these two places still have effects of the gaseous event that happened about 70 years ago. He had declared in the peak of his seeming success and delusion “I believe today that my conduct is in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator”. Today, the whole world knows that he was wrong. God Almighty could not have asked him to kill and burn human beings without a cause. We hear Shekau saying he and his cohort are holding the girls in bondage and bombing places of worship of Christians and normal regular Muslims who sympathize with Christians, they are to kill all Christians and attack government facilities with bombs and grenades. He said they are doing all these in accordance with instructions of Allah and the Holy Prophet Mohammed.
I remember Lawrence Anini, “the Law” who held the Nigerian security outfit in the old Midwest by the jugular veins. He robbed with impunity. He was invincible and invisible and many thought he had power to appear and disappear until Ibrahim Babangida, the then President asked the Inspector General of Police, “Where is Anini?” His talisman, Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP), George Iyamu was decoded. I was a student then and I watched Anini wearing a rosary bead, sitting on a wheel chair saying he had repented and would assist the police to arrest other armed robbers like him. It is always the story. The rest is now history.
There have been many people before him who have hated other religions, beliefs, colours and nations but today are only remembered in infamy. Two cases in point are that of the African Americans in the United States of America. They were held in bondage and dehumanized for centuries by the instrumentality of slavery and subsequent racism that followed it. The slave trade ended in the market but thrived in the heart and actions of White Separatist movements. The Ku Kluz Klan (KKK) torched, burnt houses and establishments of and killed the Black people of United States for a long time. Martin Luther King Jnr stood up for equality and he was killed but today, the truth holds sway. A black African of Kenyan patriarchal lineage is today the president of the United States of America. For a long time Black South Africans and the coloured people were not regarded as human beings in their own soil. They could not vote and move freely without a pass in the only country they could call their own. All decent public places, shops, parks, buses, trains, waiting lounges and halls and even places of worship were marked “Blacks Not Allowed”. These are now history since 1990 when Nelson Mandela was released from prison and non-racial and non-discriminatory elections were held in 1994. All these go to show that evil may seem to succeed but truth and brotherhood always triumph. Human beings cannot play God for too long.
Boko Haram seems to be a murderous behemoth at the moment, but it has expiration date. I have watched twice the documentary on the Killing of Osama Bin Laden. I watched how the Americans took time to plan painstakingly and patiently. I watched Osama Bin Laden promise America in 2001 when they first hit a target in Afghanistan, trying to catch him that America will never know peace again. For 10 years they looked for him and his co merchants of death. On May 1st, 2011, the day that Pope John Paul 11 was being beatified in Rome, the evil man Osama Bin Laden went down. The American President said that he was happy that the last thing Osama Bin Laden saw on earth was the nozzle of an American gun held by an American Seal. What a way to go! When Saddam Hussein was smoked out of a rat hole 6-8 feet deep in the bush, 9 miles to his own village of Tikrit on 13th December 2003 during the American Army operation code named “Operation Red Dawn”, having troubled the world for so long, he simply chickened out. The soldier who sighted him first, gave a salute and said, I bring you the compliments of the American president. He did not resist arrest even though he had everything to fight back. Some items were recovered from him, a pistol, an AK-47 rifle and about 750,000 U.S. Dollars.
I am praying for that day to arrive in Nigeria for Abubakar Shekau, and it will not take long again, to invite our Moses and Aaron and beg, “Take your girls and go. Worship your God, bless me also”. Shekau will kneel down if he has the opportunity, if the last thing he will see on earth will not be the arrow point of a Civilian JTF in Borno. He will beg and proclaim that he should be given a chance to right his wrongs. He will beg like Saddam Hussein that he will cooperate. And I want a Nigerian Soldier or Civilian JTF to bring to him the compliments of our Commander-in-Chief and President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. I strongly believe that this is simply a sad phase in the Nigerian political history. Quote me, Shekau and his co-travelers will soon become good studies in our nation’s history. As I am writing this article, I am also watching on the CNN live, the opening of the September 11 (9/11) Museum in New York City. Surely, a day will come when we shall open a museum like that in the Sambisa forest of Borno State. The time will soon come when Government Secondary School Chibok will be turned into a University of Peace and Conflict Resolution. A day will come when we shall go to Damaturu to understudy how to survive under terror. The Boko Haram days will pass like those of Pharaoh, Nebuchadnezzar, Pontius Pilate, Adolf Hitler, Lawrence Anini, Saddam Hussein, Osama Bin Laden, Racists, White Separatists and other haters of God and common humanity of man. This I am sure of.
• Rev. Fr. Ojaje Idoko is the Director of Pastoral Affairs Department, Catholic Secretariat of Nigeria
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