There are moments when you have to stop pretending that we are a civilized society. One of those moments is now! The Benue State Government wants to build a five-star rehabilitation centre for TERRORISTS. Yes, you read that right.
The Benue State Government, under its governor, Reverend Father Hyacinth Alia, has formally requested that the Chief of Defence Staff approve a Disarmament, Demobilisation, and Reintegration (DDR) Center.
A state with dilapidated roads, education, and health infrastructure is prioritizing doling out billions of Naira for a programme which may have been conceptualized in the pit of hades.
About four hundred terrorists, who have turned the Food Basket of the Nation into a slaughterhouse and graveyard, have been penciled down for the initial phase of the programme.
Four hundred blood-drunk goons who kill farmers, behead children, gang-rape women, and abduct pregnant mothers. Four hundred beasts who force married women to cook for them and warm their stinkingly dirty beds after murdering their husbands.
After this so-called rehabilitation, the state government plans to issue them certificates.
Let us not forget, this is the same Governor Alia who stood before the world and denied there was genocide in Benue. He looked at the slaughtered farmers, and the beheaded mothers and children, but said it amounted to little or nothing. He denied the obvious, and now he is building a monument to reward the butchers. First, he erased the crime; now, he is empowering the criminals.
Let’s be clear: any government or government official who supports this should be regarded as an accomplice to murder. These children of perdition are thriving because they are cocooned by a leadership that rewards inanities. Governor Hyacinth Alia, you are an accomplice to murder. You are a cleric who frolics with demons.
The Director of the Reintegration Commission, one Josephine Habba, is also an accomplice. She stood in Makurdi and told the world that these terrorists are “not necessarily criminals”—that they were just poor, misguided souls taken in to do the “dirty jobs” for the real bad guys.
Madam, I want to meet you. I want to sit with you. I want to look into your eyes and ask you: if a man picks up a machete and cuts off a farmer’s head, what exactly is he? If a man holds down a woman while his friends take turns on her, what exactly is he? If a man abducts a pregnant woman and forces her to cook for him after killing her husband, what exactly is he?
If these people are not criminals and terrorists, then words have lost their meanings. We humans should then be bleating like goats instead of using words. If these people are not criminals and terrorists, then you are not a woman, Madam Josephine.
We are told this programme will cost millions in hard currency, and that it will bring international attention. Which other international attention do we crave? Have we not been labeled a Country of Particular Concern by the United States government? Has the international community not heard that we pay ransom running into billions of Naira for kidnap victims in Benue, Kwara, Plateau and other places?
Maybe the “international attention” would be to confirm that in Nigeria, you can terrorise communities, destroy livelihoods, abduct women and children, and the government will reward you with a five-star rehabilitation centre, a six-month to one-year course, starter packs, and a certificate of reintegration. In fact, the United Nations must be made to know that the aid sent to Benue is deployed to enriching terrorists.
What happens to the pregnant women? What happens to the children they were carrying when they were forced into servitude? What happens to the babies born in captivity, the ones who came into this world surrounded by armed men and the smell of death? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Because in our clime, we do not rehabilitate victims; we rehabilitate criminals. Victims are expected to forgive, move on, and watch the rehabilitation of the people who destroyed their lives.
To worsen the insult, the Benue Government’s ‘ultramodern rehabilitation centre’ is sited in Logo Local Government Area—the same place the killers have turned into a slaughter slab of innocent souls.
The hapless victims in Logo and other ravaged places would endure the pain of watching the killers of their fathers, mothers, and children have fun at their expense. While victims starve in Logo, the killers would be enjoying three square balanced meals and other benefits.
This is the Benue State Government’s shameful grand plan. This is the peace strategy that has taken years to develop. This is the solution to the crisis that has turned the Middle Belt into a cemetery. What a cheeky surrender!
Governor Alia, you are invariably telling every young man that terrorism pays. That if you cause enough chaos, the government will come calling with a rehabilitation package, a monthly allowance, and a glossy certificate.
Our young men are watching and learning. While these 400 are in their centre, eating three square meals and enjoying five-star services, their colleagues in the bushes and on our highways will be abducting new pregnant women. They will be burning new villages. They will be creating new widows. They will be beheading children. All these, to have your attention.
And in a few years, they will “repent” too. And the government will build another centre. And another. And another. Until every terrorist is empowered.
But Mr. Terrorist, we will remember your face. We will remember every village you burned. We will remember everyone you killed. We will remember everything. And one day, when you least expect it, we will find you. We will do whatever we wish to you. For now, let the madness continue. Enjoy yourself while it lasts.
I rest my case!
