The audacity of anarchy

By Azu Ishiekwene

THERE was a BBC News story in February that caught me between laughter and bemusement. The news channel reported, in very strong language matched only by the alarming reactions of the persons interviewed, a spate of stabbings across parts of south London that left at least one dead. It’s sad that anyone should take the law into their own hands, and sadder still that even one innocent person should suffer injury or die from such senseless attacks.

One of the law enforcement officers interviewed, Ade Adelekan, obviously with Nigerian roots, described the south London incidents as “shocking” and went on to say that the “absolutely horrific news would devastate our community”. In comparison with what has been happening in Nigeria in recent times, Adelekan’s response to the south London attacks would appear to be outrage that should have been reserved for two-fighting.

His misery, however, genuinely concerning, would not make it to the Sitrep of the local police authorities in Nigeria, much less become a matter of interest at the state or national level. Violence now registers in its grossest numbers and scale, and would become instant national news if it affects one or two people of power and influence.

The country is sliding into anarchy and the harder you try to run from headlines of deaths and violence and destruction, the faster the news catches up with you. Even social media with its incredible capacity for the banal and the bizarre couldn’t make up the heartrending wave after wave of utterly distressing news of violence in recent times.

Troubled East The South East, home to one of the three largest ethnic nationalities and the theatre of a brutal civil war that left over two million dead, has been facing something worse than a crisis in the last few weeks: it’s been at war, again. Between January 8 and March 22, nine police officers have been murdered, 12 police stations burnt down and three checkpoints attacked and vandalised by gunmen.

But that was only small potato compared with the horrific events that would follow. In two straight days…