ICHEOKU says whodunnit is really not that important and so also is the intended target, as it appertains to this essay. The predominant interest here is why anybody ever gave such senseless act of sacrilege a thought; talkless of actually carrying it out. Tens of innocent parishioners were observing their early morning Mass devotion when some lunatics walked into where they were assembled and sprayed them with bullets, leaving 22 people dead with 18 others seriously wounded.
ICHEOKU queries what manner of human excrements would carry out such a dastardly act and inside a House of Worship, a CHURCH. Even if they are non believers, do not go to church nor believe in God and does not not understand the reverence of a Catholic Mass, they should have, at least, respected the sensibilities of those devotees and given them the opportunity to finish their devotions before killing them, if they must. But to do it in the depraved manner they did it, shows that they are callous, extremely wicked, ungodly and deserves to rot in hell.
The Holy Bible, in Book of 2 Samuel 1:20, admonishes "publish it not in Garth nor the streets of Ashkelon lest the daughters of Philistines rejoice and exult", to which ICHEOKU paraphrases "publish it not in Ozubulu nor in Ala Igbo that such great abomination took place and it is being discussed as real and not just a nightmarish dream from which people woke up and soon forgot. How the people who did this, so lost their moral compunction, that they descended into such a depravity and desecrated the House of God, with such reckless indifference to what the place meant and defied a sanctified place by shedding the blood of parishioners, is simply beyond pale. But it happened and all everyone can do now is to figure how to avoid a repeat happenstance going forward.
Hopefully, security agencies will solve the crime quickly in order to arrest and punish the perpetrators, prevent panic among the society and also to preempt people from arriving at their own conclusions which is capable of adding more tension to an already tensed society. Security agencies must work hard to unravel the culprits, to avoid a total and complete breakdown of law and order, by a people who might feel that the government is covering up something or is somewhat in cahoot with the perpetrators and might resort to self help vigilantism asa result.
Hopefully, security agencies will solve the crime quickly in order to arrest and punish the perpetrators, prevent panic among the society and also to preempt people from arriving at their own conclusions which is capable of adding more tension to an already tensed society. Security agencies must work hard to unravel the culprits, to avoid a total and complete breakdown of law and order, by a people who might feel that the government is covering up something or is somewhat in cahoot with the perpetrators and might resort to self help vigilantism asa result.
To say the least, this massacre is certainly a new low for Nigeria, especially its security agencies that seem incapable of securing the country and her citizens and properties; admitted that they work under near impossible austere conditions and are simply overwhelmed with un-incentivized large workload. A country that is awash with problems, including a president who has been MIA for quite some time now, holed out abroad in London where he is receiving treatment for cancer, could sure use less of this madness. ICHEOKU says all is not well with Nigeria and denying it or trying to sugarcoat it can only make a bad situation turn worse. It is time now to seriously consider all available options towards saving Nigeria and reposition it for greatness; rather than continue to pretend otherwise while watching its continued slide.
The implications of Ozubulu massacre has a global ramifications - from the Vatican which might take umbrage that its church was desecrated in this manner and her parishioners's right to life so flagrantly violated; to the United States of America whose Christian community might feel that the Church of Christ is now under threat in Nigeria; to Russia and some other civilized nations which must be wondering what manner of heartless people inhabit the geopolitical entity called Nigeria. A country whose mafia has, in the past, been compared to Japanese Yakuza, Russian Mafia, Chinese Mafia, Italian mafia and the Mexican Sinaloa mafia; but which has now certainly outdone itself by this church massacre. How these civilized societies, which consider churches sacred and sanctified, would view a country where devotees are murdered while kneeling in prayers inside a church during a Sunday Catholic Mass is anybody's guess.
ICHEOKU says Nigeria is in a deep doodle, a very smelly, stinky and sticky one indeed; such that not even Londonderry own Bloody Sunday compares to this. Even though both the infamous British escapade in Irish Derry and the unsolved murders in a Nigerian Catholic Church in Ozubulu took place on a Sunday, but the Nigerian incident was right inside the sanctuary of Christ. Nigerian Boko Haram has such modus operandi and so too are terrorists ISIS; but that such a depraved heart massacre took place inside a church in the heartland of Christianity in Nigeria and also a very religious Igbo community simply begs the question will the police ever find the real culprits. ICHEOKU prays that they will; and also that the massacre will not draw the ire of the world, compelling them to brand Nigeria a narcotic producing, trafficking and facilitating country. If it happens and possible additional targeted measures are put in place, it will affect millions of innocent Nigerians. Lets hope it will not get there and ICHEOKU prays that the victim community finds the fortitude to bear the loss and heal from the trauma. May the souls of the killed now rest.
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Christy 'Apena' Essien-Igbokwe , the wife of Jegede Shokoya of the New Masquerade and Nigeria's lady of songs is dead; she was 51years old. Although her family claimed that "brief Illness" killed her like so many Nigerians; Icheoku retorts that it was most likely AKwa Ibom voodoo and remote control that was used to arrest her. It is on record that she had fallen out with the governor of her native Akwa Ibiom State and have been having a relentless war for political turf with the governor? So who knows whether she was sacrificed to Ekpe cult or even Alusi-Okija as an offal; afterall African science is still very much alive and portent. May her soul rest in peace.
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