Innocent Blood at Easter

Human life is sacrosanct being created by God in his own image. Even animal life is not meant to be capriciously dispensed with, except to preserve or provide nourishment for humans or as a form of religious offering. Most cultures and religions venerate blood, even of animals. Native Yorubas may sacrifice the blood of a chicken or goat as religious propitiation. For elevated matters, they may use a cow, or seven cows! They may even use humans for weighty sacrifices such as when it involved an Oba or communal good! Most Nigerian, African and traditional religions acted similarly. In Islam, we are familiar with the account of Prophet Ibrahim, the Biblical Abraham and God’s instruction to sacrifice Isaac, but God replaced Isaac with a ram just in time. To this day, Moslems in imitation of Ibrahim offer a ram in probably the most important Islamic festival.

Amongst Jews, blood was similarly critical to religious observance, sacrifice, recompensing sin, trespass, or making peace offerings. In Biblical Israel, God instructed the Jews to mark their doorposts with blood of sacrificial lambs, so he could “pass over” them. Solomon’s fantastic offering of 1,000 bulls was a famous example of the power of such sacrifices in moving the hand of God. The Jews believed that “And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission”. Thus the High Priest would enter the Tabernacle on the annual Day of Atonement, and offer a sacrifice to obtain mercy from God for Israel. If the High priest was himself unclean, he would sometimes die in the Holy of Holies! The Israelites were of course certain to sin again and the annual atonement would become a hollow ritual. The essence of the death and resurrection of Christ was God’s purpose to create an eternal and enduring sacrifice for mankind. Given the scale of the mission, only the blood of his own son, Jesus would do!

Unfortunately this Easter, the enduring memory would be the innocent lives needlessly shed in Northern Nigeria in the wake of President Jonathan’s victory in the April 16, 2011 presidential elections. At the very least, indirect (if not direct) responsibility for the carnage points towards General Muhammadu Buhari, Mr Tunde Bakare, members of their party the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) and certain elements of the so-called Northern Political Leaders Forum (NPLF). On September 17, 2010, Adamu Ciroma threatened “a series of events, the scope and magnitude of which we can neither proximate nor contain”; on October 5, 2010, Lawal Kaita threatened “to make the country ungovernable for President Jonathan or any other Southerner” elected president; on December 15, 2010, Atiku Abubakar warned of “violent change” and a certain Atiku Support Group added that “Boko Haram will be a child’s play compared with the action our members can take”.

Buhari and CPC campaigns were characterised by violence and riotous behaviour with drivers and passers-by compelled to chant “Sai Buhari”; Jonathan’s billboards were pulled down, his campaign office was destroyed in Gombe and he was pelted with stones in Nasarawa; Buhari issued a public instruction to his already volatile supporters to “lynch any body that tries to tinker with your votes” and his running-mate Tunde Bakare threatened a “wild, wild North” if their expected victory did not materialise. Early on polling day, Buhari complained of rigging and aeroplanes carrying thumb-printed ballot papers even before most voters had voted, and his party made allegations of computer fraud and rigging once results not favouring the party began to emerge. Interestingly so far, the only established “systematic rigging” of the presidential election has been intimidation of electoral officers and pervasive under-aged voting in Northern Nigeria, mostly for the CPC candidate.
The “dying declaration” of youth corper Ikechukwu Ukeoma on Facebook, subsequently murdered in Bauchi, who declared “This CPC supporters would have killed me yesterday…Even after forcing under-aged voters on me, they wanted me to give them the remaining ballot papers to thumbprint. Thank God for the Police…” and CNN and local media evidence of child voting across the North is indisputable.

In the event, the calls for violence and “lynching” were obeyed in Bauchi, Gombe, Kano, Kaduna, Yola, Sokoto, Minna and elsewhere in Northern Nigeria as CPC supporters shouting support for Buhari burnt Churches, homes of PDP supporters and killed Southerners and Youth Corpers, in what are arguably crimes against humanity! It does seem that the orchestrated violence was designed for political purposes-to dissuade INEC and Government from announcing the rest of the results (as demanded by CPC Chairman Tony Momoh) as victory tilted irrevocably towards Jonathan; to force a political stalemate; or precipitate a national crisis that would have rendered the elections redundant! Whatever political calculations, the outcome is that innocent blood has been shed. It is particularly noteworthy that Bakare, who claims a Christian ministry, may be deemed complicit in the burning of Churches and killings of Christians!

Perhaps innocent blood has been shed in sacrifice for a new Nigeria? Perhaps President Jonathan and/or the international community will ensure that this time innocent blood is not shed in vain? Perhaps there would be truth, accountability and justice concerning responsibility for these needless deaths? What is certain is that God will demand an account of the blood of his children! May their souls rest in peace!!! Amen.