What a week it has been for our own dear native land! Just at the beginning of the month, as the country turned 60 as an independent entity, President Muhammadu Buhari had charged us to “begin sincere process of national healing, eliminate old and outworn perceptions that are always put to test in the lie they are.”
What began about a fortnight ago as “genuine concerns and agitations” by Nigerian youths against the excesses of the Special Anti-robbery Squad of the Nigeria Police (SARS), has suddenly transmogrified into expressions of hate against the land, leading to murder, mayhem and arson. My sympathy and condolence to family and loved ones of the dead, irrespective of how they came to their unfortunate ends.
How can what began as peaceful protests suddenly turn to incipient anarchy as seen in killings, torching of public buildings and properties, storming of the Bastille and wanton release of hardened criminals, and many others. Hatred. Nigeria is one country passionately hated by some of those who live in it, and it had always been so.
