A New Terrorism and Attack on Free Speech
The recent bombings of news media premises in Abuja and Kaduna, Nigeria by suicide bombers portend another fearful extension of the violence in an emerging nation’s socio-political terrain. The choice of houses of worship, law enforcement and western embassies perceived as supportive of an unresponsive government as targets is now inclusive of premises of unsympathetic media houses. Freedom of press establishes the opportunity for every perspective to have opportunity of unhindered expression given flaws in objectivity for which there are adequate legal avenues for relief. Seeking to spread the fear to speak sets a tone for fascist tyranny and attacks the very fabric that permits truth to be known. Someone once said … “it is a paradox that every dictator has climbed to power on the ladder of free speech but immediately on attaining power each dictator has suppressed all free speech except his own.”
“Without free speech no search for truth is possible… no discovery of truth is useful.” Charles Bradlaugh
I heard years ago the parable of several blind men examining an elephant … one holding the feet and calling it a tree…another leaning on its body and likening it to a wall …the other feeling its trunk and suspecting this must be a strange snake. The flaws in our insights will surprise us but it is better to have different parts of the jigsaw expecting that all the pieces of the puzzle will one day provide a complete picture.
It seems we have a nation where targets of irritation for bombing down are selected if government is not motivated in creating the safety nets that alleviate hunger and pangs for some form of recognition and fulfilment that only these carriers of terror define. The institutional structures meant to regulate for fairness and guarantee order are weakened and caged in strange prisons of silence and extra legal actions apparently prevail to provide solutions that puerile bodies refuse to offer. Without strong mature and effective institutions in all spheres … all that is bequeathed by the best of leaders to future generations are fears, tensions and grievances awaiting expression. Mutual distrust, tribal allegiances and prejudices embedded in new change maps already sabotage changes before they can even be initiated. Most will be silent for fear of being cruelly targeted.
The Bible says God is angry with the wicked everyday … have we become a wicked nation that must inherit only days of trouble? The Bible often describes the wicked as they who thrive by short-changing the weak and the vulnerable…rulers who rose through evil elevators and are trapped only to supervise the perpetuation of corruptions and oppressions in various forms. The only way to appease God is a genuine repentance – change of heart … as well as return of plunder.
Isaiah 57 [20] But the wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. [21] There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.
A respected cleric recently asked …how can we transform or change anything for good when in our hearts we do not want to change or be transformed and deep wickedness thrives unchecked without repentance or restitution albeit in several masked strains.
The recent conviction of the former Liberian President and other similar landmarks in judicial history remind us that those who take advantage of the complex wounds of vulnerable emerging nations to raid their resources, foster troubles and sow evil, injustice and sorrow… will eventually be judged as criminal losers – no matter how long it eventually takes for them to be exposed and someday they will reap multiples of what they have sown.
Psalm 139[23] Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: [24] And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
