By ABIMBOLA ADELAKUN
My first encounter with a critique of charity was Chinua Achebe’s Anthills of the Savannah. I was maybe 15 or 16 then, but his take—speaking through his character—was indelibly etched in my mind. In the light of a fresh national development, I cannot but recall his denunciation of charity as the “opium…of the privileged.” Now, you must have read the horrifying report that Nigerian security forces “accidentally” bombed—again! — some civilians in Tudun Biri, Kaduna State. Following the airstrikes, about 120 people reportedly died, while another 60 sustained injuries. You must have also read that the senators, all 109 of them, are contributing N1m each from their respective December salaries for the victims.
On the surface, the donation seems generous and demonstrates fellow feelings. But the truth is that such charity is born out of irresponsibility, a cynical intent of buying their way out of their moral responsibility. One of the easiest ways of being irresponsible is simply to give money. It would make it seem you have done the heavy lifting when you have merely abdicated moral responsibility.
The job of lawmakers includes ensuring the dignity of all Nigerians, not using charity to opiate their conscience against the pursuit of justice for the victims. Think about it for a moment: if the security forces “mistakenly” drop a bomb on the National Assembly today, will the pittance they are sending to Tudun Biri suffice as redress? If senators think they will deserve far better, then why not the poor Nigerians wiped out in Tudun Biri?
I know they also called for an investigation, but what is new? The routinised demand for an inquiry now seems more like a means to foreclose a discussion rather than a sincere desire for proper closure.
These so-called “accidental” airstrikes have recurred so frequently that we should vehemently push back against any narration that Tudun Biri was a mistake. An incident is worth describing as such if it occurs after one has ensured, to the best of human foreseeable ability, that the conditions that could cause it have been alleviated. These unfortunate killings of Nigerians on Nigerian soil by Nigerian security forces have happened too many times to be categorised as “accidents.” From Rann in Borno State in 2017, when this accidental bombing was first announced (claiming about 150 lives), we have had repeated incidents in Niger, Zamfara, Yobe, Katsina, Nasarawa, and Kaduna.
Given the repeated instances, the useful question is no longer about why this “accident” reoccurs, but why would they not? How do you place death machines in people’s hands and not develop an iron-clad system that enforces its utmost responsible use? Look at the chain of events that followed the Kaduna bombing, and you see that our use of death machines did not include building a moral and logistical response system into their deployment, at least within the Nigerian airspace.
Two days after the bombing, the Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen. Taoreed Lagbaja, visited Tudun Biri to apologise to the community and take responsibility. He explained that they had trailed the bandits for a while, observed their habits, and decided to conduct an airstrike. According to him, “Unfortunately, the report we got thereafter revealed that it was innocent civilians in Tudun Biri that the drone carried out the strike on.” Observe his detached use of language in that quote and perceive the nature of responsibility he supposedly takes. He framed the incident as if the bomb escaped from ordnance, chose Kaduna, zeroed in Tudun Biri, punched in the coordinates, and killed the people, all on its own accord!
He offered the victims money, a measly N10m they were supposed to spend on their treatment. How he looked at the traumatised villagers and arrived at a sum that does not even come close to the cost of the bomb that shattered their lives puzzles. His clumsy response starkly demonstrates the problems that will inevitably be encountered by a society that buys machines specifically designed to kill people but has not developed a concomitant system of ethics and valuation of life. The cultures that developed those weapons from where we buy them did not merely invent dangerous toys; they also developed epistemological and ethical infrastructure. It is not enough to have experts who can target an airstrike with mathematical accuracy; you must also have ethicists who will ponder if raining death down from the sky is worth the expense of civilian lives who could become casualties. Why procure deadly machines to protect people you will still “accidentally” kill?
Then in comes the president who visited Tudun Biri; his own take was to foist a narrative of fate and martyrdom on people whose eyes were still wet with tears. According to his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Ajuri Ngelale, who reported his visit, the president described the incident “as a tragic event decided by God, otherwise, it won’t happen…They were Nigerians of profound faith and in the moment of the tragedy, they were reciting the Shadada. God Almighty comforts their families as their nation grieves their passage into glory. May their souls rest in eternal peace…. We will ensure that our administration reflects the grateful heart of the Nigerian people in the way we treat those who make the ultimate sacrifices on our behalf.”
If our leaders truly believed that we are helpless victims of a predetermined fate, why do they then spend so many billions on their own security? What makes their own life any more special that it must be protected behind bulletproof vehicles and human shields, but that of the victims dispensable that their deaths can be chalked down to the sadism of a whimsical God? If the president himself has already concluded that the incident was inevitable because it was fated to be, there is no point waiting for the outcome of an investigation. What manner of humans will we be if we took it upon our poor souls to investigate what God himself decreed?
To seal the chain of insults on the people of Tudun Biri, the senators too pledged a donation. Again, Achebe was right that privileged people give charity so they can insulate their thoughts from the misery of the poor, but our lawmakers are far worse than he envisaged. They had no qualms about budgeting almost N60bn to purchase luxury vehicles, but Tudun Biri victims can make do with N109m. That money does not even come close to what they shared as “recess allowance” in July! Even Senator Ike Ekweremadu, currently imprisoned in the United Kingdom for organ trafficking, has earned an estimated $370, 000 in salaries and emoluments since June. By giving Tudun Biri that shameful sum, they can quickly consider their duties discharged so they can get back to their main business of looking for money to share.
If any of them wanted to be truly responsible, the first thing they should have demanded was a comprehensive review of the current protocols of airstrikes. That should then be followed up with a demand for the resignation of every person responsible—whether they handled the technical aspect or through administrative oversight—for sending that bomb out. Those directly responsible for the disaster should also be tried for negligent homicide. It sounds harsh, but when you give people dangerous weapons to play with, you either hold them to high standards or you are just fooling around. When it comes to a matter of life and death, our best should not be a response mechanism that dutifully goes through the steps of visiting victims, saying nonsense, and getting on with life by donating some money. To go back to Achebe, the goal of all our efforts should be to live in a world where such charity is even unnecessary.
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