How The Zaria Massacre Made Me Think Different Of Jonathan, Buhari

  • I worked with Bukhari Jega to campaign for Buhari and he, his wife and daughter and my fiancee got death in reward

By Aliyu Smith Musawy, IMN

Sometimes, a tragedy occurs not because the odds are against you,  but because God wants to free your mind from the shackles of intellectual vacuity.

The Zaria massacre has completely changed my perspective in ways I never imagined. It has changed the way I regard Islam and certain Muslims who hold a barbaric view that we can be killed with impunity. It has changed the way I even discharge my humanitarian pit projects.

buratai victim
Burned victim of Zaria massacre

I am less angry with El-Rufai and Sunusi Lamido who think the best way to dispel the phantom allegations that they are crypto-Shitte is to seize the tragedy, demolish our sanctuaries, desecrate our graveyards we painstakingly built without having to pester on government for pecuniary support and launch vitriolic attacks on Shi’as just like the way Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel massacres Palestinians with a view to evoking anti-goyim sentiments whenever elections are around the corner. I am also less angry with Burutai than I am with Buhari, a devilish army officer because he wouldn’t have committed this heinous atrocity without a prior order from the above.

El-Rufai during condolence visit to El-Zakzaky last July
El-Rufai during condolence visit to El-Zakzaky last July

The Zaria massacre has hitherto made me reflect life in ways I was unable to do when I was a Northern fanatic. It made me realise that Goodluck Jonathan was truly a democrat, despite his shortcomings and unsolicited peccadilos, he is a lesser devil in comparison to Buhari.

He was pelted with stones in many states including my state Bauchi; he was cartooned in the most derogatory ways, his wife had been made a media favourite for her idiosyncratic English and campaigns of calumny were launched with the surreptitious connivance of such high ranking politicians as Obasanjo with whose hands the fabrics of the Nigerian economy was destroyed.

Bukhari Jega
Bukhari Jega

Yet, the man had never resorted to imposing his wills upon voters thereby letting popular wish work its way. But one thing I have found striking about the mindset of some Buharist fanatics is they think critiquing him is tantamount to apostasy, more blasphemous than killing 1200 people including hapless women and 73 infants and more irksome than burning our members alive. But what I want people to understand is, my slain friend Bukhari Muhammed Bello Jega and I worked tirelessly for the success of Buhari, but the only thing Bukhari Muhammed Bello Jega received in return is death together with his beautiful wife and effervescent daughter while I am rewarded with the killing of my fiancée.

We would like to categorically make our position clear that, we will not resort to violence in sharp contrast to Boko Haram who embarked upon violent confrontations just because they were extra-judicially treated the way we are treated.

The solution is not to let bygones be bygones, no, but to use everything legal at our disposal including our mighty pens to tell the world the true reality of our dear country under the stewardship of a person who has made us a butt of his petty vexation without not even a wink of sympathy over the tragedy that has befallen us; a president who finds it hard to utter a word about the greatest massacre during his presidency but he’s quick to condemn a terrorist attack in US that killed only 12 people.

Well, many a reader may deride this humble elucidation of mine as iconoclastic, but the truth must be told no matter how bitter it may seem.