I set out to write because, Nigeria today has turned into a blood field with no sign that things will change. How that lives are being wasted without restrain. From Borno to Plateau and all the way to Katsina, people are being killed. It worries me that there is no value for human life, yet we have a government. If we plot the trajectory of Nigeria, ten years from today, what will Nigeria be like? I shall talk about Nigeria in my next edition but for today, my focus is on the middle-belt. However, you can copy and paste this conversation on middle-belt to any part of Nigeria and the resultant effect will be the same.
I found the book of Judges 18 profoundly relevant and easily instructive while meditating on it in the light of current reality, the book is a historical account of a people called the MEN OF LAISH. The weak leadership structure within the middle-belt region, especially among the political class leaves one suspecting that we are being led by accomplices to the existential threat that we face. This is because of the strategy of warfare waged on our lands: our loved ones are being killed daily in a most gruesome manner; our women are being killed – the pregnant ones have their unborn babies ripped from their bellies; our daughters raped, with some taken into captivity as sex slaves and (or) being subjected to forced marriages; our young men are good for the slaughter to depopulate our lands. Some are taken and forced to become captives; our men kidnapped for ransom to drain every resources we have, so we become economically impoverished; our highways are unsafe for travels. The reign of terror is terrorizing us! We have many people coming down with all manner of mental illnesses – wife’s who lost their husbands, husbands who lost their wives, children who are now orphans. All of these are neglected with severe trauma, yet we live as though all is well with us.
While these gory things are happening, our condition is that of a poor defenseless people. Our enemies – many they are, call them herdsmen, kidnappers, Boko Haram, bandits… come to us with ease. They kill, maim and plunder us without remedy. Our enemies smite us with the edge of the sword, burn our cities, towns and villages with fire, and we do not have a deliverer because we are so detached and far away from our SIDON (we shall talk about SIDON later).
I most commend the efforts many of our fathers in the middle-belt for their heroism to see that the people of the region remain unconquered. They gave leadership to our people whenever occasion demand. I wish to list their names but this will be considered in my next article. I hail you all, some living, some gone to their final abode. May the labors of our fathers not be in vain!
General T. Y. Danjuma is right when he said there is a ‘collusion’ – this submission must not be taken lightly from a battle-tested General with far greater military exploits than many self-acclaimed ones put together. While, for instance, the Adara people were systematically cleansed and their ancestral home decimated with the sole aim of imposing an Emirate rulership (a system which the Adaras have no historic, cultural or religious semblance to). The Irigwe land is being attacked and plundered at will. We understand such schemes, we are educated and have come of age. We the people are not and will not be deceived. Our politicians – those vested with power to protect us, and the institutions of defence seemed to be playing the devil’s advocate.
Many of the religious and political leaders of the middle-belt are playing the Ostrich by burying their heads in the sand and pretending they are safe. Those who should lead our young people to understand the times are living in “empires” built with glasses and calling out “peace! peace!!” while massacres are being perpetuated and an impending blood-bath of historic scale brews in the land.
We are divided, confused, helpless and harassed. We don’t have a strategy. I regret to say that while prayer and fasting are potent weapons for spiritual warfare, these spiritual exercises seem to be the shadow under which the Church hides her cowardice. There seem to be an absolute lack of concerted effort or a coordinated response. I hear many clergy invoking curses on perpetrators of wickedness in our lands, however, such prayers don’t seem potent because the killers are becoming more sophisticated. It then means there is something we are missing in our prayers because God will always keep His side of the bargain. Thus, I wail:
Where are the princes of our land?
Where are our elites?
Where is the vigor of our youth?
Where is the bravery of our warriors?
Where is the spirit of our fathers who bled during the Biafran War to unite this entity called Nigeria…
…the same spirit that led our brothers in the Nigerian Armed Forces to restore peace in many African nations through ECOMOG?
Oh! Untill we find the answers to these questions, we might just embrace a certain fate that we are a people meant only for the conquest and plunder of the invading Army.
Why do our government want us to believe the battle against insurgency, banditry, kidnapping and the likes of such is mission impossible? Why should communities be attacked like every other day and perpetrators disappear without a trace in an age of technology. Today, with a drone, you can monitor and trace evil perpetrators.
The church is the institution I know and am part of, but my appeal to the church is not on religious sentiment please. The church as I know it is the parliament of God on earth. With right understanding of the Bible and accurate application, we can restore Righteousness and Justice. We are called to bless and not to curse; we are called to love and not to hate. We have Christians, Muslims and Traditionalist in the middle-belt and we must learn to live together. Whoever is beating the drums of war must of a necessity know that once war begins, they can’t stop it, they can’t control it and they are not guaranteed victory. I hear the drums of war sounding very loud across ethnic and religious divide. War is not worn by the arsenal at your disposal – VICTORY COMES FROM THE LORD! I therefore implore you, if there is any sense remaining in you to sheath your sword, don’t be deceived.
The book of Judges 18 is an interesting historical account that depicts the situation of the middle-belt. If we take heed to it, we shall find salvation; if we ignore it, we shall find utter destruction. This is a call to unity, to rise in defense of our lands, to fight for posterity. Together we are strong.
This is in solidarity to the likes of Gen. T.Y. Danjuma and Dr. O. Mailafiya who have dared to defy the popular opinion or be seen to be politically correct, exposing the schemes of the merchants of war and staking their lives for us to breathe. This demonstration of guts shows that, indeed, they are custodians of our heritage as a people. Believe with me that our victory and freedom is within grasp.
The narrative of the men of Laish in Judges 18 is the portrait of the middle-belt. Let’s read it and see what destruction awaits us, unless we change our carefree lifestyle.
THE CITY: Judges 18:9,10 “…For we have seen the land, and indeed it is very good… a place where there is no lack of anything that is on the earth.” Laish was seated in the midst of a large, fine and fertile country, from where they find supply of all manner of provisions for themselves, it’s description can be liken to the middle-belt region; it is so rich in land, people, vegetation and mineral deposits.

THE CHARACTER OF THE PEOPLE: Judges 18:7 “So the five men departed and went to Laish. They saw the people who were there, how they dwelt safely, in the manner of the Sidonians, quiet and secure. There were no rulers in the land who might put them to shame for anything. They were far from the Sidonians, and they had no ties with anyone.” Never was a place so ill-governed and so ill-guarded …which would make it a very easy prey to the invader;

1. It was ill-governed. Every man might be as bad as he would because there were no rulers in the land that might put a restrain on people’ bad way of life. Rulers are possessors of restraint, entrusted with authority to check and suppress everything that is vicious.
   Look around and you will see how miserable, and how near to ruin, these places are, which either have no rulers or none that bear the sword to any purpose; the wicked then walk on every side, Ps 12:8. And how happy we are when there are good laws and a good government. Those who are without a functional civil government are destitute of the means which God has appointed to restrain the wicked and encourage the good, and to protect one from the aggressions of the other.
   They had no Magistrate in the land to put them to shame in anything, as we read in v. 7. They should have put the people to reason, considering their faulty ease/security, their naked and unfortified state; and encouraged their coming into measures to strengthen their borders against the attempts of their enemies.
   It was owing to this carefree way of life that LAISH was destroyed. If they had been strengthened with walls and bulwarks; if they had encouraged among them a number of men of valor, experts in war that knew how to keep rank and withstand an enemy, the DANITES would have been scared from any attempts against them. It was the carefree, insecure posture they were in, that gave the enemy confidence to enter their land.
   It appears the middle-belt is in need of rulers whose duty is to protect the heritage of the people, to give direction to the people on how to live in the face of aggression, rulers who will speak for their people.
   I suspect that there is an alliance against the people by their own rulers. Our cities are ill-governed and each person deals with self as is pleasant to his eyes.
2. It was ill-guarded. Verses 10,28. “When you go, you will come to a secure people and a large land… There was no deliverer, because it was far from Sidon, and they had no ties with anyone…” The people of Laish were carefree, quiet, and secure. Their gates left open, their walls out of repair, because they were under no apprehension of danger in any way. They had no business with any man, which speaks of either the idleness they effected (they followed no trade, and so grew lazy and luxurious, and utterly unable to defend themselves). They had none to protect them nor bring in any aid to them. They were far from Sidon. They cared for nobody and therefore nobody cared for them. The Danites were encouraged by their spies, having seen how carefree the men of Laish dwelled in their land. The spies sent by the Danites presented the following report;
   a. The place is desirable: “If you will trust our judgments, we have seen the land, behold, it is very good (Judges 18:9), for it is a place where there is no want of anything,”
   b. It is attainable: They do not at all question that, with God’s blessing, they may soon get possession of it; for the people are secure, Judges 18:10. Yet, the more secure always the less safe.
   c. They stir themselves up to the undertaking: “Arise, that we may go up against them, let us go about it speedily and resolutely.” The spies chide the Danites out of their sluggishness and said be not slothful to go. Men need to be thus stirred up to mind even their interest.
   Thus our lands are ill-guarded. Our boarders are porous, we don’t have synergy with surrounding towns. We are divided across tribal and political sentiments. We are subdued by the ‘divide and rule syndrome’.
   THE CONQUEST: Verse 27. To consider the conquest and overthrow of LAISH – “…and went to Laish, to a people quiet and secure; and they struck them with the edge of the sword and burned the city with fire.” There are two things worthy of notice here:
   a. The persons making this conquest. These were the DANITES, they had sent out spies to search the land, and inquire into the posture of its inhabitants: And from the account they brought of their strange security and unguarded condition, the Danites concluded six hundred men would be sufficient to conquer Laish. A small force it should seem, to enter an enemy’s country! Knowing their circumstances beforehand that they would find them carefree and in no posture of defense; they wisely thought a handful of men would be able to surprise and take them.
   b. The conquest itself. This was great and surprising. It is said, they smote them (i.e. the inhabitants of LAISH) with the edge of the sword. This they did, without limitation or distinction. Their eyes did not pity, nor their hands spare; they brutally and fell upon Laish, and made a most awful and universal slaughter. They slew both man and woman, the infant and the suckling. Having drawn the sword, they did not return it back, till they had destroyed both male and female, the high as well as the low; the young men; the virgins and the old. There was horror, the city was set on flames, and consumed to ashes.
   We are not that weak, we are not cowards, and we just need to tell ourselves the truth. Government, whose sole responsibility is to provide security and food to her citizens have repeatedly demonstrated that is not only ‘unable but also unwilling’ to stop the blood-birth, therefore the need for action from all who are alive. Do not think you are safe or you will be spared!
   Follow me in the next edition on ‘A Call to Action’.

Ishaya Inuwa.

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Men of Laish: A Portrait of the Middle-Belt