IN the poem Nightfall in Soweto, the South African poet Oswald Mtshali speaks of the scariness of the colonial night where a murderer’s hand lurking in the shadows and clasping the dagger “strikes down the helpless victim”. Sometimes, though, darkness descends on society in broad daylight. That is the story of Nigeria’s State of Harmony, where, as we speak, bloodthirsty murderers are sweeping across vast swathes of land, dispensing death and sorrow while the government is as usual busy cooking a jollof of burnt excuses. If the school teacher Michael Oyedokun was beheaded after he and other hapless teachers and innocent schoolchildren were abducted by Fulani terrorists in Oyo State this week, it is because Kwara provides safe passage for the merchants of terror. If the wall does not open its mouth, a lizard cannot enter.

Kwara is the entry point into Oodua territory for demons from Nigeria’s North. The killers wielding the weapons of war are wiping out the Yoruba up North as a prelude to a bloodbath down South, and the DHQ is as usual giving false assurances, giddy and weary as the demons slake their thirst for Yoruba blood. The objective is clear as crystal: re-enact the ancient rape and plunder of Yorubaland. If you laugh at my thesis, your future will laugh at your folly. The Daura Deceiver came and unleashed these demons afresh, and no Yoruba vote henceforth should favour any nomad. History has shown those with whom we must not do business. Hear the man called Sheikh Gumi: reportedly told the media that no kobo of the Nigerian budget is allocated to bandits or herdsmen. Instead, the Nigerian government is putting pressure on them. That’s why they have to kidnap to finance their war machines. Mr Gumi wants his beloved terrorists, the dogs who tortured the abducted Oyo school children, including a two-year-old, to stupor this week, properly financed by Nigeria’s federal budget!

If this nation’s trap can’t catch a rat, let it return the palm fruit to its owner. Enough of this trade in blood. Enough of this second slavery.

Since April when Elder Olaitan Oyin-Zubair, Coordinator of the Joint Security Watch for Kwara South, revealed that dozens of communities had been abandoned as residents fled for safety amid massive onslaughts by terrorists, the situation in Kwara has steadily deteriorated. Hear Oyin-Zubair: “There was a time we raised the alarm that communities in Kwara South were deserting their ancestral homes due to insecurity…The police denied it publicly. We were cowed down and branded alarmists for stating the obvious.” Dishonesty may be a technology of governance in Kwara State where people are allegedly being asked to keep quiet or lose 2027 favours, but what if the intended beneficiaries do not live to see 2027? The following is from http://news.ng: “The residents had to flee their ancestral homes because the bandits who started pouring in from Niger State in large numbers were not just kidnapping them like animals for ransom; they shot at any living being that they sighted without mercy.”

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There had been ominous signs in rural settlements such as Ganmu Alheri, Oloruntele, and Budo Idowu, where families quietly fled their homes under the cover of darkness, and then full-scale chaos had unfolded, with at least 28 communities in Ifelodun Local Government Area alone deserted. According to Dr. Hezekiah Oyedepo, a political scientist, the violence in Kwara South is probably engineered to alter voter demographics and reduce the voting strength ahead of 2027. Oyedepo told Arise News: “Kwara State has employed about 1,000 forest guards… In my town, Omu-Aran, we don’t know a single person that is employed. And Omu-Aran is one of the largest towns in Kwara State.” Hmmm..

Just like in the world of Nightfall in Soweto, life has become meaningless in Kwara South. The people can sing this elegy along with Mtshali: “I am the victim/I am slaughtered/every night in the streets/I am cornered by the fear/gnawing at my timid heart;/in my helplessness I languish.” As the 2027 elections approach, the rulers of the state will be pursuing the people for votes, but who will they find in Ologomo, Ajegunle, Agban, Alabe, Owode, Alasoro, Alawan, Bankole, Oreke, Ganmu, Babanla, Ayetoro, Budo, Arifowomo, Apata Olosun, Oreke Isale, Sagbe, and Olohun Tele, territories which their ruinous leadership has turned into ghost towns? Per media reports, over 30 traditional rulers in Kwara South have abandoned their palaces and fled to other lands. Said The Punch: “Findings show that some of the affected traditional rulers are from Omugo, Afin, Oreke, Oreke Oke-Igbo, Olohuntele, Alabe, Ganmu Ailehri, Ologanmo, and Igbo Agbon communities. While some have been away from their domains for months, others have been out for nearly a year.” This is sad, bad and mad.

The Kwara State governor is aware of the plight of innocent citizens severed from their ancestral homes. He knows the story of women wailing over the corpses of their husbands, and of congregations sacked by gun-wielding demons, a spectacle that has circulated around the world. His Excellency has the money to buy the front pages of newspapers to insult his political opponents, but he has no remedy for the vast communities disappearing under his nose. Is there any clearer indication of a leprous leadership?

And when dissenters talk, they are immediately fed to hyenas by yes-men who quip that the desolation is not limited to Kwara South. Pray, are we supposed to keep quiet when people are being massacred? If you say it is not only the Yoruba that are dying, you sentence yourself to double damnation, for then you will tell me why anyone has to die at all. This isn’t surprising, though. As the British physician David Owen informs us, long-term power can distort judgment, causing leaders to believe that they are invariably correct, above criticism, or historically destined. Yet truth has a unique way of crushing all lie vendors. The onslaught on Yoruba communities in Kwara South is real. The truth cannot be tamed.

Think about it: limbs mauled, homesteads razed, maidens maimed, and young men cut down in cold blood. There is no love lost between Ahmadu and Ifelodun: origin and trajectory are markedly different. Ambitions are different. History is not a game of checkers.

It can be no surprise that the insecurity tolerated by a perverse leadership has crippled infrastructure projects. The Owu Falls Road project being constructed by the Kwara State Government was reportedly abandoned after construction workers were kidnapped along the route.

The people of Kwara South must be wondering like the persona in Nightfall in Soweto: “Where is my refuge?/Where am I safe?/Not in my matchbox house/Where I barricade myself against nightfall.” They tremble at the “crunching footsteps” of killers, and quake at their “deafening knock at the door”. “Open up!” the terrorist “barks like a rabid dog”, thirsty for their blood.

A society being controlled by a small elite whose interests diverge from the public’s isn’t news to me. Neither are the criminal lies. But if you serve a nomadic god, say so with your full chest instead of pretending to be a patriot.