BY LAWRENCE AUDU
In a season when blind adoption of political correctness is dredging up the worst of human scum for drama effect, one Perry Brimah of ENDS (Every Nigeria Do Something) has taken his own narcissistic self-absorption to a new level by hallucinating that he is worthy of being Khashoggied.
Brimah suddenly thinks he, by virtue of insulting Nigerian government officials, get himself to be controversially murdered like Saudi born Washington Post columnist, Jamal Khashoggi.
That much is the impression one gets from his latest rant, “Nigeria, A Country Where Cows Rule and the Poor Are Fed Bullets,” in which he sees no good in the government or the opposition he is working for. What he will rather see is for Nigeria to become a theocratic-anarchist enclave where his minions in the Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN) – the Shiite sect call the shot. This consist for him the prevention of a situation where “brave shia who dare to resist and fight bullets with stones are killed.”
His road to his desired theocratic-anarchist state is paved with lies, which has been his trademark since his IMN members first decided to confront and dismantle the Nigerian state. He wants the world to believe that members of the extremist sect are harmless even at a time that they are showing the world the vision of hell they want to bring on the country. Images abound of the Molotov Cocktails – fused bottles filled with petrol, the kind that was used to burn a police vehicle in Wuse II, Abuja in October. There is no need to bother about the cache of psychotropic drugs and hallucinogens seized from the sect members.
But the petrol bombs, metallic slingshots, rocks and other projectiles are not to be considered as weapons that should warrant a commensurate response from authorities. His concept further encompasses preventing situations where “peacefully protesting shia Muslims are killed for at most throwing stones after the army blocks their RIGHT to proceed in peaceful protest.” It beats the imagination how a stone hurling mob is a peaceful protest but it at least sheds light on Brimah’s concept of peace and peaceful. Other Nigerians should keep quiet while the roads are obstructed, their businesses and employment jeopardized with properties destroyed because Brimah’s IMN is untouchable.
The extent of what ails this individual is better understood upon the realization that he considered groups like MEND, IPOB, and murderous militias in the north central geo-political zones as glowing examples of groups that should have enjoyed the support of Nigerians in revolting against the government. He stopped short of endorsing Boko Haram’s acts of terror because he is keen on getting his pound of flesh from Saudi Arabia, for whatever wrong they might have done to him.
The IMN thus become for him a vehicle for getting at the Nigerian authorities who have refused to be hostile towards Saudi Arabia, which of course is the sole material and financial support to the group that has been outlawed in Kaduna – and definitely not accepted in several states. He somehow thinks that his country is deprived enough to be acting out Saudi instruction when in reality it his group that wants Nigeria to twist and jerk to every string pulling from the Islamic Republic of Iran. This he hopes to achieve by IMN extremists who as “shia Muslims, all 15 million of them have never been reported to have killed any civilian before in 30 years of existence.” Brimah should go to Zaria, Kaduna state and get the fact straight or perhaps the message he wants us to take away is that it is permissible for shia to kill military and security operatives because they are not first born as humans before donning the uniform of their calling.
If IMN is non-violent as claimed, then how come that “Nigeria is the only country in the world where civilians will defend military brutality against stick and stone wielding protesting youth.”? Even the protest that they have imported into Abuja is deliberately executed in manners that obstruct other citizens, which prompted the police to wade in to restore order in the first instance to which IMN extremists responded with the harmless stones and sticks that Brimah referred to. The concept of freedom and liberties would imply that an IMN extremist’s rights ends where that of the other Nigerian begins. They cannot come into the nation’s capital, or any other city for that matter, and obstruct other people from peacefully going about their daily activities. They cannot also menace or threaten the lives of security operatives without consequences.
Brimah has lost it. There is a limit to the kind of narcissist self-absorption that makes him think he has the final answers in how the state should deal with an IMN that has decided to torment other Nigerians. He continues to incite youth to rebellion while they are unaware that he has lost his marbles. The kind of incitement from him will only encourage more IMN members to be further radicalized to the point of wasting their lives while Brimah continues to hide behind his keyboard and pound out rubbish.
If the members of the group are sincere that their resort to violence is about securing freedom for Ibraheem El-Zakyzaky, their leader currently standing trial, the place they want to be is at the Kaduna High Court that fixed November 7 for ruling on his bail application. Whatever ruling the court decides on that day, those who got themselves killed demanding for his release cannot be brought back to life again while the likes of Perry Brimah that is urging them on would be smiling to the bank after being settled by Iran that is powering his rants.
Audu, a journalist wrote from Abuja.