The current wave of hate violence in South Africa and across many parts of the world, including the United States is a sad reminder about how far we are from our noble dreams defined by our humanity of being a united people in love with one another irrespective of our nationality, ethnicity, religion or any other differences.
In our Nigerian context, our dear state, Kaduna, is now unfortunately turned into a violent state with Southern Kaduna almost being overrun by lunatics and we are being forced to respond based on factoring ourselves into a hate calculus that destroys our humanity.
As a result, many of our religious and traditional leaders have become hate merchants. Innocent citizens are unfortunately also becoming fixed variables and consequently, we, the citizens, in our inverted state are the result of the hate calculus irrespective of our faith and our differences.
Sadly, many of our political leaders across all divides think very narrowly to imagine that the violent situation consuming our people present an opportunity, whatever that means.
We need to wake up to the reality that our defining attributes as human beings is love and the best weapon against hate and violence is love.
With little amendment, we need to remind everyone of us, those Thabo Mbeki, "I Am an African" speech delivered on 8 May 1996. "I am an African. I owe my being to the hills and the valleys, the mountains and the glades, the rivers, the deserts, the trees, the flowers, the seas and the ever-changing seasons that define the face of our native land".
Replace African with human being, and add at the end of the quote, "My humanity is defined by my LOVE for every human being irrespective of our differences"!
Our disheartening situation in Kaduna will come to an end, not by violence, perhaps also not by prayer, but show of indiscriminate love to one another.
May God Almighty bless our leaders at all levels with the courage to forgive and demonstrate love to all citizens without any fear, the wisdom to unite our people and may He also guide all citizens to love one another! Amin.
The madness must stop!!!
SMLukman
Sent from my iPhone
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