THE PRICE OF PEACE

It is said that when a corpse that has nothing to do with you is carried by it seems to you like a log of wood. Yes I know we all sympathise with the victims of all the recent crisis going on in the north, but if you ever sat to listen to the long after-stories of these victims you’d understand what I’m driving at.

The Americans attach so much to child psychology, I was talking the other day to a friend and he was telling me how impossible it is for Nigerians to suffer from some of the disorders the white folks have. He cited OCD and panic attacks as examples. Now imagine a child who watched his parents brutally murdered in front of him/her. Recently in Kano a child of 11years identified a man in the market as one of those that killed her parents and elder brother.She was described to have shouted and continued shouting like she was going crazy. Also we know of the Nigerian footballer who now plays for an international club (FC Chelsea) talking about victor Moses who also lost his parents to the same fate some years ago in Kaduna.

The hate that comes with such experience. After some time the news stop carrying it, the story becomes a past event but still the scars still remain with those that bear the pain. Their lives have been changed forever, it can never be as it used to before. A boy committed suicide 6 months after his family was attacked and both parents killed , he was forced to have sex with his sister and after the whole event the said sister got pregnant, both parents were dead, I guess it was just too much for him to bear(not that I’m justifying the suicide). He took his own life, slit his wrist and died horribly.

Our government are too quick to throw cash at these people whose life has been turned around in a blink that they forget they need psychological help as much as they need financial aids. Among several young men arrested in connection to the Jos crisis was a boy who according to him lost both parents in the same crisis. We may not be as vengeful as Rambo or commando who will bring down a whole city for taking the lives of their loved ones but we've seen many cases of people ta king to arms in a religious crisis for a vengeful cause.

If you have never lost someone close I doubt you will be able to relate to this. You cannot feel the pain as much as they do. People will cry and mourn with you but in the end after the burial they’ll go home and you are left to bear the pain alone. Majority of those that lose their lives to these senseless crises are mostly men. They die and go, yes they die and who is left behind to bear all the burden and pain of raising the kids? And who has to become a widow? The woman suffers much. Not to talk of children who are made fatherless and into orphans?

The price of peace is exceedingly high but isn't that what makes it a jewel?