I woke up this morning to a friend’s post from last night about the bombing of the tracks and subsequent attacks on the Abuja-Kaduna train and it’s passengers.
The last few hours before I managed to sleep were riddled with anxiety, anger and everything in between as I combed through the internet learning what I could about the train attack. One of my mutuals on Twitter said that she was on the train and that she had been shot. I fell asleep refreshing her timeline, waiting for an update.
I have used the Abuja-Kaduna train several times. My best friend has a big sister who lives with her husband and children in Kaduna and from time to time, we take the train to Kaduna and spend a week there. I liked the train because it was comfortable, convenient and most importantly, gave me a sense of safety that I don’t get traveling interstate in Nigeria. All that has changed.
Since the last time I used the train, there have been at least three different attacks similar to that of yesterday. Tracks blown up to derail and stop the train, sporadic shooting into the carriages, windows damaged, passengers pulled out and kidnapped. It is not quite clear who these attackers are, we use the umbrella term “bandits" to refer to any unknown attackers that cause harm to life and property in Nigeria, but what is clear is that they are brutal, decisive and most importantly, organized. I will call them what they are, terrorists. These same terrorists have also taken ownership of the road. In the past few years, the Abuja-Kaduna Highway has become unusable for anyone without the guts of a lion as chances of being kidnapped or even killed on that road are much higher than the possibility of being protected by security operatives on that same road. Most people are not willing to risk their lives so they use the train. The first time the train was attacked I remember being stunned, humbled by my assumption that there was anything like a safe option in Nigeria.
Yesterday’s attack was by far the biggest and most deadly. As is common with Nigerians in the face of chaotic tragedy, calls to pray for Kaduna started appearing on status updates, tweets and everywhere else. This morning, while going through WhatsApp updates, I saw one from a friend of mine that said “Please, pray for Kaduna today, consciously and intentionally”. Right there, something went off in my head.
For as long as I can remember, everyone has been praying for Nigeria. Christians and Muslims alike. There is no shortage of prayers where Nigeria is concerned. Every church program I have attended has been punctuated with a prayer for Nigeria, a prayer for our leaders and prayers against every thing that is wrong with this country. There are many reasons why this is wrong, I have known this subconsciously for a while but seeing that update, with my heart still heavy from the train attack, the reasons became clear as day.
First, the idea that supernatural intervention is the preferred solution to human caused problems is utterly illogical. Barring a few topographical problems which are inconsequential to the point of this discussion, everything that is wrong with Nigeria was caused by human beings and can be fixed by human beings. Primarily, our security challenges are the result of institutional decays in the police and the army which leave security operatives under-equipped and under-trained to counter terrorism. Added to this is the undeniable existence of collusion with terrorists by individuals with power and access who manipulate these security challenges for personal political gain. The train tracks were not derailed by an earthquake, nor were the passengers pelted with hailstones. Human beings with personal destructive agendas launched an attack that could have been prevented by intelligence or at the very least, countered by defensive forces responding swiftly.
Secondly, resorting to praying for Nigeria is a last ditch effort that is not only lazy, but also builds a passive culture that permits us to avoid critically thinking of how to solve our problems. While critical thinking alone cannot solve problems, its widespread absence can explain why we have so little effort on which to mobilize actionable and effective solutions.
Third, which is to state the obvious, the prayers do not work. Let’s look at two important statistics from the last half century, in which Nigeria has objectively gone from bad to worse: in 1972, the naira was 0.658 to the dollar, PMS was selling at 6kobo per liter. As at March 2022, the Naira is trading at N415 to $1 while PMS retails at around N166 per liter, if you can find it to buy. In that time, the number of praying establishments has exploded and Pentecostal Christianity whose mainstay is the power of prayer has reached its peak. If prayers were the solution, by now, if nothing else, things should not be getting worse. There is no indication that increasing the intensity or frequency of these prayers will change anything because God can clearly hear us.
It’s easy to see Nigeria’s problems as bigger than all of us and therefore within the realm of a supreme being’s problem solving abilities. But this is untrue. We only think this because we believe it. Take any one problem in Nigeria, distill its root cause, theorize a possible solution and organize to drive the implementation of that solution. Chances are, that problem would either be solved completely or reduced to a manageable level. If more of us wrote about our problems, exposed inefficiencies within the system and even more organized to develop and implement solutions as far as practicable, there would be less things to pray about. Saying “pray for Nigeria" is saying, “there’s nothing we can do, let’s hope that God comes down to fix it". If Nigeria’s problems were natural disasters, Tsunamis, Hurricanes and Earthquakes of the type that devastate countries like Haiti and Barbados, it would be within reason to call God for help, but that is not the case here.
Nigerians have developed an individualistic approach to security that baffles and upsets me in equal measure. They measure the strength of God’s protection by their happenstance to not experience what others do. “May God save us", “God is in control", “God will protect us" are common responses to news headlines of incidences that leave people dead. The fact that (any number of) lives have been lost to very thing you say God is control of negates that claim in its entirety. Each person with this ideology thinks themselves of more value to God, to be worthy of protection from the same thing that kills the next person. Instead of realizing that broken systems kill at random and we live or die by chance.
The lady who got shot on the train was a Doctor, a brilliant and beautiful person whose friends speak of her with warmth and admiration. She died in that train last night, bleeding out from her bullet wound. She had her whole life ahead of her but all that is over now. Another avoidable death caused by fellow human beings in Nigeria.
Each one of us is worthy of being saved, but we have to save ourselves.
