Yesterday at plenary session, Senator Dino Melaye raised a point of order on what he calls a “cyber space attack in the last one week”. He condemned the spread of photos that do wrongly represent the Southern Kaduna killings on the internet.

That Senator Dino Melaye was the one who raised the concern is not disappointing but that the House allows the most trivial part of a national menace that has claimed thousand of lives, to be mentioned at all, is appalling.

At the time the Senate resumed from its recess earlier in the year, the Senate President in accordance with the rest of House had promised to get to the roots of the killings in Southern Kaduna. Apart from setting up an ad hoc committee to investigate the cause of the crisis, nothing more has been heard from the Senate on the matter. Yet, Senator Melaye took the floor to make a warning about photos on cyberspace, pastors inciting hatred and other issues that do not and can not potentially rescue the situation in that region.

True, he didn’t ask that his statement should be debated but Senator Dino Melaye who claimed he investigated the original source of the photos he came across, maybe should invest his time in finding possible solutions to the killings. The photos he found are free to view on the internet and it is erroneous to say that they are cause of the hateful messages religious leaders are preaching. We cannot justify the actions of pastors and imams to reportedly promote violence but their sermons are not based on photos available online.

Anyone who is mad about the Southern Kaduna killings is triggered by the numbers of Nigerians who have been maimed as reported by news agencies, by the real-life stories of Northerners who have witnessed the killings, by the silence of President Muhammadu Buhari since the Fulani herdsmen went on this rampage and by the sluggish approach of the Senate in handling the matter.

Nigerians know more than the photos tell, the Senate should quit lazy talk and act.