According to Randy Kilgore, “When the trials of today seem more daunting than your strength, let the lord show you the end of the story when you will be in His presence forever”’ The hindsight of the beauty at the end of the tunnel remains the catalyst that propel us to move  more on inspite the odds.

For the past four years or thereabout the inhabitants of Borno, both Muslims and Christians including traditionalists have become prayer warriors seeking God’s intervention in the holocaust of man inhumanity to man occasioned by Boko Haram insurgency, kidnapping, assassin bullets and other social vices that have held ransom a one time cherished habitat of peace and tranquility. Borno suddenly assumed a thearte of undeclared and unprovoked war, a landscape of shattered homesteads, severed limbs, tattered lives, looted barns and a legacy of orphans, widows and devastation”. This is the cross of crucifixion the people of Borno never bargained for and therefore compelled in prayers pleading with the Almighty creator to let off them this cup of horror and dark cloud enveloping the state.

They prayed and prayed but no response from above as the more they prayed the more devastating the onslaught and destruction of valuables. It thus appeared then that Heaven (God)has shut its gate against the inhabitants of the earth (Borno) as the response from high heaven so far appeared a dead silence. This is the dilemma the people of Borno discovered themselves in this imbroglio as they began to asked why is the Gate of Mercy shut against us? What is our offence? Who will bail us out if not God, the Merciful? Why the continued heavy dark cloud hanging on us and the dead silence from the Creator inspite of our wailings and weeping?

Talking about the dark clouds of dead silence that hung on Borno, especially Maiduguri for the past four years reminds one of the visit of Pope Benedict VI to Auschwitez in May, 2006. Auschwitez is a concentration camp in Poland during the Second World War where millions of Jews were gassed to death by the Nazis in Germany. In a speech at the camp, the pope said: “To speak in this place of horror, in this place where unprecedented mass crimes were committed against God and man is almost impossible… in a place like this, words fail, in the end, there can only be a dread silence – a silence which is itself a heartfelt cry to God: Why, Lord, did you remain silent? How could you tolerate all this? How many questions arise in this place! Constantly the question comes up” Where was God in those days? Why was he silent? How could he permit this endless slaughter, this triumph of evil?

Then quoting the word of Psalm 44, a psalm of Israel’s lamentation for it woes, suffering and sorrows the Pope said: “You have broken us in the haunt of jackals, and covered us with deep darkness…because of you we are being killed all daylong and accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Rouse yourself! Why do you sleep, O Lord? Awake; do not cast us off forever! Why do you hide your face? Why do you forget our affliction and oppression? For we sink down to the dust; our bodies cling to the ground. Rise up, come to our help. Redeem us for the sake of your steadfast love”. (Psalm44:19, 22-26).

This cry of anguish which Israel raised to God in its suffering, at moments of deep stress, is also the cry for help raised by all those who in every age suffer for the love of God, the love of truth and the love of goodness. This has been the anguish of the people of Borno State for the past four years.

Like the Israelites of old, in difficult and trying moments, it is easy, very easy, to think that God of compassion and love, the God of the persecuted and minorities is absent, deaf and dumb. However, we know that the Israelites were never abandoned by God. They always came out triumphant over their enemies at the end of the day. We also know that even when Jesus cried out on the cross, “Eloi Eloi, lama sabachtani” (“my God, my God, why have you abandon me” Mk. 15:34), he was not abandoned by his father. God was right there with him on the cross, that was why he conquered death by rising triumphantly and gloriously.

Unknown to most Muslims and Christians in Borno who have been persistent in prayers for the past four years and thought God has shut the gate of salvation to them as the holocaust persist instead of abating, the Almighty Creator was right there with them in the years of tribulation and is still with them now because he is God of yesterday, today and tomorrow. Remember he made it clear that he would never leave us nor forsake us and would not give us a burden we cannot carry. His ways are not our ways and he will strike when least expected and deadly too.

And this is exactly what happened in Maiduguri about a month back when before the shout of Jack Robinson, God, the mighty warrior revealed himself. A wind of change suddenly emerged from nowhere and altered to the consternation of all, the entire scenario making the hunters the hunted and the attackers the attacked. The well equipped and recalcitrant Boko Haram insurgents are now on their heels fleeing from  pillar to post from the onslaught of the ill-equipped  youths group designated “Volunteer Youths Group” but metamphosed to civilian Joint Task force (CJTF). Despite the ill-equipped disposition of the youths, they dared the lion in its own den arresting some known Boko Haram members and handing them over to the military Joint Task Force(JTF). The accord and collaboration between the CJTF and the JTF with the backing of the authorities have rekindled the hope of the people in the ability of the government to deal decisively with the insurgency.

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Read this article from the Leadership Newspapers

Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.