Recent happenings in the Ikorodu area of Lagos state calls for urgent action by all and sundry, this is impunity in its highest form.

How can residents sleep with an eye open and walk in fear of being attacked by so called militants -Ijaw or whatever and wherever they come from and no one seems to see the Doom looming based on  this uncalled for attacks.

Several postulations have emerged on the identity of the attackers and purpose of the attack, some claim they are members of the new Niger Delta Avengers while others believe they are pipeline vandals, okay, let’s assume they are Niger Delta Avengers, the question is who are they fighting for? and why are  they fighting?.

If killing of innocent souls in Lagos is their strategy to get government attention, either for resource control or what have you, then I think they need a change of strategy. I say so because beyond the reporting of the event on social media especially and some other media outlets, I have not seen any statement condemning the act either by Government officials or civil society groups.

It is this “I don’t care” or “siddon look” attitude of ours that emboldens this radicals to commit more savagery and we are the worst for it.

Nigeria has been turned into a theater of sorts where every Akin, Adamu and Emeka decides to be a hero, under the guise of fighting for one course or the other, the evil acts of killing, wanton destruction of properties are committed and no one seems to be perturbed except of course the surviving victims.

The theory that pipeline vandals are responsible for the Ikorodu mayhem though plausible yet seem absurd, what has the killing of innocent lives got to do with the activities of the vandals? Could they be attacking residents  for being informants to the security agencies?

Before now, various groups have emerged claiming to fight for one right or the other, we have had the Gani Adam’s Odua Peoples Congress(OPC), Asari Dokubo’s Niger Delta Peoples Volunteer Force, Shekau Abubakar’s Boko Haram, just to mention a few.

All these groups gained notoriety by unleashing mayhem on others yet claiming to be advocates of human rights. Successive Governments having failed to curb their activities have been forced to negotiate deals with them resulting into multi million dollars security contracts and scholarship overseas, all at the expense of the law -abiding and  tax- paying citizens, thus justifying the saying “if you can’t beat them, you join them.”

Recently, the Federal Government in its Almighty wisdom proposed a national grazing bill to secure large expanses of land in some or all states of the federation aimed at pacifying the nomadic Fulani herdsmen, who acts as though they were lords on other peoples’ land, fighting, killing and destroying farmlands of their host and getting away with it!.

It is the duty of the Government to provide security to ensure safety of its citizens, failure to do so is an invitation to civil disturbances and wars, where lives will be  lost and communities destroyed.

Where out living together in Peace is becoming increasingly difficult to achieve, may I suggest that each region take its destiny into its hands and stage a Biafraexit, Oduaexit or Arewaexit, after all, our colonial master recently did a Brexit and life continues!

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Op–ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija
Malik Opeyemi Joseph,  twitter handle -@opsymalik
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