The humanity in us is hardly existent. We used to be less bothered about terrorism in the North. Now, it is coming to us.

Even with news reports of ‘herdsmen’ attack in some parts of the South, there are Nigerians who still say, the ‘North is the North’ and should deal with its problems.

We have become so used to headlines of human beings killed in one part of Northern Nigeria or the other, that we hardly open the reports these days. We simply scroll up to look for a funny post, and we forget almost immediately that “120 people have just been killed in a herdsmen attack“.

“It won’t come to us” is one thing residents and indigenes of Southern Nigeria says. But it is and we are still not bothered.

The ignored warnings

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The country’s President, Muhammadu Buhari, and the Nigerian Army Headquarters have since been silent after a 2020 warning that ISIS and al-Qaeda groups are planning to infiltrate Southern Nigeria and expand across West Africa.

In same light, the presidential aides suddenly lost their voices after the report – the same ones who are quick to share press releases when an angry Nigerian calls the president a goat.

The Commander of the US special operations command, Africa, Dagvin Anderson, who gave this warning, claimed in a media briefing that al-Qaeda is also expanding to other parts of West Africa.

The only response Nigerians get

“We are working tirelessly to end terrorism, we don’t need to tell you everything we do.” However, that is not the case, not especially when billions allocated to fight terrorism is entering private pockets – a case many Nigerians have forgotten.

The title ‘terrorist’ has changed a lot these past months, years. We have had ‘insurgents’, ‘bandits’, ‘herdsmen’, ‘gunmen’, and any other you remember. Not because we like dishing out names at every opportunity, but because we like running away from the truth.

Buhari has done little to address Nigeria’s ongoing terrorism and insecurity

It is terrorism, don’t sugar coat it.

Barely twenty-four hours after eight people were killed in Adani, Uzo -Uwani Local Government Area, Enugu, by gunmen, a Methodist priest and 17 other indigenes of Egedegede, Obegu and Amuzu communities in   Ishielu Local Government Area, Ebonyi, were on Monday evening, gruesomely killed by rampaging herdsmen who invaded the communities.

The Ebonyi incident came as a shock to the indigenes. According to Vanguard, a resident who did not want to be named said 18 persons were killed by the herdsmen in Ishielu, another resident said 10 persons were killed.

Back in January, Gunmen attacked a police station in Ebonyi, killing three police officers, and reportedly carted away two AK 47 rifles from the police station.

Sometimes, we call these splinter events and give it no meaning, saying “make them try am for Southern Nigeria, we go chase them comot”.

It is happening, terrorism is spreading and because we have adopted the word ‘herdsmen’, we all think it is just an attempt by a particular tribe to take over lands not belonging to them.

Wake up Nigeria, terrorism is a not the burden of only Northern Nigeria. Know this, fight it, know peace.