The dilemma facing many Nigerians at the weekend was, if you have a very good police officer, kind of one in a million, who has been combing the bushes and the digital world and apprehending some of our vilest kidnappers and murderers, and some foreign agency is accusing him of collecting bribes from a scammer and doing the scammer’s bidding to settle intra-gang scores, what is the best thing for us to do?

This question immediately elicited four clashing points of view between imported African legalism, old fashioned African morality, instinctive African cynicism and native African practicality. Each one of them has a large following in Nigeria. Nigeria has some legalistic people who believe that in modern society, the law is everything, and it should be applied whether it is moral or not. These are mostly legal types, either steeped in White mindset or those who play the NGO game with money from foreign agencies.

Majority of Africans think that the law is an inconvenience to be evaded, sidestepped or short circuited. Ask taxi drivers, who think traffic lights are meant for private motorists. Ask bus drivers, who think it is ok to drive against the traffic because they are in a hurry to earn some money. It is only these legalistic types who will say, “FBI indicted Kyari? Hand him over to them quick, so he can clear his name. Our embassy and consulates in America should provide consular services to him, of the kind that British High Commission here is offering to provide to Kanu.”

Some [old fashioned] Africans however believe that morality is the most important thing, higher than the law itself, and law should be thrown overboard if it is immoral. They don’t even want the inconvenience of going through the tedious process of amending the law; just test the law for morality. These ones will say, “If DCP Abba Kyari was found to be dishonest to the point of collecting bribe from Hushpuppi and detaining the scammer’s accomplice because he shortchanged Hushpuppi, damn it, he should be punished! His glitter of medals and his long list of achievements in crime busting be damned!”

On the other hand, Africa is full of cynics who will never believe anything that Europeans and Americans say, especially their government agencies such as FBI, CIA, State Department and British Home Office or their adjuncts such as Commonwealth, EU and NATO. These are the Nigerians who, upon hearing of Kyari’s FBI indictment, will say, “You know these White people can tell lies! They said they came here to civilize us whereas they came here to steal our resources. Recently they claimed that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. They killed one million Iraqis looking for it but did not find anything. They are detaining Hushpuppi when they have their own scammers there in America. Now they want to take away our best policeman so that bandits and kidnappers will have a free reign. We should hold onto him! If they are looking for crooked policemen, they should look for Derek Chauvin, who murdered George Floyd in cold blood, in broad daylight.”

Sandwiched between the legalists, moralists and cynics, there are the Africans of practicality. They are the ones who will say when they heard the news, “Ah, Abba Kyari did that? That is bad! He is such a good policeman. Are the Americans sure of what they are saying? If we hand Abba Kyari over to them to jail him, then who will arrest the bandits that are terrorizing us here? The Inspector General has only one Intelligence Response Team. We don’t know why he did not train and equip many more such teams in the last ten years. Anyway, the deed is done, we have only one IG’s IRT. Wherever there is a particularly heinous kidnapping, it is Kyari that goes there to solve it. If they jail him in America, will the FBI send somebody to replace him? After all, he did not commit the crime in their country. Let them send the evidence and we will try him here. EFCC can file the case and it will languish in court for ten years, like all the others. Meanwhile, he will be catching kidnappers for us. We should not throw away the baby with the bathwater.”

How do we resolve these conflicting points of view? Somebody should go to Otuoke and ask former President Goodluck Jonathan whether accepting bribe from Hushpuppi is corruption. “Ordinary bribe, people call it corruption. Is bribery a serious thing here? It is White people who think bribery is a big thing. In their Constitution, Americans even wrote that their President should be impeached for ‘treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanor.’ In Nigeria here, if we impeach leaders because of bribery, how many will remain? Joh, kidnapping is our biggest problem. If we have a policeman who is fighting it well, he should kontinu.”

Culled from the Gallery in 21st Century Chronicle.

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When the Crusaders, led by Godfrey of Bouillon, took Jerusalem from the Muslims in 1099, they butchered every single Muslim and Jewish man, woman and child that they found in the city and they pulled down all their places of worship.

100 years later, in 1187, when the Muslims, led by Salahudeen Al Ayyubi, took the city of Jerusalem back from the Crusaders, every single Christian man, woman and child that they found in the City was given safe passage to leave, not one of them was killed, not one Church was pulled down and the Christians that chose to stay were given the right to worship in their Churches.

The barbarity of Godfrey of Bouillon, a Christian, was unprecedented and the compassion of Salahudeen Al Ayyubi, a Muslim, was second to none.

Again in 1982 when the Israeli-backed Christians in Lebanon attacked the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Chatilla they slaughtered thousands of defenceless and innocent Muslim men, women and children in cold blood.

Just as in the previous cases this speaks volumes. History proves that adherents of all faiths have committed atrocities in the past. This suggests that wickedness and barbarity is a human failing and not a religious one.

All monotheic faiths preach love, unity, peace, kindness and harmony. All monotheic faiths believe in the power and supremacy of one God: the Lord of the Universe and the God of Heaven.

All monotheic faiths derive from one righteous and earthly father whose name was Abraham: a man whom the Lord blessed and promised that he would be the “father of nations”.

Good Muslims, good Christians and good Jews do not target and butcher the innocent.

Bad Muslims, bad Christians and bad Jews target and kill the innocent with zeal and pleasure and inflict pain upon the weak and helpless.

The bad ones do these things because they are inherently wicked people and not because their faith teaches them to do so.

They twist, use and misinterpret the tenets of their faith to justify their craving for violence and their lust for blood.

The morale of the tale is as follows: never generalise and never ascribe acts of evil to the adherents of one faith as opposed to another.

Adherents of ALL faiths and some individuals that have no faith at all fall short of the glory of God and they have all indulged in barbarous acts and committed atrocities throughout world history.

If you don’t believe me kindly consider the following:

Hitler caused the death of 50 million people in World War 11 and gassed to death 6 million Jews, Gypsies and homosexuals: he was a Christian and not a Muslim or a Jew.

Kaiser Wilhelm 11 of Germany caused the death of 20 million people in World War 1: he was a Christian and not a Muslim or a Jew.

King Leopold 11 of Belgium killed 10 million Congolese Africans and cut off the limbs of 5 million: he was a Christian and not a Muslim or a Jew.

Josef Stalin killed 25 million citizens of the Soviet Union: he was an atheist and not a Christian, Muslim or a Jew.

Pol Pot killed 2 million Cambodians: he was an atheist and not a Christian, Muslim or a Jew.

Mao Tse Tung caused the death of 45 million Chinese: he was an atheist and not a Christian, Muslim or a Jew.

These monsters all committed these crimes because they were monsters and not because they were Christians, Muslims, Jews, agnostics or atheists.

All faiths and all agnostics and atheists have their own fair share of such monsters and all faiths and all agnostics and atheists have their own fair share of righteous and kind men.

Condemn the monsters but never condemn their faith or lack of it.

May God have mercy upon us all.