This is getting scary: Can anybody tell me what is going on?

I may be wrong but I believe that something is going wrong in the World. Any where you turn, there is anger; there is violence. Almost every day there is a new breaking news on television about the break out of violence in one part of the world or the other. Global terrorism is growing daily and assuming unimaginable dimensions. Sectarian conflicts are growing and racial violence is resurgent. Human life is becoming meaningless all over the world. Are we losing our humanity or are we coming to the close of the age or what really is happening?

In our country, I am having increasing difficulty understanding what is happening. The Boko Haram insurgents ravaged our nation over the last six years, bombing, killing and maiming. Not satisfied with that, they began to take territory and threatened to overrun Northern Nigeria and possibly the entire nation. What was their anger? No one could really say, though it was alleged that they hated western education and wanted to turn Nigeria into an Islamic nation ruled according to the sharia. Could these be the reason for all the lives they wasted and all the destruction they caused including the lives of uneducated Muslims?

Then when we were succeeding in containing the Boko Haram and their dastardly acts, the Fulani herdsmen menace arrived with such ferocity, killing, maiming and sacking villages across the middle belt and parts of the Southern Nigeria. Virtually every week, we read reports of new territories invaded and many lives destroyed. This has created so much tension in the country. Today the issue of creating grazing reserves and cattle ranches has divided the nation and some fierce political battles lie ahead as the matter is being debated in the National Assembly.

Just as Nigerians were beginning to get used to the daily killings of innocent Nigerians by armed and marauding herdsmen, a new line of killing has been opened. A few weeks ago, a 74 year woman, wife of Deeper life Pastor in Kano was murdered in cold blood in the clear view of all, including security men by Islamic fanatics who accused her of blasphemy. They cut off her head and danced around town with it as they did with Akaluka’s head a few years past. Last week, a deacon of Redeemed Christian Church, the wife of a pastor, was murdered by suspected Islamic miscreants in Abuja (Yes our National Political Capital city!) as she was undertaking her religious morning cry. I have also read recent reports that suggested that Pastors and Christian preachers or evangelists are being targeted and killed by unknown Muslim head hunters. I am truly troubled by these recent developments. My worry is worsened by the seeming inability of the police to resolve these hate murders. Who knows who is next and how many more of this kind of apparent sectarian killing will happen before it instigates reprisals? I just hope that my fears will not crystallize.

Kidnapping and brazen armed robbery is on the rise all over the country. Everybody is a possible victim now- businessmen, politicians, traditional rulers and civil servants, old and young. What is worse is that many of the kidnapped get killed with or without paying ransom. Reports of these heinous crimes are in the news every day, and it looks like I am the only one worried while it seems to be business as usual for our security agencies and the government.

The invasion of the USA in September 2001 by Al-Qaida terrorists brought to the fore what terrorists can do. Until then, most of the terrorism we heard of was in Israel and we thought it was being carried out by the Palestinians against the Israelis as a way of forcing Israel to relinquish their occupied territory. But when they moved from there to the US and latter to the UK in the bombing of the London Underground, global terrorism took a completely new turn. With the death of Osama Bin Laden and the US battle against the Talibans of Afghanistan we thought that global terrorism was coming to an end. Then entered the Islamic State (ISIS), and hell was set loose. From Iraq to Syria, millions of lives have been lost, so much property destroyed and millions of people displaced helping to cause one of the worst refugee crisis in history.

In recent times the global terrorist activities have concentrated in Europe, making France the epicentre. Virtually every month they strike either Belgium or France or Turkey. And all these have made travel such a painful or hazardous experience. If you escape being asked to undress at airport security points of entry or exit, you could become a victim of terrorists attack at either arrival or departure lounges as happened in France and Turkey very recently.

Dealing with lone wolf terrorists who attack the nationals of their adopted countries as we have repeatedly seen in the US and in Europe has complicated the profiling of terrorists. They do not need to travel from another country anymore, so waiting to catch them or to stop them at international entry points seem now to be futile exercise. Home grown Islamic terrorists radicalized through the internet without travelling to Yemen or Syria are on the increase. The attack last Friday by a lone wolf who drove a hired truck through holiday makers in Nice, France killing nearly 90 people and wounding so many others, including children has completely re-written the rules about terrorism. You no longer need ammunition or bombs to carry out terrorist attack. Just enter into a car or bus or truck (yours, hired or hijacked) and then run into a busy street anywhere and you can be sure to take revenge on innocent citizens. Revenge for what? Please ask me. I am scared truly because how do you protect yourself against this low level, easy to implement terrorist acts. I fear there will be copy cats soon.

Now can anybody really tell me what is happening in the United States of America? Recently there has been what looked like police brutality against black people. Then there has come what looks like reprisals against the police. From city to city, police and security officers are being murdered. What is really going on? Then just as the world was grieving over the murder of the innocent in Nice, some amateur coupists marched out in Turkey attempting to overthrow the government of President Erdogan. Nearly 300 Turkish civilians were killed Saturday night and about 6000 Turkish soldiers may be condemned to death for the attempted coup! Is humanity losing its essence and value? Has the asymmetric Third World War actually started where brothers will be against brothers? Why has hate taken over the World? Where has love gone? Can someone please tell me what is going on?

Mazi Sam Ohuabunwa