Human Rights Watch Website of reports that more than 15,700 people have been killed in religious, ethnic and political violence since Nigeria returned to civilian rule in 1999. This is in addition to the thousands of people killed in the earlier infamous Maitatsine religious riots, Kafanchan and Zangon Kataf ethno-religious disturbances, Itsekiri and Ijaw crises, Yoruba and Hausa clashes at Shagamu, Oodua militia mayhems in Lagos, Nigerian Army massacres at Odi and Zaki Biam, Ife and Modakeke conflicts, Okrika and Eleme conflicts, Niger Delta Militants’ mayhems, etc, etc.
Worthy of note in all these crises is the fact that no Councillor or Chairman or Commissioner or Governor or Minister or Senator or Army General or Police Commissioner or Chief Imam or Pastor or Tribal Leader or Billionaire or any of the children of the aforementioned have been killed in the ensuing crises! Therefore ethnic, religious or political leaders and elites are not the victims.
Who then are the victims? This book gives the answer by analysing the phenomenon where ethnic, religious or political leaders and elites normally trigger conflicts, hide in their fortress homes and woo ordinary Nigerians into battle. The book concludes, most sadly, that those who subsequently get killed, maimed, persecuted or arrested by security agents are the ordinary Nigerians and therefore calls on them to stop allowing themselves to be killed in the name of ethnicity, religion or politics.
