BETWEEN SUSWAM AND BENUE PEOPLE WHO IS MORE INJURED? - Fr Michael Melladu

 

•  "qui tacet consentire videtur" (He who is silent is taken to agree)

Over and again, I have taken time to react on burning issues affecting the lives of the Benue people. Accepted or not, welcomed or discarded, I have never been silent; God bears me witness. Of greatest attention in Benue presently is the reconciliation between the immediate past governor and the incumbent. This is a welcome development that every genuine son and daughter of the Tiv nation looked forward to. Our unreserved thanks thanks go to the Father of the Tiv nation, the Tor Tiv, for such enviable feat. Your Highness, may your days be long.

As wonderful as this famous reconciliation may be, it leaves more than a few questions hanging on many lips. Questions such as:
Between Suswam and Benue people, who is more injured?
Between Suswam and Benue people, who deserves to be reconciled with first?
Is Benue state all about the elites?
What abut these people?

The men and women who have worked for a year and some even more without salary
Pensioners who served the nation with their blood and are now made to pay with their lives.
Children driven out of school because their parents are not paid.

Workers who are termed ghosts and sacked while the real ghosts smile to the banks.
Families who have buried loved ones sent to their untimely graves, no thanks to none payment of salaries.

The electorate who were promised change but now enslaved in their own mother land These and the likes are the people genuinely injured and require first and foremost public apology, consolation even before reconciliation.

Certainly not those who over the years have become multi billionaires in dollars through our common wealth.

Those who have investments in and out of the country for their generation yet unborn.
Those driving in exulted armored cars when the people they were meant to serve cannot afford bicycles after retirement. These people own us an apology for mortgaging the future of our unborn children and keeping our people perpetually impoverished.

Hence, I am not in a bit excited about the the so called reconciliation, as it is selfish, ungodly, inhuman and ill-timed. I see it as a well rehearsed and calculated attempt aimed at procuring yet another opportunity to further rape the already traumatized and dehumanized people of Benue state.

Benue people, you have been fooled enough. Say no to elites who have and are still milking you to death. You are human beings with equal rights and not animals even if they call you so.

A Latin adage says "qui tacet consentire videtur" (He who is silent is taken to agree) I personally therefore, refuse to be seduced into this cheap pluralis majestatis where a persona non grata is suddenly canonized overnight for selfish political lanbantionem.

Finally, we call on the Tor Tiv to complete this wonderful work he begun by telling the government to reconcile with the Benue people. True reconciliation has to do with true confession and remorse for the injury inflicted. only and only when this is done, shall there be true reconciliation in Benue State.
Fr Michael Melladu - weeping for Benue