Is Armageddon here already?

Is Armageddon here already?
By Sam Onimisi

In a religious conflict, it is hard to have some people who are neutrals. Not that you may not have a few but that no one will believe them. And the reason for this is not far-fetched. Religion is such an emotive issue that lends itself to blind followership. You don’t have to produce any evidence to convince people of the desirability of your religious faith. In any case, whatever evidence you labour to produce are mere fabrications to those who would never accept them, no matter how plausible the evidence is.
There are those who inherit there faith from their parents, having been born into it. Some choose their religious faith by conscious efforts with their eyes wide open. Others are forced or compelled into it by circumstances within and or beyond their control. Among the many religious faiths, Christianity and Islam are the most popular, especially among Nigerians. Both faiths originated from the Middle-East. Each claims to be the correct way to please God or to make heaven. If God is Allah, it means he is also the author of the Bible and the Quran; meaning that he is the same Supreme Being for whom the Church and the Mosque are built.
If God or Allah is the maker of Christians and Muslims, it means both are offspring of the same Father-God. In the Church as well as the Mosque, it is generally agreed that God has no wife; which is to say that no one can claim that his mother is the most senior or the favourite wife of God. In which case, there is no reason for rivalry or envy between the children of the same father whose mother is also the same. I don’t intend to pursue the argument further, because it will simply lead nowhere to those who have pitched their tents with either of the two faiths.

The Christmas eve bombing of Jos and attacks on Christians and churches in Maiduguri on the anniversary of the attempted bombing of an American aircraft by Abdul Farouk Mutallab of 2009 and the new year eve bombing of Abuja are eloquent reminders that there is a world of difference between Christians and Muslims. If our shared territory and habitation, inter-action and beneficial exchanges are not enough to see each other as humans, then no preachment or sermonization will ever do.
To the Jama’atu Ahlus-Sunnah Lidda awati Wal Jihan, the Islamic group who claimed credit for the bombings, they did so to remind us that “the disbelievers or non-Muslim in the world are fighting Islam and the entire Muslim community. So we must stand and strive to protect Islam and its ways of life, and would continue until God triumphed over the unbelievers in Nigeria.” So, the 21st century Jihad or holy war is declared?
But the Jama’atu Nasril Islam (JNI) as well as the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA) both headed by the Sultan of Sokoto has condemned the attacks as an heinous crime. And so, we are left to choose who to believe between the bombers and the JNI/NSCIA. The choice is hard to make, to my mind. This is because the JNI/NSCIA has never ceased to condemn such dastardly and barbaric attacks in the recent past, except that the more they condemned it, the more the attacks are carried out in more horrendous torrents! The Ulama Elders Council, in a sanguine response claimed that atrocities were not restricted to Christian-dominated areas as shooting and maiming also occurred at a Muslim-dominated area of Jos. This is a maladroit manner of equalizing and therefore, justifying the bombing of Jos.
Let us assume for a moment that the bombers of Jos are god-forsaken dim-wits, who are misguided in their small minds that they could fight for Allah, shouldn’t their elders remind them that God and Allah are one? Or are we to take it that the fathers of those bombers must be nit-wits whose offspring must necessarily be dim-wits? Because they have now made it clear that God is different from Allah as they are fighting on the side of Allah against God. What the religious nincompoops of Jos are telling us is that between God and Allah, one must be evil while the other must be good and, when good and evil are fighting, it is fight-to-finish and thus, the employment of a more lethal weapon – the bomb!
The history of war teaches that the aggressor is he who attacks first; not only that, a clean war is often declared ahead of time to enable the other side prepare for war. But in Jos, the barbarians choose to raid or plant bombs when others are asleep. This surreptitious method of war, especially when it has a religious colouration is more of a satanic war than a holy war. And I don’t believe that Allah has any relationship with Satan. But the bastards of Jos are giving Allah a bad name by bombing their neighbours and hosts without warning, claiming to be fighting for Allah. They are simply cowards.
I am informed that no one drops from the sky to live here on earth. As the individual is born into a specific family, so each tribe or ethnic nation is born into a territory which they lay claim to as their land. No one can be at home and abroad at the same time, just as no one is an indigene and a settler all at once.
In contrasts however, religious faith is by choice and not by force. If a choice is not good, it can be exchanged for another in a free world. We must wait until we get to heaven where God or Allah rules to make religious choice compulsory; not here on planet earth.
Nomads and itinerant Nigerians are free to roam the land as citizens. They go about with their religion, their culture and way of life. What they cannot carry along is their land or territory. But does this grant them the license to appropriate other peoples land? Or impose their own choice of religion on others? Put in another way, if one is not a courteous guest, can he be a good host? No one is a universal prince. You are a prince only in your own territory, among your own people. If we pretend that the cause of the war in Jos is not ethno-religious and that it is not political, we will be deceiving ourselves. But bomb-making and bomb-throwing is not an exclusive preserve of one ethnic group or religious faith. When both sides are converted into bomb planting by choice or force, there shall be mutually assured destruction. If or when this happens, whom will God or Allah preside over? Someone had better advice their wards that are intent on senseless war to cease or commit suicide by poison rather than bomb planting. If they continue, why; then here is Armageddon!