The Fingers Dipped in Blood – Part 2

Dear God,

Are you thinking what I am thinking? Well, I think I must finish this story.

The country had already become a room soaked in petrol. All that remained was a matchstick. Then it came. A plane carrying the President fell from the sky. And Boom, just like that. All it took was one explosion, and suddenly hell opened its front door politely and walked into Rwanda carrying both government and religious ID card and for hundred days humanity lost its mind. 

The killing began almost immediately. Not random killing, but organized killing. That is what still disturbs me most. Human wickedness is frightening enough, but organized wickedness? Aah, haba!

Before you could say “Jack”, the roads were blocked overnight. They made a list and check marked names on clipboards. Mr Hansatun – killed – check! The Minister – Killed – check. The Wonta families – killed – check! Father Lord.
Imagine dying because somebody recognized your surname on the clipboard? Imagine death stopping you at a checkpoint and asking: “Who are your people?” “Tutsi or Hutu?” Oh God… What kind of world is this?

(Dad, this is not the time to smirk, I am very upset right now)

Radio stations became slaughterhouses with microphones. “Cut the tall trees,” they said. As if human beings were weeds. Politicians with venoms screamed: “Kill the cockroaches, stamp them out.” And religious leaders made public scriptural quotes to validate the slogans.

And suddenly, ordinary people, (farmers, teachers, mechanics, church workers), picked up machetes and turned against the neighbours they had eaten with for years. I still can’t wrap my head around it.

A man killed the woman who sold him pepper every Tuesday. Another killed the teacher who taught his daughter mathematics. A pastor handed frightened congregation over to militias inside a church (Yes Lord, yes. He allowed them run into the sanctuary for safety and simply led the militia there and walked away).

Dad, don’t look at me like that….it is there on the walls. I wonder what he would do when he gets to heaven and see the faces of all the people he betrayed…… because he will repent and You will let him into heaven. Just make sure his mansion is not near mine….no matter the repentance, he can’t be trusted.

Sometimes I think the devil does not need to invent fresh evil anymore. He simply should sit down, take notes while humanity volunteer and brainstorm new ideas for evil.

One survivor recalled hiding beneath dead bodies for days. Days, Dad, not hours, Days. Can you imagine the smell of death becoming your blanket? Can you imagine praying silently while hearing people outside debate whether to finish you off?

One child watched her mother hacked to death because she refused to abandon her children. Another watched his father beg: “Please… at least spare the little ones.” They killed the little ones first before him. I stood brokenly in the children’s section and read about a little girl whose head was smashed on the wall. I saw two little siblings that were tied up and burned alive and I wept. I couldn’t hold it in….I just couldn’t.

The woman I chatted with in my room told me that when they cut her father’s head off, it rolled out under her bed. She said later, she carried it and hid it for many years until she surrendered it to the centre. That is the part history books struggle to carry properly. Statistics hide the screams, the soul-retching agony. They only noted the number….  “Eight hundred thousand dead.” Such clean numbers for the records only.

But numbers do not show mothers searching for their babies in rivers. Numbers do not show a boy sitting beside his dead brother waiting for him to wake up because he does not yet understand what death means. Numbers do not show dogs growing fat from human flesh while the international community held meetings with bottled water and designer ties.

One old survivor said bitterly: “The world sent their condolences while we needed courage just to breathe.” Hmm. That sentence deserves to haunt humanity forever.

And the churches…. Oh God (please don’t let me start). Even churches became killing grounds. People ran into sanctuaries believing: “Surely nobody will murder us in God’s house.”

But hatred does not remove its shoes before entering holy places. Yes, some clergy protected lives heroically, but some participated in the betrayal. And that is another painful lesson for me: Religion alone does not make people righteous. A wicked heart can wear a choir robe comfortably.

So, for one hundred days Rwanda bled. For one hundred days, neighbours were hunting neighbours. For one hundred days, the rivers carried human bodies instead of fish. And for one hundred days, humanity behaved like it had collectively lost its mind.

Then finally the killings stopped and silence returned. Never confuse silence for healing. After the genocide, even the winds sounded guilty. And what remained afterward? Widows. Orphans. Mass graves. Trauma sitting quietly at dinner tables. An entire nation asking itself the same terrible question: “How did we become this?”

Dad, that question is perhaps the scariest truth. The people who committed those horrors were not aliens. They were ordinary human beings. Which means that under fear, propaganda, anger, and manipulation, humanity is thinner than we proudly imagine.

That truth should humble every nation on earth. Because no society is too educated for hatred. No church is too spiritual for corruption. No tribe is too civilized for propaganda. Once we stop seeing human beings as sacred… Anything becomes possible.

Now Lord, can I bring it home again?

Fellow Nigerians – Don Allah, Zukwanuike! (Can we just be calming down)

One of the most terrifying truths about Rwanda is that ordinary people became participants in extraordinary evil. Teachers. Neighbours. Businessmen. Worshippers.

The drum of disaster is starting to beat again. Listen carefully to political conversations in Nigeria. Listen to radio shows. Read social media comments. Watch election seasons closely. The same dangerous ingredients are quietly being stirred again: “Igbo people are the problem.” “Hausas want to take over, it’s our turn.” “They hate us.” “We must protect our own.”

Those slogans are how nations accidentally start to prepare graves for their children. That woman in Rwanda said to me: “By the time we realized politicians were feeding us hatred, we had already swallowed too much of it.” Hmmm, now ours are quietly feeding us garnished hatred and we are not paying attention. We nibble, laugh and say it’s a joke. “Don’t worry, keep nibbling, your belle go soon full.”

But Lord, Rwandans are very intelligent and proactive. That genocide centre is one smart stroke of wisdom. They carry their students, both young and old to the centre. They send new cadets from the military, police and all law enforcement commissions to the centre to see first hand what lawlessness and chaos can birth. We saw young soldiers crying quietly inside the centre. One showed me his grandfather’s picture on the wall. Now, imagine what he would do to any politician that steers up hatred amongst the people again. They are taking great measures and precautions to prevent a reoccurrence and what are we doing? We are gently fanning our own flame and laughing!

Well done folks!

Nigeria must never allow anger to become governance strategy again. No election is worth your blood or mine. No tribe is worthy of genocide. No political ambition deserves the tears of mothers burying their children.

And the media must be careful too. Because microphones can heal nations or destroy them. Rwanda proved that propaganda could kill as effectively as weapons.

Religious leaders must also refuse political manipulation disguised as spirituality. Once pulpits become tribal headquarters, society is already in danger.

This warning is urgent, as we race into our election year in 2027: Nigeria’s greatest enemy is not tribe or religion. It is the manipulation of tribe and religion by selfish leadership. If citizens do not become emotionally intelligent and historically conscious, politicians will continue turning ordinary frustrations into ethnic hostility while the real problems remain untouched.

Are we home with our ears? Are we listening? 

If you are a Nigerian, I promise, on my honour, I will never judge you by your tribe, your religion or political inclinations. Your value will always be the power of your heart, your mind and your head.

If you are African, please learn “the Who” you are quickly and believe it fiercely so that you can process any other identity or labelling from the West without emotions.

Again, I rest my case here for now:

This is your daughter Lord, I will be back, I am checking in.