The Fingers Dipped in Blood

Dear God,

I honestly wanted to write last week but my heart was too heavy, and my mind was not processing well. Yes, I went to the genocide centre in Rwanda. I wish I didn’t. That story validated this saying for me….” the heart of man is “Desperately Wicked” …. who can know it?” The tour guide warned us it would be painful, but I didn’t pay attention…until….

I have always wondered something. Who taught human beings how to divide other human beings so perfectly that they can sleep peacefully after doing it? Because Rwanda did not begin with machetes. No. It began with something far more dangerous.

An idea.

And ideas, unlike bullets, do not make noise when they enter the human heart. They slip in quietly. Like termites in the woodwork of civilization.

Because one day everybody in Rwanda is laughing together at the village square. The next day somebody is measuring their noses, counting their cows, tracing their bloodlines, and suddenly neighbours became categories. They handed out identity cards like curses. And so, neighbours who once shared banana beer and laughter were told they were different species. As if God ever created labels before He created people.

Before the white man arrived with his Bible in one hand and his ruler in the other, Rwanda was a kingdom of green hills and shared language. People farmed together, married across communities, danced under the same moon, buried their dead in the same earth, and quarrelled like ordinary human beings, without global headlines.

Yes, there were social classes. Yes, power leaned more toward the Tutsi monarchy. But identity was fluid then. A man could rise. A family could change status. All you needed was 10 cows. Father in Heaven,10 cows and you become a Tutsi…an elite, the rich, the Odogwus. T-E-N! You lose one, you step down to a Hutu. Simple. You have none, you are a Twa….Shikina. Everyone knew their place. Life was not yet trapped inside permanent tribal cages.

Then colonialism arrived. Ah, Father Lord… (Please forgive them for they know not what they do). Colonialism did not merely steal land. It reorganized human dignity. The Belgians came carrying scales for human worth, to divide and rule.

“You,” they said, “are Tutsi, tall and noble.” “You,” they said, “are Hutu, stocky and simple.” “You,” they said, “You are Twa, inconsequential”. Imagine that. Dad, the same You-God that made stars and oceans sat quietly in heaven while men with clipboards reduced human beings into categories like livestock at a market. And the frightening thing? People eventually started believing it.

That is the danger of repeated lies. If society repeats nonsense long enough, eventually nonsense begins to wear the perfume of truth. One of the survivors said: “Before the hatred came, we were poor together. Then somebody taught us that we were different kinds of poor.”

Dad, that sentence alone deserves to sit inside every parliament building on earth. Because division is profitable to the wicked people ONLY. A united people ask questions. A divided people ask each other’s tribe. And slowly Rwanda changed. Suspicion entered conversations. Politics entered ethnicity. Identity entered fear. Then came 1959.

One rumour. One political spark. One accusation. One Religious Confirmation (oh Yes, you heard me, Dad – Religion was part of octopus fingers). Every monster in history has worn the mask of righteousness before showing its teeth. And suddenly neighbours began burning neighbours’ homes. Funny thing about hatred, my Lord…is that…… It never arrives introducing itself properly. It comes disguised as justice. As revenge. As “protecting our people.”

When the first sting of carnage began, the Tutsi families fled into exile. And the Hutu families hardened their anger into political identity. Children inherited grievances they did not personally experience. And just like that, Rwanda became a pot left too long on fire. Still boiling. Still simmering. Waiting to over flow.

The world, meanwhile, watched like bored spectators at a roadside drama. The West took sides, rolling the dice, betting on outcomes. Nobody understands how dangerous humiliation is until a politician learns how to weaponize it.

Dad, I have noticed something about human beings. We can survive poverty. We can survive hardship. But once somebody convinces us another human being is the reason for our suffering, civilization begins packing its bags quietly.

That evening in Kigali, in my hotel room, I engaged an older room service woman who came to clean my room in a conversation and asked her: “Where you there when the genocide truly began, when was that?” She answered softly: “For me there was no exact date, the day we stopped seeing each other as humans first, that was when it began”

Chai. That answer entered my spirit like cold rain. Because genocide does not begin with killing. It begins with the language, the naming, the labels. “Cockroach”. “Snake”. “Enemy”. “Infidel”. “Outsider”. “Omo-Igbo”. “Omo-Yoruba”. “Ofe-Manu”. E.T.C.

Once a people begin renaming fellow human beings beneath humanity, blood is already negotiating its contract. On the walls at the Centre, a politician was quoted saying…. ”Kill all the Cockroaches……”

And still, their hills remained beautiful. That is perhaps the most terrifying part. Nature does not interrupt evil. Birds still sang. Bananas still ripened. Children still played football barefoot in dusty compounds. Meanwhile darkness was rehearsing backstage. Waiting for its cue. And perhaps that is the lesson history keeps screaming at us.

Human beings do not suddenly become monsters overnight. No. We train ourselves into cruelty gradually. One prejudice at a time. One political lie at a time. One religious teaching at a time. One silence at a time. Until eventually a society wakes up and realizes hatred has rented an apartment inside its soul.

And by then… It is usually too late. I will continue this story, Lord, because I have a lot to say but I need to bring it home now……

Fellow Nigerians – Zukwanuike! (Just be calming down)

Rwanda teaches us something frightening: nations do not collapse the day bullets start flying. They begin collapsing the day citizens stop seeing each other as fellow human beings and start seeing “tribes,” “regions,” and “religions” first.

That was one of the deep wounds of the Biafran war too. Before the bombs and starvation, there were already whispers. Suspicion. Political manipulation. Ethnic blame. One side telling its people, “They hate us.” The other replying, “They want to dominate us.”

And the politicians? Aah. Politicians know fear is cheaper to distribute than development. A hungry man may question poor governance, but an angry tribal man rarely does.

That is why Nigerians must become wiser than the political propaganda. Because once leaders begin speaking more about tribe than about education, jobs, security, and justice, danger is already stretching its legs quietly.

One old man once said: “When politicians cannot offer progress, they offer enemies.”

Kai. That sentence should be written boldly at every government house gate in Nigeria. We must be careful of the language we normalize online and offline. The jokes. The tribal slurs. The casual hatred. The dangerous stereotypes. History has shown repeatedly that mass violence often begins with ordinary conversations becoming poisoned.

The lesson is simple: No tribe is Nigeria by itself. Not Igbo. Not Yoruba. Not Hausa. Not Ijaw. Not Tiv. A country survives when diversity becomes strength, not suspicion. Because the day Nigerians begin seeing fellow Nigerians as permanent enemies, history may begin rehearsing another tragedy none of us can afford again.

Is anyone home? Are we listening?  

If you are a Nigerian, I love you. I don’t care where you come from or how many cows you own. You are one in blood with me.

If you are African, I will shift the world for you. If we can’t understand our languages, we will use the sign language. Because we are one in spirit and in truth.

I rest my case here for now:

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