Hey! Yes you, have you not heard? Voices. . . ,
Voices of young and old and underprivileged; voices of hope
Displaced, voices of innocence silenced, voices of vigor
Vanquished, voices of wisdom beheaded, voices of posterity
Poisoned, our voices, once rising, now dying, descending
As voices perpetuating evil is rising, ruling on our graves
Because voices near and far held their peace, we lost our place.

Have you not seen? Corpses like grasses, flowing rivers of red
You look away. Terrors you shunned for less gory pleasures
Aren’t dying; they breathe, they breed, daily slithering closer to you.

Like ants we are dying, hearing nothing, sometimes whispers.
The world sighs, “It’s Africa again.” Those in Africa murmur,
“… just West Africa.” West Africans slur, “It’s these Nigerians.”
Nigerians mutter, “It’s up North.” Northerners babble,
“It is in Borno State.” Those in Borno stammer, “It’s at Baga.”
Whispers upon whispers, erecting boundaries to push farther
Distance between rampaging disasters from where we are.

They buzz, “It’s Europe.” Europeans whisper, “It’s in France.”
Those in France point to Paris. Parisians hum, “Journalists.”
Journalists garble, “It’s Charlie.” Dormant whispers, fodders
As voices of minority are amplified by silence of majority;
Because turning away turns nothing away, evil thrives.

The bone is not you or me, not who we are or where we live,
The bone is all of us; our liberty, unity, and comity, at stake.
Evil, respecter of no boundaries, thirsty to exterminate good
Whoever, wherever it is, racing, raiding, mercilessly amok,
While the world paints partitions, “It’s whites against black.”
“It’s Muslims killing Christians.” “Military versus civilians.”
They fiddle, our dying voices descending daily, unheard;

Calls for compassion, pleas for help, frantic alarm, desperate
Alerts, predicting: appetite of evil will not be slaked by our end.
No, it is growing, strengthened by your silence, emboldened
By your indifference. Our misfortune may be news today but
Every day you tune it out, same disaster gulping us without
Compassion is eyeing you with insatiable compulsion;
Encroaching, approaching, menacing: closer than you think.

Once puny voices we shunned as no good, going nowhere,
Are stealing our voices: your silence signs the consent for their
Empowerment: but silence is no safety latch. Now it’s on me,
You see flashes and shudder, hide, fearing exposure while it booms,
Breaching boarders, defying orders, flaunting, threatening worst,
Your sustained silence, its endorsement. Here is my voice wailing:
“Awake sleeper, this danger doesn’t think twice, it won’t turn back

Persistently assaulting; raping our liberty, our unity, our comity
It won’t stop until you stop it. Where are voices of good and truth?
Awake now and find your voice! Arise now and use your voice!
Only the living have voices. Until your voice is added to mine,
One indomitable voice resounding, evil will rob, one and all. It will
Ruin to rule, all that’s good; our lives, our freedom, our world.
It’s not about the dead: they are but hacked grasses in the path
Of ultimate extirpation. The target is grander than the dead
And dying, farther than where it is now: that includes you and I.

News emerging from around the world sound more like the horrors we watched in movies and even worse. They announce thousands of lives wasted and wasting, destruction and displacements, from rural areas to mega cities. They paint pictures of people, robbed of their lives, hopes, homes, roots, and possessions, for no fault of theirs. Their persecutions arise from the exercise of their human rights. We thought we lived in a free and fair world but alas, the news are flashes of warning, threatening destruction because of who we are, what we believe in, and the choices we thought we had a right to make. The less fortunate have been murdered, killing continues, while the rest roam, wandering and wondering, “How can the world watch such evil and hold its peace?”

And painfully, the world is watching. Or rather watches when it pleases, focusing on what catches its fancy. “It is their problem,” some say, “Not ours, we have enough already.” Yet they forget, that despite its diverse faces, it is the same monster on rampage, and irrespective of varying locations and victims, the target hasn’t shifted.

It is the same story emerging from Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Nigeria, France, The US, and the world over. It is the same enemy ravaging the continents. It visited France recently and the world was stirred from sleep like the News was something so new. Really? Yet every day, thousands of lives are lost and will continue to be wasted, and people look the other way like it is nothing. Life has become nothing. Or rather, some lives are nothing. The world acted shocked by events in Paris yet it is the same enemy in action, same target, same strategy. He never changed, neither slumbered nor slept while the world dozed in blissful indifference.

We compare ourselves with the enemy and though not the Abel in this murderous saga with Cain, we feel like we are better; we are the good ones, we are educated, civilized, reasonable, and we have what they lack – conscience. We know better, we do better we assume. That implies that we are either genuinely or deceptively oblivious that by folding our hands in the face of evil, we vote barbarism to raid and rape civilization. How can we be at ease while evil thunders and threatens no peace until it takes over and rules the world; while it flaunts destruction before our very eyes? How can we switch off, turn aside, look the other way, and not be bothered by the volume of blood being shed round about us? How can we deceive ourselves that the problem is with the victims, that the problem will end with them, that this problem will die away eventually, or go away if we don’t get involved?

It is time someone told the truth, that by looking the other way, good consents to evil, education bows to illiteracy, liberty surrendering to slavery, and there will be no end until every soul is captured or destroyed – that is the target. Rather than utilize our intelligence to salvage situations, we are busy building walls, finding faults, casting blames, clowning and clawing at each other, while the enemy is raiding and claiming territory upon territory. We are quick to classify problems rather than seek solutions. “O yeah, it is the Muslims doing themselves in.” “The whites hate the blacks.” “It is Muslims against the Christians.” “The police are killing civilians.” We can’t but help design and highlight labels; Protestants and Catholics, Sunni and Shia, upper class versus the poor, and so on and so forth, we turn the battle in wards, clubbing and maiming each other while the enemy, regardless of our labels, is singular minded about taking over our lives and liberty.

Is it that we don’t see it or that we don’t want to say it, that these labels are just labels at the end of the day; that every human being is entitled to life and freedom? I thought that was what our ancestors sacrificed their lives to secure for us? And now we hand it over, piece by piece, to an enemy who does not care about the labels we fashion and tag on one another. Our enlightenment and development are supposed to be advantages but instead, we exploit them to build barriers that blind us to the reality across the walls: the enemy is coming, steadily, one step at a time, closer to where we are; that if we don’t rethink and change our ways, we will go the same way of the dead, the poor, the helpless, and the hopeless whose homes are suddenly raided, whose lives are abruptly ended. How can we see and hear these things and not be moved?

How can we endure illiteracy on rampage, wisdom mocked by those we considered fools? We believe in good but evil slaps our eyes and kicks our ears every day as we watch the innocent like ducks, slaughtered? Can we claim that we don’t know that life and disasters come in turns? We have what it takes to do good but because we hold back, doing nothing, those who don’t peddle the only ware they possess – they flaunt their evil before our eyes. They record the murder of truth, aid, justice, and goodness; post it on the news and cocooned in our comfort, we watch and wonder, “What has gone wrong with our world? How can humans be so heartless and heedless? Where is compassion in humanity?” And that is the same question I pose back at you.

Where is your own compassion? How have you shown that you are different, that you have a heart? Don’t forget that when you point one finger at the monster, the other four points right back at you. What have you done differently? Silence? How does your indifference make a difference between you who know better and they that don’t? How can you sit and watch the world burn, set on fire by those considered to know no better, and think you will escape? Those folks are out there, using what they have while you do nothing with yours. If these men with little or no knowledge of good and compassion can go so far, how much farther should you that know and care go? If you claim their violence has demonstrated lack of conscience, where and how is your conscience reflected?

Evil reigns when good runs; when it would not take a stand, find a voice, and use its power. What good are policies that are dormant before evil? No good. What is the sum of all our goodness and superpowers that permit evil? No good. So also a good that allows evil to rule, supports evil and is no good at all. Same goes with a voice whose silence issues consent for evil to boom. The silence of good empowers evil.  The inactivity of good catalyzes the spread of evil and hell roars when heaven sleeps. And one final truth: it is not about labels that divide and set us on each other’s throats; it is about good and evil, about liberty and captivity, about our unity as a free world. Yes, those are what are at stake.

And it is not about the dead; it is about you, whoever you are, wherever you are. Evil is not just out to raid and rule Baga, Borno, North, Nigeria, West Africa: its target is to take the world, rule the world, wreck the world, and that includes you as much as it affects me. Victims are just a path in its global mission, you and I are also in its radar, and so is everyone, everywhere. So if truly you care, if truly you have a conscience, even if you don’t care about the dead, the helpless, and the hopeless, but you care enough about you and about your family, then it is time to shake off slumber, crawl out of false safety, use what you have, to do what you can, to lend your voice to good. I hope that you have been stirred to add your voice to voices crying, dying, so that the dead would not have died in vain, so our voices can rise and rise, above the blares of destruction, until voices of good all around the world becomes one resounding voice of life securing its chance to thrive; of unity unbeatable, of victory indisputable, of harmony that accommodates diversities.

Glory!