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Cosmas Omegoh
Catholic across the world will tomorrow mark Ash Wednesday. But Catholics in Nigeria will also use the occasion to protest the upsurge in banditry, Boko Haram and Fulani herdsmen’s killings and brigandary which have become part of daily living in the country.
To this effect, millions of Catholics in Nigeria have been strongly advised to turn out tomorrow in black outfits, also wearing black hand bands as a way of driving the message through that the country is under siege and that they detest the spiraling rate of killing across the country, with government and the security agencies doing too little to protect the citizenry.
Making the disclosure, last Sunday during his homily at Mass, the Catholic priest of St Brigid Catholic Church, Ijeshatedo, Surulere, Lagos, told the congregation that the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria (CBCN) issued the directive, demanding that all the Catholics in the country should heed to the call. He said the church had chosen the Ash Wednesday as an auspicious day to draw national and global attention to how cheap life has suddenly become in Nigeria.
Ash Wednesday is usually observed as the beginning of the Christian 40-day fast which climaxes with the re-enactment of the death of Jesus on the Cross at Calvary over 2,000 years ago and his and resurrection on Easter Sunday. On Ash Wednesday, the penitent put on ash on their foreheads to show that they are dust and to dust they shall return; it is also an outward sign of repentance and willingness to undertake the 40-day fast during which they are expected to turn a new leaf.
The country has been experiencing an upsurge in the spate of banditry on the roads and bushes, with Boko Haram killings and pillaging in North East and Fulani herdsmen’s onslaught of fear, arson, and unwarranted assault and seeming expansionism agenda being unleashed on innocent people every day. Many across the country have been living a life of pain, and anguish after their loved ones have been brutally killed and they have been displaced and made to live in Internally Displaced Persons’ Camps (IDP) camps for years unending.
