I went on a tour of the Kigali Genocide Memorial and one of the striking things I saw was the Hutu Ten Commandments. Immediately, my mind went to my country, Nigeria.
Nigeria is becoming more dangerous a place to live by the day. The level of hatred is assuming an alarming dimension and may soon get to a tipping point. We spill bile daily on social media.
People are stereotyped: Igbos are supposed to be tricksters. Yorubas are supposed to be traitors. Hausas/Fulanis are religious fundamentalists. Ijaws can only be militants. There is the worst of profiling going on among citizens.
We have left the hatred of the system and we now hate and loathe ourselves. We used to think Jonathan was the problem. Now, we have seen another problem in Buhari. Instead of fixing the system, we are fixated on the people. This issue has become a serious cankerworm with citizens anxiously awaiting the news of the death of their President. People dig into their tribal conclaves and trenches more than ever before. The fault line in the Nigerian society is widening.
Even religious leaders are now involved. Those who should help others keep their heads have lost theirs. The cacophony of voices is getting louder. The drums of hatred are getting stronger. The music of intolerance is getting prime time on the station of our hearts. This was exactly how the Rwandan Genocide of 1994 started. In 1990, one of the newspapers published the Hutu Ten Commandments which I have reproduced below. That was the beginning of societal friction that eventually led to the loss of about a million people in 100 days in 1994.
As I stood at the Genocide Centre, Kigali, I wondered if Nigeria is treading the same path. I pray we all come to our senses, stop the hate, fix the system and not just the people and make this country truly great. Click To Tweet1. Every Hutu should know that a Tutsi woman, whoever she is, works for the interest of her Tutsi ethnic group. As a result, we shall consider a traitor any Hutu who marries a Tutsi woman, befriends a Tutsi woman, employs a Tutsi woman as a secretary or a concubine.
2. Every Hutu should know that our Hutu daughters are more suitable and conscientious in their role as woman, wife and mother of the family. Are they not beautiful, good secretaries and more honest?
3. Hutu women, be vigilant and try to bring your husbands, brothers and sons back to reason.
4. Every Hutu should know that every Tutsi is dishonest in business. His only aim is the supremacy of his ethnic group.
As a result, any Hutu who does the following is a traitor:
i. makes a partnership with Tutsi in business
ii. invests his money or the government’s money in a Tutsi enterprise
iii. lends or borrows money from a Tutsi, gives favours to Tutsi in business (obtaining import licenses, bank loans.)
5. All strategic positions–political, administrative, economic, military and security–should be entrusted only to Hutu.
6. The education sector (school pupils, students, teachers) must be majority Hutu.
7. The Rwandan Armed Forces should be exclusively Hutu. The experience of the October 1990 war has taught us a lesson. No member of the military shall marry a Tutsi.
8. The Hutu should stop having mercy on the Tutsi.
9. The Hutu, wherever they are, must have unity and solidarity and be concerned with the fate of their Hutu brothers.
The Hutu inside and outside Rwanda must constantly look for friends and allies for the Hutu cause, starting with their Hutu brothers. They must constantly counteract Tutsi propaganda. The Hutu must be firm and vigilant against their common Tutsi enemy.
10. The Social Revolution of 1959, the Referendum of 1961, and the Hutu Ideology, must be taught to every Hutu at every level. Every Hutu must spread this ideology widely. Any Hutu who persecutes his brother Hutu for having read, spread, and taught this ideology is a traitor.
As I stood at the Genocide Centre, Kigali where I took these pictures, I wondered if Nigeria is treading the same path. Can a nation survive two civil wars? I pray we all come to our senses, stop the hate, fix the system and not just the people and make this country truly great.
(My Rwanda tour, January 2017)