After the fall of man in the Bible, the event that the bible recorded as the greatest fallout from the fall of man was when Cain killed his brother Abel. His reply of “Am I my brother’s keeper” to the question “Where is your brother?:” is the bedrock of the idiom “brother’s keeper” today.
It Is becoming increasingly clear that this generation of Nigerians may need God himself to pose the question to them again and go a step further to tell them what it means to be their brothers’ keeper.
Last week,a scuffle between two brothers over a pair of bathroom slippers at the Federal University of Petroleum Resources Effurun(FUPRE) ended in bloodshed when the older brother simply known as Joshua stabbed the younger brother to death with a dagger before fleeing.
The shocking fratricide has thrown the entire university community into shock and mourning, sending ripples of anguish across the country. What the immediate family must be going through can only be imagined.
The unfathomably tragic development again reopens questions about Nigerian youth and the role they play currently and the momentous roles they must assume as Nigeria heads forward in its journey towards a better future.
For many Nigerian youths, the present days are rigged with frustration, despair, and distractions. The current situation of the country is also clearly placing an unbearable burden on the family unit and consequently, the family can hardly do what it is supposed to do.
For many families distracted by Nigeria’s current realities, the proper upbringing of children has become a secondary task that is easily relegated to the background. So, children are largely allowed to grow as they please, drift towards the world as they wish and operate at the whims and caprices of toxic home environments and poisonous siblings rivalry.
For the student who killed his younger brother, a forceful confluence of factors must have forced that sacrilegious termination of his brother’s life. The immediate argument may have been over bathroom slippers, but tension must have built over the years, exacerbated by drugs and other illicit substances, until it culminated in the fatal attack.
Nigeria must continue to teach her young people that there is profound dignity and nobility in being their brother’s keeper. The point needs to be driven home that despite the provocation, compassion, and empathy are crucial in the relationship with one another.
Again, it would appear that it has become too easy to commit crimes and get away with it in Nigeria. Tragically, taking the life of another has never been easier in a country where insecurity has become a pervasive feature of everyday life.
What little security measure Nigeria has in place only always kicks in when the deed has been done. That is certainly not the way to go for a country which has global aspirations.
The slain undergraduate deserves justice, as do his family and the university community. Everyone who has been killed in Nigeria deserves justice for unless Nigeria becomes that country where justice is commonplace,it will remain a country where crime abounds.
Kene Obiezu is a lawyer and writer.
