When, during the post-election violence, corp members were butchered in Bauchi, the media frenzy that followed it sort of took the gloss (ok, that's the wrong word) off the carnage that manifested itself in Kafanchan, Kaduna State. I was also guilty of the same sin, astonishingly. When I read Apostle Emmanuel Nuhu Kure's interview on The Sun's Sunday 12th June 2011 edition, I got the picture again.
As one who has stayed there for a while, and still with a family there anyway, Apostle Kure's every talk made sense (I remember having heard him preach live). Kafanchan dwellers always stay perpetually in fear of crisis each time there is a case of religious bickerings, be it in Nigeria or even Iraq. I remember vividly in January 2010, during one of the Jos mayhems, there were alleged plans by the muslims to start a fight. There was tension in the air. We slept at night like dogs - one eye closed, the other open. It wasn't funny. My uncle, a politician, whose friends were lodged in an hotel close to the muslim territory, couldn't sleep at all. He paced up and down, while his sons and I watched in painful resignation. Looking back, we'd all laugh at it, but it was never funny.
In Kafanchan, the muslims would start a fight, after hiding their wives and kids and taking the Christians unawares, and when the fight is over, they claim, as the minority in Kaf, that they attacked. They would gain media and public sympathy and the victims villified.
Let the government take strict measures. If you knew that town before, filled with the Igbos anyway, and see it now, you would weep - whoever you are!
I'm gutted, and that is the fact.