One of the victims of last Tuesday’s twin bomb
blasts at the Terminal Market, Jos, Plateau State,
Lydia Komolafe, had in weeks preceding her
untimely death lamented the incessant loss of
lives to the Boko Haram insurgency. This she did
in a series of tweets.
On May 19, two days before the Tuesday attack,
Komolafe prayed for a brighter and rewarding
week. This was expressed in the post she penned
on her Twitter page which read, “This week, I
shall be satisfied with favour.”
Sadly, this was not to be as Komolafe was one of
the seven students of the Medical Laboratory
Science Department of the University of Jos, who
lost their lives in the bombing.
Meanwhile, a cursory look at her Twitter timeline
and the activities therein revealed that she was
indeed philosophical as she was clearly not
apolitical, as evident in her posts.
In some other tweets, the late undergraduate
spoke as she had the slightest premonition that
she may become a victim, herself.
She posed a rhetorical question in a tweet,
“Hmm, now we don’t know if our parents or
siblings are safe in the park, church, mosque,
market, and schools. The airports are not left out.
I forgot, Aso Rock, isn’t left out either.
“They (Boko Haram) go wherever they want! It’s
a fight against Nigeria, and Nigerians are
helpless. Because they didn’t curb it at first,
terrorism has grown so wild!,”
She also enjoined Nigerians against the belief
that insurgency is only a “northern problem.”
At various times, the late Komolafe indicted the
Federal Government for allowing the insurgency
to fester and expressed concerns that Nigerians
were no longer safe in motor parks.
For instance, when a second bomb went off in
Nyanya, a suburb of the Federal Capital Territory,
Abuja, on May 1, Komolafe, expressed deep
concerns over the violence and called for prayers
to end the extremism.
Her tweet at the time read, “Pray for Nigeria,
Nigerians can’t sleep! We are not even secured
in the midst of road blocks! This has got to stop!!
Who’s going to be our ‘Avatar’ in this nation?”
Arguing that terrorism had indeed “grown so
wild” in Nigeria as it had become a daily
occurrence, Komolafe accused the Federal
Government of playing the ethnic and political
card with the insurgency from the outset.
Her thought-provoking tweets in this regard
read, “They ignored the red flag for terrorism
when it started earlier in Jos and Kaduna.
Nobody cared. They called it all kind of names.
They called it religion, ethnic, political. We
suffered in silence. They shut us up! Now it’s
coming closer ‘home,’ the seat of government
and everyone is crying wolf!
“If only we had curbed it earlier! They left it to
our governors to fight it; they brought soldiers
who molested us! Nobody cared! I’m not being
insensitive; I’m just saying if we had saved the
cup of milk from falling, we wouldn’t have been
worrying about the spill now.”
Komolafe urged Nigerians to refrain from actions
and inactions capable of brewing acts of
terrorism. Treating members of other religions,
ethnic and political groups, she argued, was
capable of breeding terrorist actions.
“Boko Haram started like a joke, we prayed, cast
and bound, we did nothing! The citizens kept
pointing fingers at the government! Calling it
different things! We thought it will vanish. Or
maybe, since it started in the north it would
remain there. As long as it didn’t go down south,
they didn’t care.
“They tagged it a northern syndrome. Little did
they know that it wasn’t going to be restricted
for long! Today there’s a blast, tomorrow nobody
cares. Fighting terrorism isn’t only for the
government, it’s for us too! What we say, what
we preach how we live, reflects if we are
terrorists or not,” another post read.
Komolafe, who was a passionate fan of Chelsea
Football Club of London, during her life-time also
lent a voice to the ongoing global campaign
demanding the release of the abducted Chibok
girls.
“With one voice, let’s speak against terrorism.
I’m not calling for protests or any of that sort!
The moment you hold hate in your heart, you’re
giving room to hateful thoughts that could lead
to terrorism. Nigeria will get past all this! So help
us God!”
Often, she expressed her thoughts and views
with the hashtag, #BringBackOurGirls.
Her words, “Nobody should be punished for
going to school! There’s no basis to this kidnap!
Our hearts are bleeding. Please bring them alive!
May the angels protect them wherever they may
be.”
Meanwhile, tributes have been pouring in for the
late student. One of her close friends, Zion
Abiodun, described her as a “Yoruba girl who
loved the North like anything.”
“I am trying to stop the tears, but it’s difficult. I
have never cried for anyone this much, just can’t
hold the tears. I need to wake up from this
dream,” Abiodun added in a tribute to her on
Twitter.
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