S(h)IBBOLETH: She walks in Grace

Nigeria is a country in search of grace. Some Nigerians are searching for this grace to kill it while some are searching for it to preserve it and use it to create a desirable future. Grace tries Nigeria in many forms: as a little girl begging her parents to send her to school instead of marrying her off early to one old man; as a poor student in a public school expecting his or her education to happen meaningfully in these days of (dis)agreements over salaries and strikes and locking of school gates and elongated school calendars; as an innocent young lady still happy to serve her fatherland after graduation from school that detained her beyond the required timeline, and so on.

Grace comes to us embodied as Grace Adie Ushang, a corps member, beautiful in her resolve to help in making a difference in our lives. She, representing our future, is unfortunately waylaid, dragged away, raped and murdered by those for whom grace is virtue too strange to be Nigerian.

As her angry spirit walks the land and invades my thoughts, it is testifying against Nigeria as a society that devours its young, its future. A nation of shame, a land of risk, Nigeria becomes known for discouraging service and patriotic love from its youth. In spite of all the loud hallelujahs and howling muezzins that punctuate everyday life in Nigeria, the country remains a place where some men could close one eye while in prayer, but keep another open to devour innocent women, or open one part of their brain to think about paradise, but shut the other to contemplate about raping and killing women.

When I think about the rape and murder of Grace Ushang, I think about my own daughter getting ready to serve her fatherland too (perhaps in Borno State) and I immediately develop goose pimples! It is easy, for some Nigerians,

to brush aside the issue of her murder on the basis of the fact that many other Nigerians have been killed in similar ways, or in some other shocking circumstances. But that is a symptom of our complicity: we think it is common and therefore normal, or undeserving of some serious national attention. Such an attitude already makes us collaborators in the collective rape of Nigeria's grace and future.

Some people must have seen Grace being attacked and dragged away, but did not intervene to save her, and would not help the police afterwards to fish out the criminals - at least, based on reports that the rapists took offence at seeing Grace wearing khaki trousers normally worn by Youth corps members. Perhaps a perception of Grace Ushang's difference made it impossible for her to be rescued. The outsider is already always a victim where conscience is lacking. So, the "criminals" are indeed many and are more than the number that physically seized Grace to rape and murder her. The men, or more appropriately "human beasts" that raped Grace,

were representatives of the innumerable citizens of Disgrace for whom the rape and killing of the cultural outsider and defenceless woman, is normal.

One is yet to hear or read about proclamations of fatwa on the rapists and killers of Grace Ushang, though. It is true that the government of the State of Borno has donated two million Naira to the Ushang family as some form of compensation. Is it not a huge joke to think that two million Nigerian Naira compensates for the loss of this young lady representing her country in service in Borno? The rejection of the money by the Ushang family speaks eloquently and appropriately about this. How I wish the government of the State of Borno had offered a similar amount of money as compensation for the capture of each of the rapists/killers! I have been asking myself this question: if the late Grace Ushang were the daughter of President Umaru Yar'Adua or Vice-President Goodluck Jonathan, would the government of the State of Borno be offering these highly placed citizens two million Naira compensation instead of mobilising all security instruments to hunt down the criminals?

Grace Ushang was not just the daughter of one Mr. Udoh from Cross River State of Nigeria; she was also the daughter of Nigeria, a princess, a very important person of the future, indeed, one of the bearers of the future Nigerian nation! She was as important as any daughter of a governor or president of Nigeria. Her death, as a matter of fact, is too significant to be ignored at the national level.

To treat Grace Ushang's death as a normal Nigerian loss of life is to continue the collective rape of the future of this nation. It is also to toll the bells about the sudden death of Nigeria's National Youth Service programme.