Failed Saviours on Kaduna Train, in Ukraine and other killing Terrains
“I’m in the train. I have been shot Please pray for me.”
Those were the last words of Chinelo Megafu to a trusted country. She was pronounced dead shortly after in Kaduna.
All around her in that hour of darkness were men glorifying God with shouts of “Allahu Akbar” as they cut down vital bodies with bullets.
The police escorts had fled and hid in the train’s toilet, one of the survivors later revealed. Then only prayers could change anything, hence her plea to anybody there on Twitter to just “Please pray for me.”
Beyond the bullets that tore her body are the bites that bored deep into her spirit. The shock of betrayal, reading the uncouth replies to such a serious tweet, as she bled to death.
She was trained to save lives, but this beloved saviour was hunted and taunted to death.
Miss Megafu, a medic and dental surgeon, died in the pool of her own blood, another death due to violence against civilians in the country. Nigeria’s renowned bandits shot liberally at her and other travellers on the Kaduna-bound train. The unknown bandits had detonated a bomb that derailed the train.
Other Killing Terrains outside the Kaduna Train
Miss Megafu and other indisputable fatalities make up the 1,530 lives of innocent civilians that have been cut down in Kaduna, the famous fortress of Nigeria’s military formations, in less than 3 years.
Nigeria holds the 5th largest killing terrain in the world in the past 3 years. Within this period, Nigeria’s state actors and non-state armed groups killed 6% of all those who died as a result of violent conflicts in the world.
Nigeria ranks 5th among countries where human life is considered cheap and expendable. The leading 10 killing terrains in the world account for 75% of all deaths due to armed conflicts in the world.
In Ukraine: Filling Graves and Feeling Great
In Ukraine, neither NATO nor Russia could save its own. Reports show increasing deaths and devastation of the people and land of Ukraine, and even more deaths of Russian soldiers and growing disillusionment on the meaning of the war by Russians at home.
The UN OHCHR’s estimates that 1,611 civilians have been killed in Ukraine, and 2,227 injured.
“From 4 a.m. on 24 February 2022, when the Russian Federation’s armed attack against Ukraine started, to 24:00 midnight on 6 April 2022 (local time), the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) recorded 3,838 civilian casualties in the country: 1,611 killed and 2,227 injured. This included:
a total of 1,611 killed (409 men, 240 women, 25 girls, and 43 boys, as well as 63 children and 831 adults whose sex is yet unknown)
a total of 2,227 injured (261 men, 196 women, 45 girls, and 42 boys, as well as 104 children and 1,579 adults whose sex is yet unknown)
In Donetsk and Luhansk regions: 1,584 casualties (492 killed and 1,092 injured)
On Government-controlled territory: 1,258 casualties (425 killed and 833 injured)
On territory controlled by the self-proclaimed ‘republics’: 326 casualties (67 killed and 259 injured)
In other regions of Ukraine (the city of Kyiv, and Cherkasy, Chernihiv, Kharkiv, Kherson, Kyiv, Mykolaiv, Odesa, Sumy, Zaporizhzhia, Dnipropetrovsk and Zhytomyr regions), which were under Government control when casualties occurred: 2,254 casualties (1,119 killed and 1,135 injured)
The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights further said, “Most of the civilian casualties recorded were caused by the use of explosive weapons with a wide impact area, including shelling from heavy artillery and multiple launch rocket systems, and missile and air strikes.
OHCHR believes that the actual figures are considerably higher, as the receipt of information from some locations where intense hostilities have been going on has been delayed and many reports are still pending corroboration.”
Reuters estimates as many as 24,000 lives might have been lost to the war in Ukraine, including between 7,000 and 15,000 Russian soldiers.
NATO and its allies have done so much, but they could not save peaceful residents from being mangled in mass graves in the city of Bucha. They cannot return those executed by Russian forces as they retreated from Kyiv’s neighbourhoods.
And Putin cannot return the thousands of fallen Russian soldiers and senior officers that he ‘threw like logs of wood into the fire in Ukraine, as President Zelensky remarked.
The United Nations (UN) is disunited on reining in Russia from further destruction of Ukraine. NATO’s direct deployment of its enormous military powers have also been stifled by fears of escalating the conflict to nuclear proportions.
The EU and NATO have slammed a cocktail of sanctions that could cripple Russia’s financial and technical capabilities in further pursuit of victory in the war.
Recently, however, military aid to Ukraine from NATO members and their allies has forestalled Russia’s capture of Kyiv, the country’s capital, forcing Russian forces to retreat from areas where the Ukrainian defence forces have inflicted heavy casualties on the Russian aggressors.
From Ukraine to Nigeria: The Gains and Pains of Hurting Russia
Ironically, none of Chinelo’s upcoming medical colleagues caught in the war in Ukraine has been reported dead. Sadly though, Huzaifa Habibu Modachi, a 22-year medical student who survived Ukraine met his untimely death in Sokoto, Nigeria, two weeks after returning home.
But Bisola Ogoluwa, another Nigerian medical student, still lives to tell her depressive story of the Ukrainian war because she refused to return home to Nigeria this time.
"This is the second time ... trying to graduate with a medical degree in Ukraine," said Bisola Ehi Ogolowa, a fourth-year medical student at Dnipro Medical Institute, located in central Ukraine.
"It's the second time Russians have put a stop to me ... " she added, before beginning to weep profusely. Crying and talking in fits and starts, she spilled out her story”, DW reported.
Indeed, this is the second time Putin’s might would overwhelm Ukraine’s sovereign rights. The first time was during its annexation of Crimea, a region of Ukraine, in 2014. Only this time, Russia’s venomous military power has stung 1,611 Ukrainian civilians, including pregnant women and their babies, to death.
The well-meaning sanctions, especially on the purchase of Russia’s crude oil and gas, have also caused shortages in global oil supplies, leading to a hike in fuel prices and energy costs around the world.
The summary of sectoral sanctions and major control restrictions by countries against Russia, in defence of Ukraine, is given below:
The EU is still hesitant to stop importing oil and gas from Russia, because it depends on it for its energy supply.
The UK has announced it will end its dependence on Russia’s oil and gas by end of 2022.
Canada is the only country that has not restricted its exports of luxury goods to Russia.
The US is the only country that has stopped imports of luxury goods from Russia.
Australia is the only country that still continues to export its technology to Russia.
Australia is the only country that still grants Russian Banks access to SWIFT.
Switzerland is the only country that has not restricted Russia’s access to World Bank and IMF loans.
Switzerland is the only country that has not also revoked Russia’s most favoured nation status.
Nigeria knows its share of the global energy crisis too. For Nigeria, a major oil-producing and exporting country, an increase in global prices would have meant more revenue from sales of its crude. But it is bad news because the country is also a major importer of refined petroleum.
Since the price of refined petroleum responds to hikes in global prices, Nigeria pays more for importing its refined petroleum products, since it has no functional refinery yet.
The situation is worsened because the government purportedly pays oil subsidies from its meagre revenue, sourced from crude oil sales, taxes and loans. A sanctions-induced hike in global petroleum prices requires the government to pay more in subsidies to offset the higher price of importing fuel per litre, so as to continue to sell petrol, for instance, for N165 per litre.
The NNPC has demanded N3 trillion to fund oil subsidies this year, and this amount will likely increase, with a new increase in the price of oil imports.
But Nigeria’s energy crisis is one of its many self-inflicted wars. The fuel scarcity in the country predates NATO and allies’ sanctions on Russia’s oil and gas. Its energy crises date back to the incumbent president’s supervision of NNPC’s fuel scarcity in 1984.
The current fits and seizures in Nigeria’s grid electricity too did not result from happenings in Ukraine. It is NBET’s, GENCOs’, TCN’s and DISCOs’ corporate portrayal of the country’s failed power sector and its interior forces of darkness, light, and shadow.
For responsible jurisdictions, this is the time to gain stupendous oil money. But for Nigeria, sanctions against Russia’s oil could be a bittersweet episode at best.
Saving Ukraine: NATO’s Enormous Power and Russia’s Venomous Power
Russia has shown that it can bark and can also bite. It has shown that its venomous nuclear and conventional war assets are not for a circus show. They are meant to hurt, damage and kill, as they presently do in Ukraine.
On the other hand, NATO and its allies around the world have shown it possesses enormous multivariate power, ranging from military assets to monetary deterrents, from travel bans to tech bans, and from tethering Russian individuals to sieges on Russian corporate institutions.
Sanctions against Russia by Type
While Russia could rely mainly on its military might, oil and gas, and perhaps its alliance with a rich China to bully Ukraine to submission, NATO and its allies have disorganised Putin’s war plan by harming Russia with a cruel cocktail of crippling economic sanctions with Russia powerless to retaliate in kind.
Experts believe that the US and its allies are intentional about their response to Russia to send a message to China that it cannot bully Taiwan as this too without severe consequences.
On the other hand, NATO and its allies are arming Ukraine to contain Russia’s excesses on its soil. By so doing, the Western power bloc is luring Putin into a prolonged and costly war that has already cost close to 10,000 Russian military fatalities, forcing Putin’s men to beat a retreat in some former strongholds.
In the end, we hope the good side wins in Ukraine, and in every killing terrain in Nigeria, and all over the world.
The good side does not fill up graves and feel great about it. Especially, when the side had killed unarmed civilians and combatants who had surrendered.