As Nigeria grapples with a fresh wave of violence following the recent abduction of schoolgirls in Niger State, the second such tragedy in five days, a Nigerian-Canadian resident of Ontario has offered a stark, if unconventional, comparison between the security crises in his two homelands.
Taking to social media, Asaju Tunde, who professes his love for his adopted country, Canada, challenged the notion of moving abroad as an escape, arguing that Canada, too, is in the grip of its own “terror,” both criminal and natural.
“Nobody should be pretending to empathise with me over the abduction of girls from a Christian school in Niger State,” Tunde wrote, referencing the tragedy which followed an earlier abduction of Muslim girls.
“Anybody who knows Nigeria well knows that we like to balance things up, including tragedies.”
Tunde painted a picture of rising domestic crime in his resident province of Ontario, which he describes as “slash-and-grab terror actions.”
He estimates an estimated 66 slash-and-grab terror actions against malls in his region this year alone.
Tunde claims that older “terrorists recruit youths below 18 to help them break into stores armed with crowbars and axes in broad daylight” to target vaults for gold and trinkets.
The belief that crimes committed by minors do not follow them into adulthood is cited as a potential driver for this trend.
He also noted the unique peril of wildlife, citing a recent CBC story where a bear injured 11 people near Vancouver. Bears, along with squirrels and Canada geese, are labelled “privileged terrorists” due to legal protections preventing them from being killed.
Beyond human-perpetrated crimes, Tunde emphasises the formidable and recurrent natural “terrorism” that plagues Canada, something he believes Prime Minister Mark Carney has failed to tackle.
Every summer, wildfires “obliterate entire communities.” While some are man-made, “most of them are from lightning.”
The smoke from these fires has become an international concern, leading to a protest letter from the US Ambassador in Washington last summer regarding the smog that “often blights their peaceful country.”
Following the fire season, the country is hit by the duo of snow and subsequent flooding.
Tunde notes that the blanket of snow can prevent easy travel, causing “huge vehicle pile-up on roads,” forcing entire towns to shut down, and preventing businesses from opening. The melt-off then “dumps frozen waters into streets… resulting in flooding.”
A phenomenon he dreads most, “black ice or freezing rain,” is described as a terror that can “entomb” vehicles and create treacherous walking conditions.
Tunde described his own difficult walk this Friday morning, where he had to move “like a centenarian” for fear of a slip and fall that could send him to the Emergency Room. He laments the necessity of buying two sets of tyres, one for summer and a different set for winter, without government assistance.
Tunde concluded his reflective piece by urging Nigerian President Alhaji Tinubu to hold steady amidst the crises. He strongly dismisses the notion that he moved to Canada to escape Nigerian governance.
“I am just praying that he won’t resign… because if he does, who else can rescue this nation that has plunged from the edge of the precipice into free fall?
The answer is – nobody,” Tunde asserted, ultimately concluding with a sad parallelism: the Nigerian girls were abducted under President Tinubu’s watch, just as the freezing rain happened while Prime Minister Carney was travelling internationally.
