The country is racing towards the abyss of what might be a multi-edged civil war as different sections of its degenerate ruling class fiddle away or worse still, stock the embers of dissension as they play the Russian Roullete of divide & rule plunder, clothed in crass patronage, nepotism & self-serving corruption.

The massacre in Kano on Saturday when the Boko Haram sect killed about 200 persons towards freeing 100 of their members illegally detained & continued killings at Bauchi are blood soaked milestones of descent into a brutish state of nature for which the Nigerian state & the bands of "elders & leaders" across the multifarous ethnic groups which it represents must be held culpable. In August last year the state governor had declared that those arrested would be released if no evidence of terror acts could be traced to them or charged to court if there were any indications of such.

While no action was taken with regards to these mere members, the terror masterminds of the group such as Kabiru "Sokoto" Umar could lounge in governors' lodges & somehow escape from the clutches of the police who have no difficulty in arresting & detaining activists.

Further, while working people across the country showed our oneness as oppressed people who have woken to the need to win our self-emancipation through struggle & solidarity during the 8-day strike, so-called "elders & leaders" of the South South & South East stoked embers of ethno-regional divisions by shamelessly attempting to reduce a question of politica economy, the material conditions of our existence which can only be worsened by the draconian increase in fuel price, to an issue of "our son". Were these not "elders" we could very well say their word were filled with arant nonsense packaged with utter disdain for the working people & youth of Nigeria.

Over the weekend, seeing the demons they have invoked swirling like banshees that would consume them more "elders & leaders" now including those of the South West call for a (Sovereign) National Conference.

It is obvious enough to any but the most dim witted of persons that Nigeria is at a crossroads & the summoning of a National Conference in some form or the other is near inevitable.

It is equally self-evident that the ruling class of "elders", "leaders", "cabals", & the different forms of covens in which the different sections of the country's ruling class are organised have singly & collectively failed. Part of this failure is the fact that it is no longer news that its armed men can no longer protect the citizenry. Indeed they can no longer protect the structures of the state's coercive apparatus such as courts, prisons, army barracks & police stations!

We are at the point where we must demand that we protect ourselves. An armed people & not some bungling ineffective bands of armed men can be our only assured basis of security. While in the medium term we must demand that the NYSC be upscaled from the boy scouts level of training that leaves our corpers as practice targets for purveyors of violence in any guise, in the immediate, we must demand that all who can vote be trained & armed to defend ourselves. The task for this would include our grassroots structures of organisation in the workplace (unions) & communities (CDAs).

And on the National Conference? Certainly we call for this & one which is SOVEREIGN! We do not want nor do we need some empty talk confab of the same old, tired, confused & destructive elements of the old order that have brought us to this precipice. The forces for change, inchoate in a sense while determined & united in resistance as demonstrated in this January of rage & upsurge would have to summon such a conference. Those whom we cannot trust to straddle the corridors of the Conference's ante room cannot be those that will convoke such as we need to bring about a rebirth of our society from the throes that rack every sinew of its body now.

Power respects only power. The power to oppress descends from the heights of high office. Its mantra is law & order & its guardians "elders" "cabals" & bands of armed men.

The power to break the chains of oppression & win our self-emancipation erupts from the grassroots furnance of mass anger & resolve as the embers of our resistance blaze into decisive fires of revolution from below.

It is the fiery power of the working people & youths, organised & armed that can put a stop to the mayhem of terrorism being perpetuated by both fundamentalist sects & the ruling class.