Dante Alighieri’s epic 14th century poem titled ‘’Inferno” (which means ‘’hell’’ in Italian) paints a frightful picture that portrays hell as having nine burning circles, each of which is reserved for various categories of offenders. It is a deeply disturbing and troubling depiction of a place that was clearly not designed for human souls and that no sane person would ever wish to go.

And like all the other great races that came before us, it is in the face of our collective adversities, our present-day challenges and our ever-present struggles that we as a people shall rise up again and dominate our entire environment.

(Being a verbatim copy/transcript of a speech delivered by Chief Femi Fani-Kayode to the Alajobi Group- the group that wrote "the Yoruba Constitution"- on the occasion of the commemoration of ''June 12'', as published by The News Magazine of 2 July, 2001).

On 4th May 2014, Abubakar Shekau, the leader Boko Haram, proclaimed: "I am going to marry out any woman who is twelve years old, and if she is younger, I will marry her out at the age of nine. I am the one who captured all those girls and will sell all of them. Slavery is allowed in my religion and I shall capture people and make them slaves. We are on our way to Abuja and we shall also visit the South.

“If they ever tell my story let them say I walked with giants, men rise and fall like the Winter wheat but these names will never die... Let them say I lived in the time of Hector, tamer of horses...let them say I lived in the time of Achilles”- the Iliad, Homer.

. In a show of utter contempt, indigenous Hausa and Fulani Christians in Kaduna State are given “certificates of non- indigeneship”, meaning that they would not have access to rights and privileges accruable to indigenes of the state; Islamisation is carried out not only by Muslim rulers. Unsuspecting southern rulers are unwittingly used to drive some aspects of the Islamisation agenda:

36 innocent ''non-muslim'' souls were slaughtered in cold blood in Kenya on 2nd December by Al Shabab. Amongst them were defenceless women and children. The same thing happened in Kano, Nigeria four days earlier when over 200 innocent ''muslim'' souls were blown up in a Kano mosque by Boko Haram suicide bombers. Three days before then 70 innocent ''muslim'' and ''non-muslim'' souls were killed by Boko Haram in the ancient cities of Maiduguri and Potiskum in Nigeria. It just goes on and on: the nightmare never ends and the shower of blood continues.

Now that the operational leadership and visible face of Boko Haram, in the person of the filth called Mr. Abubakar Shekau (aka Darul Tawheed), has finally admitted that they were responsible for the abduction of hundreds of our school girls and that they intend to ''sell them in the market like slaves'', it is pertinent and necessary for us to consider some of the emerging, though uncomfortable, facts.

The truth is that most of those that choose to misunderstand, misrepresent, criticise and insult me are not even capable of reading more than three lines of my essays. Neither can they speak, write or understand good english. My submissions and positions on various national and international issues are, more often than not, way above their comprehension level and neither do they have the wealth of knowledge or the access to information that I do. That is why I usually ignore them.

My worst fears have been confirmed and sadly the Haramites of Boko have struck again. Another terrible bomb blast has taken place in Abuja and many innocent people have been butchered, slaughtered and maimed. At the last count the number of those killed is no less than 39 despite attempts by the international and local media to play the number of casualties down. This damning display of primordial and pure savagery by Boko Haram comes barely two weeks after over 100 innocent people, including women and children, were killed by another bomb, on the same spot and by the same people. This is surely too much for us to bear.

When some people are so hell bent on taking power that they begin to bomb their citizens in order to achieve it one has to begin to question the continued viability of our much flaunted unity. When some people believe that it is their right to rule in perpetuity and that if they do not get their way they must make the country ungovernable and kill as many people as possible one must decide whether or not we are really one nation.