One Love…Heart!

Like the iconic but departed musician, Bob Marley, once sang in his legendary piece, “One Love,” Cameroonians have been showing love for fatherland and compassion with families whose progenies perished in the brutish Kumba killings of October 24, 2020. After an avalanche of condemnations and condolences from across the board, comes the time to mourn and to look forward hopefully for a better tomorrow where peace will no longer be scarce. Tomorrow October 31, 2020, on the strength of a Presidential decree instituting a Day of National Mourning for the children, all sons and daughters of the country will be in one heart and spirit as they all strive to rise above challenges to get together and feel alright. 
Putting on the sackcloth as the case may be with the national flag flying at half-mast all day long throughout the national territory, Cameroonians and friends of the country will be uniting their hearts and minds in the deep pain in memory of the victims of the attack of the Mother Francisca International Bilingual Academy school complex in Fiango, Kumba, Meme Division of the South West Region.
It wouldn’t be the first of such gloomy moments in the life of the country and her citizens but the people touched this time around– children, whose only ambition was to seek knowledge and ascertain a better future for themselves, their families and nation, makes the National Mourning peculiar. While disturbing questions on ‘Why children? Why use a gun on an innocent and armless child? Why sacrifice education on the altar of a bestial war et al are yet to find answers, Cameroonians will however find comfort, and hopefully the bereaved families too, in the one love shown during the dark moments and which should logically guide the daily living of the sons and daughters of this once haven of peace. 
The consternation that the Kumba massacre brought on the population, irrespective of region, religion or sex depicts a people united in spirit but who unfortunately have been caught in the web of barbarism perpetuated by heartless individuals who find pleasure in causing pain.  Killing children whose only ‘crime’ is the quest for knowledge, after having deprived them of this inalienable right for years, was, to say the least, the height of madness. In fact, the perpetrators crossed the red line by touching the untouchable- Children and education. 
As the entire nation joins their hearts and minds in all solemnity, to show solidarity with the affected, all and sundry must not equally lose sight of the fact that the priceless peace which ...