By Ganiu Bamgbose, PhD
Put straightforwardly, many people, especially those in African countries, need to understand that whatever is called war in the present age is the affair of the whole world and is greatly shaped and influenced by our words. My interactions with many Nigerians revealed that the image of war in their heads is what is shown in home videos or the narration of the civil war about how soldiers crawled in the grass. Many Nigerians know or knew one or more persons who witnessed the Nigerian Civil War or the Second World War and lived to tell the story. This leads them to wording the current Israel-American unrest with Iran like the kind of thing they have heard or read about; of course with little or no knowledge of what is called NUCLEAR WEAPON.
I made a simple Google search: how destructive can a nuclear weapon be? The response says “Nuclear weapons cause catastrophic, instantaneous destruction through immense blast waves, intense heat (thermal radiation), and ionizing radiation, capable of destroying entire cities and killing millions. Beyond immediate devastation, they trigger long-term environmental damage, radioactive fallout, and global climate disruption, threatening widespread famine and future generations”. Of course further search would reveal to you that the response I got might be one of the simplest ways to describe the effect of a nuclear weapon if released anywhere. Not a single creature on and below the ground stands a chance of survival in the entire city where a nuclear weapon gets released. Do we then “word” war and call for world war in the age when such weapons are at the disposal of some countries?
While many Nigerians accuse the government over the hike in the price of fuel, it must be mentioned that the unrest, which I fear to call war, is one of the causes of the increase in price. Perhaps it is even informative to mention that we have felt nothing of the heat of this conflict yet. It can be projected that life would become miserable for the whole world if this conflict continues for another six months. Global economy and of course the economy of every country is certainly going to fall in a shambles if this war, no; if this conflict persists. I do not refer to it as a conflict or an unrest to trivialise the bombing going on in about ten countries of the world; I do so as a critic who completely frowns on the notion of war.
My conclusion is that it must even scare us all to call it a war. We must exercise restraint about talking about it carelesssly. Our words must not complicate issues along prejudices. Missiles are not sensitive to religious, ethnic and economic divides. Muslims, Christians, Pagans and Atheists alike would die. The capitalists and the socialists would not survive its release. Words are powerful. They have become more powerful in the internet age. If you must mention war, let it be with the intention to clamour for peace. May the world not experience another war. And our words have a role to play in the prayer.
(c) 2026 Ganiu Bamgbose writes from Lagos.
Ganiu Abisoye Bamgbose, PhD
Department of English,
Lagos State University, Ojo
[email protected]
08093695359, 07084956118
