The inmates' chatter.

Do not follow a person you see running away. African proverb.

 After weeks of attempts to ignore each other, they finally began to come to terms with the objective similarity of their conditions and circumstances. They were going nowhere. Not even a few feet away from each other. They could finally speak with each other, a significant progress from the silent struggle for space, fresh air, fights that no one separated, alliances that collapsed every few hours and the imperatives of sharing very little. The normal protocols in detention will be the existence of a leader supported by enforcers and a hierarchy designed by length of stay, muscle, and the necessities of maintaining order. Not here. This is not the normal cell. Every inmate here represents the others' source and target of hostility. The cell was the world that had locked them up, its occupants constant reminders that they all had long chains that are not severed by walls or circumstances.

 The ground rules had been set. They shared a righteous indignation and a sense of profound injustice. Their innocence was beyond question, a mark of honour worn with pride and fortitude. Martyrs all, they had agreed no cause is more noble than the other. They are champions of causes that clashed and struggled for validation and triumph in the world outside. Here, they will share their versions of the injustice of the Nigerian state, the inspiration behind their struggles and the cause of their current circumstances. No interruptions, no arguments, no challenges.

 Inmate One goes first. He is a fighter for the cause of Biafra, a nation his people were destined to have and build into a model African nation. He had inherited this cause from generations who had lived lives, fought and died on the margins of Nigeria, a nation which milked his people's innate genius and enterprise. The simple demand to leave a nation that is inherently incapable of doing justice to his people, a  demand recognized by a world which acknowledges rights to self determination for certain cultural groups has been resisted by the rest of Nigeria and many Igbo who prefer servitude to others than joining the struggle for their own nation. His struggle will not end until the Nigerian state yields. By any means necessary.

 Inmate Two states his case. He is a fighter for a nation where his Islamic faith will not be answerable to other faiths or political systems that negate, abridge or pollute it. The Nigerian state as it exists represents an intolerable assault that cannot be ignored or tolerated by all good Muslims. His fight is a divine call to resist the imposition of systems that compromise the essence of being a Muslim. Victory is assured by Allah, Whose demands to fight to free Muslims from non -Islamic influences and compromises is being ignored by many Muslims, and entirely by other Nigerian non-Muslims. These are enemies who should be fought without distinction. His war will be over when the Nigerian state becomes a model Muslim state, or yields grounds to carve out an Islamic State from it. By any means necessary.

 Inmate Three speaks. He is a freedom fighter for a people whose God-given wealth is being stolen by other Nigerians. His people are rewarded with a pittance, poverty and destruction of all other assets on land and in water. The world colludes with the Nigerian state to pump out his peoples' wealth to areas where life is made comfortable. Most Nigerians have fed fat from his people's wealth under dubious arrangements that allows strangers and foreigners unhindered access to incredible wealth that could give every youth and adult from his communities all the benefits of modern development. This is a fight for the life and soul of his people, a fight abandoned by many from the community and resisted by a Nigerian state which could collapse without his peoples' stolen assets. It is a war that can and must be won. It will not stop until the Nigerian state is made to accept that his peoples' wealth is not available for plunder by foreigners and other Nigerians. By any means necessary.

 Inmate Four states his case. He is a fighter in defence of his community which is being destroyed by people from other communities. His people have been farmers, simple folk living in peace with everyone who was willing to respect lands, boundaries, traditions and rights bequeathed by ancestors. Until recently, quarrels and conflicts with neighbors and strangers have been resolved through ancient mechanisms and processes, as well as the facilitation of organs of the Nigerian state. These are no longer effective, and his community has had to protect itself from assaults, attacks and imminent extinction with the same methods being employed by its enemies. It is no longer safe to wait until after you are attacked. Taking the fight to the enemy is the only effective means of keeping the community safe, or as safe as it can be in a situation where it has to raise its own security and buy weapons at great cost. His war will not end until women and children can sleep in their villages, and men can go out to farms and markets without being attacked. By any means necessary, his community will protect itself.

 Inmate Five says he is not a freedom fighter. He has no noble cause to champion. He fights to survive in a nation that has not prepared him for anything other than a life of crime. The violent crime for which he is being accused should be visited on the Nigerian state, a nation built precariously on two pillars of pervasive violence and subversion of all laws of the land. He is one of millions in that bulge around a nation that is actually its uneducated, unskilled demographic nightmare. Violent crime is only one variant among crimes in a nation of virtual criminals, the worst crime being caught. There are millions like him out there, grabbing and shooting their ways a day a time. One day he will be finally victimized by the state's bullet or a lynch mob.

 Inmate Six was next. He too is a fighter in his people's cause to resist the destruction of their livelihood and lifestyle. For centuries, they have lived a life on constant move, dictated by the needs of livestock and the imperatives of preserving a culture under constant threat from a rapidly-changing world. Conflicts and frictions with settled and farming communities have been a constant part of life, but these have been mitigated in the past by effective dispute resolution systems and governments that designed methods of reducing conflicts. In the last few years, however, shrinking secure grazing land, expanding urban settlements and indifferent or even hostile governments have combined to threaten the lives and assets of his people. Land is now the only asset recognized by governments with little sympathy for his people. His own asset is a nuisance and a threat, and the land he needs to sustain it and expand is being taken away. He is hemmed in by insensitivity and hostility. He cannot move forward without being an aggressor. He cannot stay because he owns no place to stay. He fights for space, a job he is ill-prepared for in a nation in search of demons. He makes new enemies by the day, losing many members of the community to crimes and lifestyles with less stress. What is left of his lifestyle and asset will be preserved. At all cost necessary.

Inmate Seven sighed. He was not prepared to speak, but he had to honour a commitment. I am the Nigerian state, he says, including its justice system which you all accuse. I am in this cell with you because I am also accused of failing Nigerians. I am supposed to be your protection and guarantor of you rights. I am to mediate between your rights and those of other Nigerians. I have lost the legitimate monopoly to use violence as a means of enforcing law and order to crime and every grievances. I am accused of failing to stop widespread corruption which impoverishes citizens and pushes them into desperation. I am like a large prison, a much bigger version of this cell, in which every inmate is my victim. I cannot provide judicial or guarantee social justice. I am accused of victimizing everyone. Yet only I can address injustice.