This week, I had wanted to comment on the near-absolute, albeit worrisome powers wielded by the 36 state governors through their association, Governors Forum, which is unknown to the 1999 Constitution. The Governors have become so powerful that when they sneeze, the presidency catches cold. Funny! The intriguing scenario is tantamount to the axiomatic tail wagging the dog.

A federation is like a pyramid. In Nigeria, like in other countries, at the apex is the Federal Government. Then, there are the federating units. Here, there are 36 state governments and of course at the base, we have 774 local government areas. In a true federal structure, the states ought to be independent of the federal government. That is why the Constitution compartmentalised spheres of jurisdiction. We have the Exclusive List, where only the Federal Government has jurisdiction, Concurrent List, where both the Federal and State governments can exercise authority but where there is a friction, the Federal Government supersedes and the Residual List, meant only for the states.

If there is any tier of government that should be calling the shots, it should be the Federal Government. But not in Nigeria where the tail wags the dog! State governors now make the authoritative allocation of our national patrimony. As if that is not enough, they have now become so powerful that they decide what residents of Aso Rock do and how they govern the country. And they don't do this by advising. No. There is a repulsive and hideous impunity involved. Having conquered their states, the governors now stay more in Abuja to ensure that Aso Rock and, indeed, the National Assembly do their biddings. Unfortunately, all these have nothing to do with national interest. Whatever they say now is law, which the Acting President, Goodluck Jonathan, can only ignore at his own peril. For him, the fear of governors is the beginning of political wisdom.

But I have decided to leave the issue for some other time.

Why?

As I was about finishing the article, my Correspondent in Plateau State, Onoja Audu, called to say the state capital, Jos, is on the boil again.

This time, men suspected to be Fulani herdsmen stole into a Berom community called Dogon-Hauwa in the dead of the night, when men of goodwill were asleep, and slaughtered 500 defenceless people - mostly elderly women and children, in their sleep, in cold blood.

An entire community that is not at war was turned into a killing field with blood of the innocent flowing as a stream. So horrible was the sight that confronted the people on Sunday morning that those from neighbouring communities joined indigenes of Dogon -Hauwa community to wail.

I could not look at, not to talk of publishing the pictures of corpses, mostly children and women, which Onoja sent. Some had their throats slit, others had their heads battered. You could see their brains splattered all over the place.

This brutal round of killings is only coming two months after a similar mayhem left over 300 people dead and property worth millions of Naira destroyed. That was on January 17. The curfew imposed on the city is yet to be lifted. And the January 17 violence erupted barely a year after another violence that erupted on November 28, 2008 also left hundreds, if not thousands of people dead.

As usual, Jonathan has vowed that the murderers will be punished. He has reportedly placed the Army and other security agencies on red alert. A statement issued by his office said the Acting President has directed the security agencies to "undertake strategic initiatives to confront and defeat this roving band of killers."

As usual, he urged all Nigerians to remain peaceful and law abiding "since violence only begets further violence," expressing sympathy for those who have lost relatives and friends in the attack, and prayed God to grant them the fortitude to bear the loss.

In the coming days and weeks, religious leaders will take a cue from Jonathan. They will preach the gospel of peace and love. They will tell us how wonderful and blissful it is to co-habit. Moslem leaders will once again remind us that Islam is a religion of peace. Those who carried out these brutal killings are miscreants, they will claim. As if being a miscreant is a licence to kill.

It is instructive that these unfortunate Nigerians whose only crime was their foolishness to allow themselves to be lured to sleep with the empty promise of protection by the state were attacked at about 3 a.m. - an hour when the area should have been under curfew and guarded by troops.

But why wouldn't these murderers kill and maim innocent citizens? What happened to them in the past? Will anything happen to them in the future? Those who kill and maim in the name of whatever they claim to believe in are not spirits. They are human beings. Their sponsors and patrons are not ghosts. They are also human beings. They are known. So, why hasn't anybody been convicted all these years for these wanton killings? When Gideon Akaluka was beheaded and his head presented as a trophy to the patron saints of mass killings in Nigeria, was anybody arrested, was anybody tried, and was anybody found guilty?

The Plateau State governor, Jonah Jang, has been crying himself hoarse without anybody listening to him. Those arrested for the January mayhem were taken to Abuja for trial. Of course, everybody knew that was a ploy to release them. And they would come back home to kill more innocent citizens.

Until the police decided to summarily execute the leader of the blood-sucking Boko Haram sect in Borno State, he had been arrested about three times, taken to Abuja for trial and set free. Each time, he came back more emboldened.

If this political experiment called Nigeria is not working, can't there be a negotiated, peaceful way of allowing those who want to opt out of the union to do so? It is not compulsory that this must be one country. I know thousands of southerners who were successful in their different businesses in the North but who today are destitute, broken men and women. I know of people who vow everyday never again to travel to the North not to talk of living there. To such people, this country called Nigeria does not exist anymore.

What kind of a country is Nigeria that cannot effectively carry out its primary responsibility - protection of the lives and property of its citizenry? What is the difference between Somalia and Nigeria when a band of marauders can wake up one day and kill hundreds of fellow citizens without any sanctions? Even at the height of the war in Iraq, hardly were so many killed in one day. Not even in Afghanistan.

And why must these killings be in the North only? Has it anything to do with religion, culture or is it ideological? Why is it that nobody wakes up to hear that northerners in the south were attacked in the dead of the night and slaughtered? Does any group in this country have a monopoly of violence? What would make a man think he has the right to take the life of another?

The extant mayhem in Jos is one too many. Every man has a fundamental right to life. Citizens expect their government to protect them. No country can wipe out all criminals in the society. Agreed! But that is where the state comes in. Law abiding citizens must be protected. Those who carried out these horrible attacks in Jos and their sponsors must be arrested, tried and if found guilty executed. Capital punishment is still part of our statute books.

That is the only way to restore the confidence of millions who have lost faith in this project called Nigeria.