Traditionally, the Fulani Herdsmen are known to be people who
lead very easy-going life with full commitment and dedication to their trade,
that is, the business of cattle-rearing. They trek long distances mostly
through the bush paths from the Northern part of the country to the Southern
part in searching for grasses for the grazing of their cattle. Their migrations
is usually once in a year, during the dry season while there are still some
pastures in the South compared with the dearth of grasses in the Northern part
of the country. Ordinarily, these herdsmen establish peaceful coexistence with
the host communities primarily for two apparent reasons. These are to maintain
the business of the hosts’ patronage of their cows, and to be allowed the
grazing of pastures from designated sections from the community without even
the slightest provocation or clashes. These
herdsmen were so peaceful to the extent that some even married some women in
their host communities. When they depart to appear the following year, they
have an abode to lodge when next they visit because of the relationship already
established with their host communities. But in a jiffy, all these
relationships have ended and had become very frosty, confrontational, murderous
and highly frustrating.
The herdsmen of the contemporary times are quite a deviation,
an aberration of the ones described above. Instead of the traditional sticks
carried about to guide the cattle, they are now arbitrarily armed with
sophisticated weapons like the AK47 guns, used not to protect the animals from
the rampaging wild animals in the forest, but to hunt down the host communities,
kidnap and slaughter them at will.
The menace of the Fulani herdsmen have assumed an alarming
and embarrassing proportion to the extent that they have constituted not only
as common and ubiquitous nuisance to the nation, but a threat to its peaceful
coexistence. These herdsmen have become marauders and murderers who have killed
lots of people with impunity with greater value for the lives of their cattle
above the people who have accommodated them from time immemorial. The reasons
adduced so far by these murderers have been that their host communities have
become hostile to them and their cattle and have devised punitive measures to
strangulate the liberties of their cows from grazing freely and uncontrollably any
available pastures to them - whether
they are food crops of the farmers or not, does not matter to them. All they
needed is that their cattle must feed fat, and the host communities starve to
death or are killed to allow free allowance of the dignity and sanctity of the
lives of their cows.
At least, 756 people were killed by the herdsmen in two years
during the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan, as alleged by
the Presidency of Muhammadu Buhari. But in the present times, that number is
just an infinitesimal number to the daily carnage being wreaked at the hands of
these Fulani murderers. If one would refer to the statement of late General
Sani Abacha, that ‘if an insurgency lasts twenty-four hours, the government has
a hand in it’, then one begin to look seriously at the complicity of the
federal government in what looked like state-sponsored killings by these
vampires.
The herdsmen killings are concentrated recently In Benue with
the heart-rending massacre of about 56 people on the new year day of 2018. While
other citizens of the country were celebrating and exchanging pleasantries, sharp,
long knives were been wittingly sunk to the throats of the victims, with their brains
blown out at will by the marauding herdsmen under the name of the Miyetti Allah
Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria. Blood flowed ceaselessly as the earth gulped
down the blood of the innocent in volumes. Children wailed in death as their
parents were also sawn asunder by the murderers. Houses have been blown off and
set ablaze, while the marauders celebrate their impunity and ‘victory’ over
their sworn-enemies. To accentuate their victory, and effrontery, the federal
government appeared to not make any reasonable effort to stop this carnage. When
the evil people started their operations in Kaduna and Kogi States, the
Nigerian state appeared to justify them by stating that they needed enough
grazing land for their cattle without undue restrictions, and gagging them is
capable of infuriating them into their murderous adventures. The Governor of Kaduna
State, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai went to ridiculously pay a kind of compensation to
these demonic murderers to assuage them of their killing spree. None of them
has ever been apprehended nor prosecuted. The government appears to provide
cover for them and treat them with kids’ gloves. This act is a demonstration of
monumental failure on the part of the Buhari-led federal government that is the
failure to secure the lives and properties of its citizens: one of the
fundamental functions of a responsible and a responsive government.
Presently, the Inspector-General of Police, Mr Ibrahim Idris
is in Benue State to help curtail the excesses of these herdsmen. In spite of presence
of detachments of the Police Force and their Boss, reports still have it that
the rampage has continued unabated with some policemen being slaughtered like
rams. This is a sham and may I say whether this is window-dressing and cosmetic solution. Does that
mean those mere militias are more armed than the State Security apparatus /
agents?
The Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) of Nnamdi Kanu of the
Southern Eastern part of Nigeria did not get near this spate of murders, yet the federal government went to stage PYTHON DANCE 1&2. Today IPOB has been
dramatically emasculated. The people of the Niger Delta only expressed their
disappointment about the handling of the oil deposits by the conspiratorial
multinatioal organizations through the militants, the federal government went
with OPERATION CROCODILE SMILE 1& 2. Today, there is relative peace in the
Niger Delta region of the country. The Mitetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association
are more of a terrorist organization than the IPOB, yet they are neither
declared as Terrorist organization nor is the federal government considering ‘’OPERATION
GORILLA LAUGH’’ at them.
Pitiably enough, the government of President Muhammadu Buhari
having failed in its statutory responsibility of securing lives and properties
in this regard has begun scheming ways of re-contesting and possibly winning
the 2019 general elections, when the blood of the innocent freely flows under
their nose. No reasonable electorates, irrespective of wherever they live, will
cast a vote to a government displaying its highest sense of irresponsibility and
insensitivity to the security of her citizens. This singular act is certainly an
undoing to this government, and by extension the All Progressives Congress
being the ruling political party in Nigeria.
The Peoples Democratic Party politicized the issue of the
Boko Haram at the inception of that murderous sect and it cost PDP its fortune.
Now the APC having not learnt its lesson from that, is toiling with the lives
of the citizens of the country. The dent was further compounded by the
intractable suffering occasioned by the scarcity of fuel that introduced
Nigerians to a new year: An experience that saddened the entire nation. This is
brazen assault to the citizenry of this country. The PDP and the APC are
equities and axis of evil in this similar and common denominator they share. The
citizenry must begin to look critically on how to expunge these two political
parties from the governance of Nigeria. Except the APC quickly repents, they
are gravitating to a change; a change that will fling them out of governance. However, the PDP as a political party is never an alternative to the APC, though!
As for the Benue State government and people, Governor Samuel
Ortom needs not run to and shout for help from Abuja because there is no one to
meet there. The best advice is for the creation of Benue State Community Defence and
Security System for self-help. This is not advocating carrying of arms against
constituted authority but primarily to defend the communities against the
terrorist herdsmen. They should replicate the activities of the O’odua Peoples’
Congress of the South-west who battled the unbridled spate of armed robberies
in the South-West, in the early 2000s. This will go a long way securing the
lives of the people before the federal government and its people pretend to
send security agents for the denfence of the defenseless, armless, innocent and
peace-loving people of Benue State.
I sympathize with the families of those who needlessly lost
their precious souls and the entire government and the good people of Benue
State and other States affected, and all my fellow Nigerian citizens. Let President
Muhammadu Buhari and the APC government wake up to their responsibilities.
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