By Segun Gbadegesin
Last week, we tried to understand the connection between words and heart or mind as we observed that one reflects what occupies the other. Therefore, we must pay attention to utterances and make effort to draw people out so we know what they keep inside. Today, we address the question: what did Mr. President’s words in his Arise Television interview reveal to the nation about his inside on the key issues of insecurity, open grazing, restructuring, and unemployment?
On the matter of insecurity, the president, nostalgic about the past, thinks it is a matter of “local security operations” with emphasis on synergy between police, traditional rulers and traders. He is right. However, that past featured state police, which is now conspicuously missing. Notwithstanding, many local communities have been alive to their security responsibilities. They finance vigilante and local hunter operations in addition to contributing to the welfare of government security operatives in their community.
On this page some months ago, I narrated how Okeho indigenes heroically confronted an armed robbery gang which destroyed the local police station and the local bank. Some of the robbers died in the encounter and others were arrested. But what happened next? The town was forced to contribute funds for the repair of the damaged police station. And the police team was withdrawn from the town until the police certification of the repair. It didn’t matter to the authorities that the community was then exposed to more armed robbery attacks without police presence. Was that an encouraging experience on the part of the local people?
The president anecdotally referred to his response to complaints of insecurity from two southern governors. He told them to go back and do their job. He was tough and uncompromising and he was also right. Governors are constitutionally responsible for security. Yet, governors appear to have been doing their best with the cards they are decked. Southwest governors created Amotekun Security Network. But they had no constitutional mandate to arm the personnel of the network. Nigeria police doesn’t answer to them. Traditional rulers have complained that they had used their own funds to pay ransom for the release of kidnapped indigenes. It should help if governors were granted the authority, as Chief Security Officers of their states, to procure essential equipment, including arms and ammunition for their security network. Now they appear to have their hands tied.
The most stunning of President Buhari’s interview response was on open grazing. Acknowledging that this issue has created an unnecessary tension for the unity of the republic, he nonetheless adopted an inexplicable rigdity on the matter. All southern governors banned open grazing because it has become a burden too much to bear because of its negative impact on security and food production. On his part, the president is concerned about “the culture of cattle rearers” which he wants to conserve. But this is a culture that condemns herders and their family, including young children, to a life of poverty, ignorance, and disease.
We should note that some Northern governors, including Gov. Ganduje, have seen through the unsustainability of the practice and have moved to provide alternatives. But for some reason, the president appears to believe that herders are entitled to this this miserable mode of existence.
Would herders prefer a different kind of life if they had the choice? Or would they rather be confined to the roaming lifestyle in which there is little prospect for their young ones to be educated? Surely, this has been the only life they know. But have they been presented with better alternatives and they refused? Some populist might throw here the “E” tag for Elitism. But whoever lives in a mansion and his or her own children are not running after cattle in the bush, cannot fairly accuse us of elitism when we plead for a better life for those who don’t think they have choices.
But again, would the so-called Nomadic Fulani prefer a better life? Biblical David of Israel was a herder who famously boasted about his prowess in snatching back his flock from the jaws of lions. But David didn’t refuse the offer of the throne of Israel when he was moved from the bush to the palace. And Israel has moved on from open grazing centuries ago and is a big league global supplier of dairy products. So are many other nations with which we started the journey of independence. To be a conservative in this matter is just mind-boggling.
My honest expectation from the President was that as a compassionate leader who cares for the welfare of his people, including the Nomadic Fulani, he would take advantage of the farmer-herder conflict to better the condition of these vulnerable people with a critical buy-in to proposals for a better approach to herding, namely ranching. No one would grudge him for doing that because it would also promote peace. Instead, he proudly announced his instructions for the return to the Stone Age of existence. It’s sad that a president who leads a progressive party in power would exhibit this rigidity of mind in such a matter of life and death.
Mr. President didn’t really address the question of his position on devolution of power besides his complaint that local government has been killed. This echoes his aides’ argument that state governors must first restructure their states. The problem with this position is that it flies in the face of the party’s manifesto on devolution. Besides, however, it is arguable that what the president sees and laments about as the “death” of local government, is what advocates of restructuring see and lament about state government.
Isn’t it true that our current state government, compared with our first republic regional government, is dead? With the federal government’s greedy appropriation of much of what regions used to be responsible for, and with revenue allocation dramatically skewed against it, state government has been killed. This is the structural wrong that we thought that the APC was going to right. This was why many of us campaigned for the party. But then, it is one such issue on which we were prevented from probing the mind of candidate Buhari prior to the election. But it won’t go away as it is at the center of every other issue that bogs the nation.
While the president and his aides have touted their various interventions on youth unemployment, his focus on youth protests and “misbehavior” in that interview was a disservice to all that he had tried to accomplish. Why couple unemployment with youth protest against police brutality and hunger?
As I observed on this page last year during the EndSars crisis, we have two categories of youths both of whom have lost faith in the nation’s capacity and willingness to do right by them. One category is well-educated and focused. They are nationalistic and even cosmopolitan in outlook. They don’t appreciate the corruption and political paralysis that has almost ruined the nation and their chances to make it. They are constantly looking for the best, and they are eager to engage their leaders. But they are frustrated every time they try.
The second category is a messed up lot because, with the collapse of our education system, we failed them at a tender age. They dropped out of school or weren’t afforded the opportunity for good education. They end up in gangs and cults. They have no respect for public property. They don’t care for dialogue or intellectual engagement. They take advantage of situation to provoke violence. It is conceivable that the president had this category in mind in his admonition to youths to stop misbehaving if they wanted jobs. Unfortunately, this category of youths is a lost cause. They don’t care!
Where do we go from here? Hopefully, the president can rethink his positions on these issues, work with NASS, and his party leadership to fulfil their promises. They have made progress on infrastructure. But a lasting legacy of this administration will be determined by the boldness of its policies and actions on fundamental national issues. Time is running out!
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