By Tunji Adegboyega

Mum has been the word from the Presidency on the latest resolutions of the southern governors’ meeting, particularly on the unnecessary furore on closed or open grazing. The 17 governors met in Lagos on July 6, under the aegis of Forum of Southern Governors and came up with some resolutions on national issues, including the contentious open grazing which, obviously, is my concern as with many other Nigerians. We should not be tired of registering our opposition to the Federal Government’s position on the matter because, to do that is dangerous.

Whereas in May when the governors first announced the ban on open grazing in their states, the presidency dismissed the ban saying it “is of questionable legality.” Presidential spokesman, Garba Shehu, characteristically defended his fellow Fulanis: the presidency, he said, found “no solution offered from their (Southern Governors’ Forum) resolutions” to the incessant herder-farmer clashes. According to him, “The President had approved a number of specific measures to bring a permanent end to the frequent skirmishes as recommended by Alhaji Sabo Nanono, the Minister of Agriculture, in a report he submitted and the President signed off on it back in April, well before the actions of the Southern Governors Forum which attempts to place a ban on open grazing and other acts of politicking intended by its signatories to demonstrate their power.”

Who or what gave President Muhammadu Buhari the impression that Alhaji Nanono is the repertoire of knowledge in this matter? How did the government come to the conclusion that the solution found to such a highly explosive issue by the minister is superior to that of the governors of the southern states put together? How on earth could a democratically elected president have “signed off” to quote Shehu on such a recommendation by just one individual, when almost all the governors have said no to open grazing, from the north to the south? Obviously President Buhari is still under the illusion that he is a military ruler and is therefore making the same mistake some of the other generals made, to wit: that of continuing to see Nigeria as a country best run under a unitary system of government.

Failure or refusal to admit that this can no longer be the way will only continue to polarise the country along all manner of primordial cleavages. At the end of the day, the President will not have the final word on this matter and by the time he is supposed to go in 2023, he would only have succeeded in leaving no worthwhile legacy beyond fighting the other parts of the country in order to please Fulani herders.

Quite honestly, I have no issue with the president if he is so fascinated by herders trecking all over the forests in the name of cattle rearing when nations that are reaping billions of dollars from beef no longer engage in such anachronistic practice. That is his choice. My issue is with the president insisting on other ethnic groups to embrace this antiquated practice by fire, by force, just to assuage the largely Fulani herders. President Buhari should stop this endless search for accommodation that the Fulani could not get in several other parts of Africa, in Nigeria.

The president was so carried away on this matter that he even, last month, told his attorney-general and minister of justice, Abubakar Malami, to exhume a non-existent federal law on grazing routes! I wonder why Malami (who probably gave him such advice) has not been able to produce a copy of the law.

If this is the mindset of the country’s leadership, then why are we still wondering why Nigeria remains a potentially great nation in perpetuity, when many other countries that were our mates on the back seat of development in the 1970s, notably the Asian Tigers, have since moved on and are now better respected in the comity of nations?

President Buhari has come a long way on this matter and has always met with stiff resistance at every juncture. He had toyed with the idea of cattle colonies, cattle routes, grazing reserves and Rural Grazing Areas (RUGA), to no avail. Even our acknowledged military dictators would not dare thread this path to nowhere in particular this far.

The president’s obstinate insistence on something that other ethnic groups have objected to, and, in fact, keep objecting to, is enough indication that there is more to it than just getting water and food for cattle. And, if Nigerians keep rejecting the ideas by the government as solution, it is because they have seen the packaging and repackaging of government’s measures on the matter as poisoned chalice, no thanks to the president’s undisguised bias on it.

The truth of the matter is that with the Buhari government’s parochial mindset, it would take eternity for us to move forward. Nigeria cannot be talking about grazing routes at this point in time when the world is talking about 5G and IT. It is common knowledge that the world is ruled by ideas and technology, both products of a sound education. But when a government is pushing forward policies that would condemn some Nigerians to cavemen, with chances of being educated very slim, the rest of us would have to pay for their ignorance someday. That is what is playing out in the north that has compounded the country’s security situation, and which the government has not been able to find solutions to. This is the more reason why the rest of us cannot keep quiet, otherwise we would become like the two-eyed man being led by a blind or one-eyed man — we are all destined for the ditch.

We will only continue to deceive ourselves if we keep living in the illusion that Nigerians are one people. I have always said that we are not. That is why we talk of the 1914 amalgamation of the country. Also, a time there was when we used to pride ourselves as a ready destination for investments because of our huge population. This no longer holds. The world is no longer thinking in terms of population in absolute terms but in terms of the value added to that population. What does humanity stand to gain from that crowd? This is the issue now.

We need to encourage the governors, whether southern or northern, to keep meeting to articulate their people’s views. The fact that this is being done without prejudice to any sort of affiliation – political, religious, ethnic – makes the matter all the more commendable. Indeed, this ought to be saluted by a well-meaning Federal Government rather than condemning the salutary move and their well-thought-out recommendations on a matter so dear to their people’s hearts.

It is high time we took our destiny in our hands. People in Abuja are too far and too detached to know where the shoes pinch. The time that one central power staying far away will continue to determine the fate of million others is gone. Many of the governors know that with the way the Buhari government is going, it is a matter of time for their people to start pelting them with stones if they do not stand to be counted on their side on open grazing. It is that contentious.

Who knows His Excellency’s phone number?

I have been looking for His Excellency’s phone number since I saw a WhatsApp post that painted him in a different light from what we hear from or see of him today. It was sometime in the era of the Goodluck Jonathan administration when many schoolgirls were abducted by Boko Haram. His Excellency had not become governor then. He took the Jonathan administration to the cleaners. How sweet it is to be in opposition! His Excellency, then simply Mallam, waxed lyrical and the grammar was flowing as a loose tap. I guess he had been asked a question of why those of them in the opposition then had to politicise the issue of the abducted girls.

Hear him: “…If one of those girls were Jonathan’s daughter, the story would be different. The only reason why these girls are still in captivity is because they are not the daughters of any important man in Nigeria, and we know it. And if you say I am politicising them, then go and rescue the girls so that I don’t have a basis to politicise it.”

Hear His Excellency when asked if he was in support of negotiation to rescue the girls, he said: “I am in support of every option; when you have lives of your citizens at risk, you should not take any option off the table. You should be flexible, you should listen…”

Can anyone guess which of His Excellencies was recorded on video to have said all of these in just 30 seconds? Your guess is as good as mine, especially as I had earlier introduced him as Mallam.

His Excellency in question is Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, the governor of Kaduna State. Today, His Excellency has turned 360 degrees. It is no longer about not disregarding any option or being flexible in the case of abductions. Some options are not tenable now that His Excellency’s political party is in power. One of these is payment of ransom. Mallam el-Rufai has more or less sworn never to pay ransom to kidnappers so as to discourage the criminals involved in this nefarious activity. Not even the killing of some of the abducted students of Greenfield University, Kaduna State, who were abducted in April would make the governor change his stance. His position, no doubt, is good on paper. But how realistic in practice?

His Excellency just showed us that, when, on July 2, he withdrew his children from the public school they have been attending. The governor said he did that to also protect the other pupils in the school. Good talk. Perhaps it would have been interesting for His Excellency to dare those threatening to abduct his children to have their way so we can see if he can live to his threat not to pay ransom if that was requested by the abductors. May be that way, he would experience, first hand, the pressure that fathers of other abducted children go through in the house with their wives. That way, he would have seen the ‘civil war’ that would break out between him and his wife. I want to believe that the smoke of that was even what led to the withdrawal of his children from the school in the first place.

I want His Excellency to prove me wrong.

Just in case His Excellency is not shielded from reading this piece, he could instruct one of his personal assistants to send me his number so I can forward the WhatsApp post to him to confirm its authenticity. If otherwise, I am ready to tender an unreserved apology.

By the way, I was greatly relieved when the embattled governor said he was not going to contest the presidential election in 2023. Although I had no doubt that His Excellency would not only lose the election, right in his state, he would lose his deposit as well. If he truly won the 2019 election, the Kaduna people would not allow the same fire burn them twice. The governor would lose not because he is not doing some things to uplift the people’s wellbeing but because of his abrasive and arrogant style.

An el-Rufai presidency coming even two decades after the Muhammadu Buhari presidency would be one too many.