Category: Emeka Omeihe

By Emeka OMEIHE

 

Emerging recriminations on the masterminds of the attack at the Imo State Police Command headquarters and the Correctional Services in Owerri are a measure of the puzzles the incident presents. The gunmen who attacked both facilities in their numbers were reported to have first gathered at the roundabout opposite the Government House around 1 am for about 30 minutes singing solidarity songs before proceeding to hit their targets.

The first victim of the attack was the state police headquarters where they detonated sophisticated explosives that blew open cells housing detainees and set them free. Not done, they set on fire almost all the vehicles parked at the police command and affecting some buildings.

They proceeded to the correctional facilities located some distance from the police headquarters, blew open the cells and freed all prisoners and detainees. The gunmen had a field day carrying out their criminal objectives without challenge from the security agencies even as the area is the most fortified in the state. Why the hoodlums operated freely without any challenge from the array of security operatives that maintain strong presence in the area is the most tasking puzzle presented by the incident.

Government’s posts and security agencies from which resistance was expected to come are: the Government House itself, the state police command headquarters, the correctional facility and the old headquarters of the Department of State Services DSS. The chief security officer of the state, the governor lives there, so also is the commissioner of police. The commander of the artillery brigade at Obinze also has his residence located around the area.

One had expected serious confrontation with the armed gunmen from this array of security agencies. But nothing of such happened. The information that made the rounds is that the hoodlums operated unchallenged. None of the attackers was killed, wounded or arrested. The only inkling of resistance we were treated to was that the gunmen made serious attempts to break into the armoury at the police headquarters but met serious resistance. Apparently emboldened by the absence of resistance, the attackers then marched or sped off to the correctional facilities with several Toyota Hilux vans and Sienna buses they came with to complete their devious assignment. There, they also blew open the cells and freed about 1,800 inmates. It was a scene to behold as prisoners and detainees of all hue struggled to exit confinement.

Immediate past Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed Adamu who arrived the scene promptly, named the proscribed IPOB and Eastern Security Network as the perpetrators of the attack. Adamu’s fingering of the IPOB for culpability was hasty given that nobody was arrested during the attack and there are neither labels nor uniforms that mark out the so-called IPOB or ESN members for ease of identification.

From what material evidence did he then get his information or is it a case of the usual hallmark assumptions and profiling?  But IPOB denied the accusation even as another self-determination group MASSOB has placed the blame for the attack on the federal government. MASSOB alleged the attack was a ploy by the federal government to invade the state and hound innocent citizens.

A new twist to the issue emerged when Governor Hope Uzodinma claimed in an interview with Channels Television’s Politics Today that aggrieved politicians were behind the attacks and their aim was to destabilize his government and that of President Muhammadu Buhari. “We have credible evidence leading to those who paid the hoodlums, where they met and how they met. Security agencies are already working with this information” he stated.

It is not clear whether the ‘credible evidence’ the governor claims to have were availed him before or after the attacks.  But any doubt on this appeared to have been cleared by a former official of the DSS, Dennis Amachree. He claimed in an interview on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily programme monitored by The Punch that both the governor and the state police command were alerted three times by the DSS of the impending attack. This claim is yet to be denied.

If this information is correct, it further complicates the riddle surrounding the entire incident. It may then provide a lead as to why there was no resistance when the hoodlums levied terror of unimaginable proportion on the poor state. Uzodinma appeared to have corroborated the claims by Amachree by the way he volunteered knowledge of where the hoodlums met, how they met and their sponsors. What he did not tell us is whether this information was availed him prior to the attack or thereafter. If it is before the attack, then a profound statement has been made on why there was no challenge to the attackers. It also says something on kind of leadership in the state. But, if the information was made available to him after the attacks, then those who gave it to him must be arrested for complicity.

They must be arrested and immediately paraded by the police for withholding sensitive security information until after monumental harm had been done. Since the governor claims he has evidence of those who paid the hoodlums, where they met and how they met, it means all these were really available in some quarters before the attack. They could not have been generated after the attacks. Of what use then, is the information if it could not be deployed to prevent the attacks?

We do not want to believe that the alleged ‘credible evidence’ was availed the governor and he did nothing only for the criminals to unleash mayhem. But somebody is definitely complicit in the circumstance. That some people had prior information on the impending attack and kept it under wraps adds to the conspiratorial theories making the rounds since the incident.

Uzodinma’s claim that aggrieved politicians were behind the attacks was further narrowed down by his commissioner for information, Declan Emelumba when he pointedly accused a former governor of the state of being behind the spate of attacks on government’s establishments. The commissioner said the ex-governor had recently organized a group of northern youths to demand the imposition of a state of emergency on the state. By all the descriptions he provided, that former governor is identifiable. So why not have him arrested?

But more fundamentally, the new position of the state government counters the pinning down of the IBOP as the mastermind of the attack. So who are the suspects of the attacks: IPOB, politicians, a former governor or all of the above? And why bring in Buhari’s government into the matter if credibility issues are not behind it all.

The conduct of Governor Uzodinma evokes the impression of a man being haunted by the very manner he came into power. His demeanour and temperament since the incident do not speak of one intent on deescalating the tensed security situation in the state. Bandying allegations freely when investigations are still going on may end up compromising their outcome.

It is worrisome and condemnable that such an attack could take place in Imo. The development calls for serious introspection especially when added to the attacks on police station across the state, Why Imo? What is expected of a leader in such a circumstance is calmness for serious investigations to be carried out to unravel those behind those despicable attacks.

But he would not have any of such with his display of uncanny obsession with getting even with perceived political enemies. Such was the sentiments evoked when he asked the police during his visit to the scene of the attack, to use their riffles to defend themselves against suspected masterminds of the attacks. Why prod the police on self-defence?

In a clime law enforcement agencies are regularly accused of human rights abuses, telling them to use their weapons to defend themselves could be misconstrued, leading to rights abuses of the most extreme form. That is the potent danger in that advice.

What the circumstance demands is comprehensive investigation and proper examination of all leads to that reign of anarchy in Imo State. Nothing should be foreclosed in this investigation. Not with the serial abduction of hundreds of school children in northern states without resistance from the security agencies. Nothing should be ruled out in this investigation.

By Emeka OMEIHE

 

Nigeria’s unity took the centre stage at the 12th edition of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu colloquium in Kano last week, as speaker after speaker took turns to highlight the benefits for the country as an indivisible entity.

Even the choice of venue, Kano State, bore eloquent testimony to the desire by its organizers to expand the frontiers of national unity at a time the country is assailed by fission of all hue. And the organizers made no mistakes in driving this point home. It is the first time the colloquium held outside Lagos and Abuja.

With the theme “Our Common Bond, Our Common Wealth: The imperative of National Cohesion for Growth and Prosperity” the stage was set for speakers to draw copious attention to the gains of coming together and remaining together as a united country. This is especially so, given the upswing in destabilizing challenges to the nation’s corporate existence in recent times.

Such was the palpable sentiment when President Buhari said in a virtual statement at the event that “despite occasional inter-ethnic tensions in our national history, it seems to me that we have all agreed on one point, that notwithstanding our diversity or ethnicity, culture, language and religion, Nigerians are better; even stronger together”. He said his experience working in all parts of the country showed possibilities of a strong and united nation.

For Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, by accepting to hold the colloquium in Kano, Governor Abdullahi Ganduje has helped the organizers “to underscore the point that this country and its people are stronger and more powerful together than apart”.

Asiwaju Tinubu, warned on the dangers of disunity when he contended that if Nigeria broke into small countries, he would not be able to visit Kano without a visa. But perhaps, the most tasking contribution to the discourse came from Ganduje when he said, for Nigerians to attain the desired development, its citizens must become ‘born again’ “As far as national integration is concerned, all Nigerians must become born again by turning a new leaf and doing away with the negative tendencies that becloud senses of reason”, Ganduje stated.

These are the key issues to contend with. If one’s reading of Ganduje is correct, his concern is more with the necessary measures to stabilize the unity of the country than pontifications on its desirability. In a sense, he has taken the unity of the country as given especially after 60 years of independence. So, what is at issue now from his viewpoint, is not as much with such platitudes as unity of the country as its capacity and ability to translate to a common sense of identity and belonging amongst constituents. It brings to the fore the inability of the leadership to transform this act of togetherness to sentiments-sentiments of common identity and shared values. That miserably, has been the missing link.

If emphasis on the gains of remaining as one country proved useful at the foundation stages of modern Nigerian state, by now we should have proceeded beyond that. The fact that unity remains a serious sermon several decades after indicates something is not just adding up. Beyond bringing the variegated interests together, we have been less than successful through our actions and policies in allowing the benefits of this act to be fully seen and appreciated by those it is meant to serve

Constructing a Nigerian personality from the distinct ethnic groups in the union has turned out a tall order. Ganduje admitted this reality when he called for national integration, born again Nigerians, turning a new leaf and doing away with negative tendencies. These are issues critical to approximating those ideals the unity of the country ought to bring to the table. Unity is not an end but a means to collective good. The question that should be asked is, how much of the benefits of unity are evenly and equitably shared among the constituents?

Whenever leaders pontificate on this issue, the impression conveyed is that they have not been able to instill relevant policy measures that will make citizens feel and appreciate the fact of their being together. If they were satisfied, the leadership will have little need to remind them of it. And these are better achieved through inclusive policies and programs rather than preachments. It calls for examples rather than precepts.

It involves mind-reconstruction and re-engineering. It seeks to make Nigerians out of the disparate and variegated tendencies that make up this unity in diversity-tendencies that reinforce and sustain the competition for the loyalty of the citizens between the government and the primordial units. That is the born-again dimension Ganduje spoke about. And those well versed in the spiritual meaning of being born again, will attest, it is not a mean feat.

That is the challenge that confronts this country. Being born again also presupposes we have identified our failings with an abiding resolve to part ways with our sinful pasts. That is the mindset that will make the difference. We cannot realize that ideal when the policies and programs of the government are regularly skewed to reinforce centrifugal tendencies.

So, when President Buhari sought to remind us for the umpteenth time that Nigerians are better and stronger together and that the unity of the country is not negotiable, the impression it evokes is that all is not well with us. And really, all is not well with us. This is evident from the suffocating insecurity across the country; Boko Haram insurgency, banditry, the insurgency of the herdsmen, kidnapping and all manners of criminalities. It is also palpable from the rising agitations for self-determination.

All these have had the net effect of tasking the energies of security agencies to elastic limits. Beyond this, the rising lure for self-determination and stiff competition between the government and the ethnic nationalities for the loyalty of the citizens is measure of how deep the unity gospel has sunk. The issue is not whether Nigerians are stronger and better united. Neither are there doubts about the advantages that come from such combined efforts with the diversities and possibilities they offer. It is also not a case of Nigerians deliberately refusing to live together.

Theodore Bikel comes to mind here when he said “No doubt, unity is something to be desired, to be striven for but it cannot be willed by mere declarations”. Henry Ford added his voice to this challenge thus: “Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success”. We had since come together, struggling to keep together but yet to work together.

The federal government has not operated in such a way to imbue confidence in what this unity holds for the various groups. Both in structure and daily dealings with the constituents; feelings of inequity, non-inclusiveness, injustice and outright nepotism are regularly evoked and seriously nursed. And there does not seem to be conscious and honest efforts to correct these and assuage the feelings of those who feel aggrieved. Little wonder these grievances have blossomed to a point they are driving the country to the edge.

It is a thing of immense worry that despite the convoluted federal order in operation and the constant systemic schism it engenders, we seem comfortable with things as they are. The mindset of the leadership is that ether force will sort out things or the solution lies in preachments that have not been able to permeate the hearts of the audience.  Such is the dilemma we are confronted with.

That is the challenge of leadership. Unity of the country is still at the realm of an expression of hope. The right attitude for the leadership is to work the talk though policies and programs that give hope to citizens that they are strongly bonded in one nation. Only then, will Nigerians begin to see themselves same way American citizens see themselves as Americans rather than members of their primordial public.

President Buhari touched on this when he called on leaders and followers to be ready to ensure that justice and harmony reign in the country. But that is more of a challenge before the government he leads. Let the actions of his government make that statement.

By Emeka Omeihe

Something of interest to the nation’s jurisprudence emerged from the valedictory speech of retired Supreme Court Justice, Olabode Rhodes-Vivour. Justice Rhodes-Vivour who just retired after the mandatory 70 years of age, had drawn attention to the existence of several outdated Supreme Court judgments he said should no longer be followed.

He cited the doctrine of ‘precedence or stare decisis’ meaning “stand by your decisions and the decisions of your predecessors, however wrong they are and whatever injustices they inflict”. The retired Justice said “precedents that no longer make sense anymore or are outdated should be laid to rest and never followed”.

Implicit in this, is the reality that many of the decisions of the nation’s apex court are encumbered by precedents of questionable value. That is really something to worry given the primacy of the judiciary in protecting and safeguarding the rights of citizens from executive and legislative meddlesomeness.

As fundamental to the overall dispensation of justice the issue is, it remains curious why justices still rely on stale precedents that are no longer of value in the dispensation of justice? Why are they seemingly slaves to moribund rules that end up inflicting injustice on litigants? Is man made for rules or rules made for man?

It is good a thing the retired justice alerted the public on the incalculable harm undiluted reliance on questionable precedence has wrought on our justice system. Even as his overall aim is to expand the frontiers of jurisprudence, it is somewhat sad Justice Rhodes-Vivour chose his valedictory session to draw attention to this mortal danger. The timing of his advice conveys the impression that either he raised the issue for his successors to handle or just wanted to be heard.

It appears now a fad for retiring justices to raise weighty and fundamental issues impeding quick and efficient dispensation of justice on the eve of their exit. But the question that crops up each time we are treated to such scenes is why wait till retirement before raising debilitating hiccups in the temple of justice?

It would have served greater public good for justices to raise such issues and find solutions to them while on the bench. What manner of justice is served when justices stand on wrong decisions and moribund precedents that manifestly inflict injustice on one of the parties? Or, are we contending with the concept of justice espoused in Plato’s Republic by Thrasymachus as the ‘interest of the stronger party’. Maybe also the Marxian perspective that views the judiciary as part of the superstructure that exist to serve the interests of the ruling class can fill in the gap created by this philosophical inquisition.

The impression one gets is that justices are helpless and slaves to rules. That should not be the situation. They are neither helpless nor slaves to rules unless they chose to be so. There is a whole lot they can do to remedy blind adherence to outdated precedents in cases brought before them. Law and justice are dynamic processes that must constantly adjust to the dictates of the ever-changing environment.

The danger in outdated precedents is brought closer home by events of the last governorship election petition in Imo State between Hope Uzodinma of the All Progressives’ Congress APC and Emeka Ihedioha of the Peoples Democratic Party PDP. The case had run successfully in favor of Ihedioha at both the tribunal and Court of Appeal. But the Supreme Court upturned all that and declared Uzodinma winner based on its admission of results from the contentious 388 polling units which he claimed were excluded by INEC from the total votes credited to him.

The court noted that results from the cancelled polling units amounted to 213,295 votes and admitted them as lawful votes. It further directed the addition of the unlawfully cancelled votes it said were due to Uzodinma and declared him winner of the Imo governorship election.

By the figures INEC released after the election, the total number of accredited voters stood at 823,743 while total valid votes amounted to 714,355. But with the new addition, the total number of valid votes increased to 950, 925.  This amounted to 127,209 votes in excess of accredited voters of 832, 743 indicating a serious arithmetical error.

That would denote a clear case of over voting which cannot confer electoral advantage on any of the candidates. But the apex court awarded victory to the APC candidate irrespective of the questionable manner the figures were generated, without indicating the scores of other parties to the election. The Supreme Court ruling elevated a candidate who came fourth in that election to the first position. It was one ruling many could not come to terms with till now.

Based on this error, Ihedioha filed for a review of the apex court’s ruling. He asked the court to reverse its earlier decision based on factual error and to better serve the course of justice.

The Supreme Court led by the Chief Justice of Nigeria CJN, Tanko Mohammed held that it lacked the powers to sit on appeal on its own judgment. That is the anachronism embedded in the principle of stare decisis which Rhodes-Vivour canvassed as he took a bow from the bench. But the issue is not as difficult as has been presented by the CJN. The apex court is not entirely helpless as it would goad us to believe. It can really reverse itself to mitigate the injustices of its wrong decisions or blind adherence to precedents.

This fact was eminently canvassed in a minority judgment by Justice Centus Nweze who held the “apex court has the power to overrule itself and has done so in the past. The court has powers to overrule itself and revisit any decision not in accordance with justice”. The jurist said Uzodinma mischievously misled the court into unjust conclusion with the unverified votes credited to him in the disputed 388 polling units without indicating the votes polled by other political parties.

The decision of the Supreme Court in the Imo governorship election is wrong and “will continue to haunt our (Nigeria’s) electoral jurisprudence for a long time to come” he declared. This is a landmark ruling that rubbished the vexatious notion that the Supreme Court cannot reverse itself. So, there must be other reasons for the controversial judgment than the touted encumbrances of judicial precedence.

The apex court was on sound ground to reverse itself but it chose the other way for inexplicable reasons. And that judgment has continued to haunt not just jurisprudence but the sanctity of the electoral process as the lynchpin of the democratic option.

True to prediction, the ruling has continued to reverberate. There is a petition before the Supreme Court arising from its reaffirmation of Uzodinma as the duly elected governor of Imo State. In its ruling in December, 2019 on the APC governorship primary in Imo State, the apex court held that Uche Nwosu was the authentic candidate of the party. But Nwosu eventually ran the election under the platform of Action Alliance, AA. Based on double nomination, the apex court in a post-election petition judgment, nullified Nwosu’s nomination as both the candidate of the APC and AA. That left the APC with no candidate in that election.

But here we are with Uzodinma holding sway as the governor of Imo State when there is nowhere in the electoral law provision was made for independent candidacy. The suit now before the apex court is to interpret and enforce its ruling on the authentic candidate of the APC in that election. Again, for reasons that remain suspicious, more than six months after the suit was instituted, it is yet to be slated for hearing.

These are the monsters we create. The problem has little to do with outdated precedents. It revolves around the disposition of our judicial officers to ensure the course of justice is served. They are largely to blame. But this case has shown that justice is yet to be served. The sooner all issues revolving around it are resolved, the better for the integrity of the judicial process.

Emeka OMEIHE

 

If doubts existed on the dire straits the Nigerian economy is enmeshed, indicators from the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics NBS have erased all that. The emerging picture is that of a people seriously assailed by abject poverty due to widening unemployment and spiralling inflation.

For a country rated by the World Poverty Clock in 2018 as the world’s poverty capital with 86.9 million of its people living in extreme poverty, widening unemployment and spiralling inflation have had the net effect of further consigning its peoples down the last rung of the poverty ladder.

In the report by the NBS, unemployment rate rose to 33.3 per cent in three months through December 2020 as against 27.1 per cent in the second quarter of the same year. This takes Nigeria to the second position in a global list of 82 countries monitored by Bloomberg along their unemployment standing. Namibia leads in the unemployment list with 33.4 per cent while South Africa placed third after Nigeria. Additional statistics has it that unemployment in Nigeria more than quadrupled in the last five years.

The NBS also reported that inflation rose to 17.33 per cent in February from 16.47 per cent in the previous month of January representing the highest figure recorded in four years. It attributed this to continued rise in food inflation caused by increases in the prices of bread, cereals, fish, yam, vegetables, meat, and other food products.

It noted that food inflation rose to 21.79 per cent in February against 20.57 in January 2020 representing the highest point since the NBS data series began over a decade ago. As chilling as these are, they are not entirely surprising to keen observers of Nigeria’s economic trajectory. They reinforce what is already in the public domain despite attempts by the authorities to paint a different picture. And as observed, Nigeria was in 2018 rated the poverty capital of the world. The government then made spirited efforts to give a lie to the rating.

The NBS confirmed the standing of the country in the world poverty chart when in its poverty and inequality report from September 2018 to October 2019, it said 40 per cent of Nigerians live below its poverty line of N137, 430 ($381.75) per year. The indices that influenced that rating must have factored in the twin issues of unemployment and inflation as they add up to determine prevailing poverty level in a given society. But these indices are not self-accounting as they are symptoms of policy failure and mismanagement of the economy by its leaders.

Nigeria is bountifully endowed both in human and natural resources. As oil bearing country with huge foreign exchange earnings, the expectation is that its leadership would have taken advantage of it to reflate the economy and turn around the fortunes of its peoples for the better. But this has failed to happen as the productive base of the economy has remained at its lowest ebb in the face of the high number of youths that graduate from all levels of the educational system.

As usual, government functionaries may soon rise to rationalize why the nation came about the damning rating by the NBS.  Likely to feature prominently is the COVID-19 pandemic that threw the nation into recession following an earlier one in 2016. Nigeria is just exiting from its second phase. We admit that COVID-19 came with serious job losses both at home and beyond our shores.

That is not all there is to it. That cannot explain why Nigeria took the second position in the unemployment list of 82 countries monitored by Bloomberg, some of them poor and less endowed African nations. That is also incapable of accounting for the high inflationary trend- the highest in the last 10 years. COVID-19 pandemic is also severely hampered in explaining why Nigeria sank below India as a country with the most extreme poor people in the world even when the pandemic was alien to the global economy.

It is also regrettable that though Nigeria topped the list of 10 African countries in the extreme poverty index, only Ethiopia is said to be on track to meet the United Nations’ SDG of ending extreme poverty by 2030. Outside the top 10, Ghana and Mauritania are equally rated to be on track with the SDG target.

These speak much on Nigeria. They suggest that the reasons for the mess into which we are currently entangled can only be located in the actions and inactions from within our shores. Mismanagement of enormous resources endowed this country by nature, is at the centre of it all. Here the endemic corruption that afflicts all spheres of our public life comes into focus.

It is obvious from all indicators that significant progress has not been made in the fight against corruption in public places despite the fact that it represents one of the three major program thrusts of the Buhari administration. The two others are to grow the nation’s economy and stem the tide of insecurity. The level of progress to grow the economy and secure the country is a moot issue.

Unfortunately, there is little on ground to give comfort that serious war is being waged against corruption. Admittedly, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission EFCC under the former leadership of Ibrahim Magu postured at the inception of the regime as if it was serious with the anti-graft war. That is without prejudice to serious credibility issues raised against his suitability to lead that battle. Even then, in the little efforts he mounted, he was in the habit of shifting the goalposts and setting different standards for suspects. Soon, allegations of witch-hunting political opponents of the government gained traction.

Whatever modicum of credibility left of the agency petered out when the seemingly incorruptible helmsman was embroiled in serial corruption allegations leading to his arrest and detention. But the development was not entirely surprising.  The Directorate of State Services DSS had opposed the suitability of Magu on the ground of his alleged corrupt tendencies. They even supported their report with evidence.

But the president refused to listen until he was eventually embarrassed by Magu. With the battle losing steam, it is not surprising corruption has continued to thrive in public places. Mindless looting at all level of the government has deprived the government of the much needed funds to address the debilitating economic conditions of our people. This has left our youths with neither jobs nor a promising future. The ENDSARS protests were in part, spurred by hopelessness and despondency of our youths as their collective patrimony and future are squandered by a self-serving leadership.

It a vote of no-confidence in government’s social investment and job creation programs that both unemployment and inflation are at an all-time high. Much of the spiralling effects of the scorching inflation can be located at the door steps of some of the policies of the government. The price of fuel is one. Multiplicity of taxes that reduce the purchasing power of the people is another. Mounting arrears of salaries and pensions owed workers by various levels of government are also serious issues to contend with.

At the moment, fuel sells for N170 per litre. There was trepidation last week when the regulatory agency rolled out a new price regime which has been suspended. But the minister of state for Petroleum, Timipre Sylva said petrol price will be fully deregulated before the end of this year. That will definitely put the price of the product beyond the reach of many Nigerians.

With the centrality of petrol to daily economic activities, the prevailing rise in prices of goods and services did not come as a surprise. The situation will exacerbate with the touted full deregulation. Nigerians have to be alive to buy petrol. Whatever policy the government intends to come out with must have a human face.

Before then, it is vital to check the mounting regime of official corruption else monies from anticipated deregulation will still end up in private pockets. That will perpetually consign our people to a vicious cycle of debilitating poverty. We shudder at such prospects.

By Emeka Omeihe

Fiery Islamic cleric, Sheikh Ahmad Gumi was treading on a familiar turf when he told bandits that Christian soldiers are responsible for attacks mounted on them by the military. Even when he later claimed his statement was misunderstood, the reasons adduced ended up reinforcing his narrative to the bandits.

A video clip had shown Gumi at a meeting with bandits telling them that soldiers involved in most attacks against them were non-Muslims and that they should be aware that soldiers are divided into Muslims and Christians. Despite the incendiary content of the widely circulated message, it inexplicably took the Nigerian Army about two weeks to come up with a position on it.

In the statement, Director of Army Public Relations, Brigadier General Mohammed Yerima said the deployment of soldiers was not on religious or ethnic lines and warned “Gumi and other opinion merchants not to drag the image and reputation of one of the most reliable national institutions to disrepute”.

But, Gumi told the BBC in response that he was misunderstood. Hear him: “When I speak about religious issues in the army, I am not referring to today’s army. The issue is from 2010-2015 when some people were in charge. It is during that time that there were bombings everywhere. It happened in Jaji and we lost a popular Muslim General”.

Yet, he was addressing bandits on their current grievances and what could be done for them to stop the orgy of abductions, kidnapping and killings that had put the country on edge. The attacks being mounted against the bandits are an on-going concern. So also are their grievances. They have nothing to do with events of 10 years ago. Gumi’s attempt to bring in that period is just an afterthought that exposes the duplicity of his action.

At any rate, what has the bombings at the budding stages of the Boko Haram insurgency or the alleged killing of a popular Muslim General in Jaji got to do with extant banditry in Zamfara forests and elsewhere which the nation is struggling desperately to contain? On the contrary, those who suffered most in the bombings that characterized that period were Christians and their worship places. The records are there. The so-called bandits whom Gumi set out to interface with had not become a serious security threat then if at all they existed.

So, it is inconceivable how he could have been referring to that era when the bandits are just tabling their current grievances to him.  It is clear Gumi has no defense for deliberately attempting to place Christian soldiers in harms’ way by injecting religious and ethnic poison into military matters.

If he can invent such dubious allegations when Muslim northerners are virtually in charge of the commanding heights of the military and paramilitary institutions, it shows the extent some leaders can push ethnic and religious cards for parochial and clannish ends. If there are biases in the deployment of soldiers, the military leadership that is almost exclusively composed of northern Muslims should take that blame. Curiously also, Gumi had the full backing of the federal government in that suspicious interface with dangerous criminals.

Those familiar with events in this country, should not be surprised at Gumi’s Inflammatory and divisive claims. They fit into a familiar pattern of allegations from highly placed citizens from that part of the country each time we are assailed by serious security challenges.

It is no coincidence that the years Gumi claimed to be referring to, coincides with the period the Jonathan regime held sway. It was also during the same period that a former governor of Adamawa State, Muritala Nyako came up with similar divisive, clannish and unpatriotic allegations against that regime. Nyako’s allegations came at the peak of the Boko Haram attacks and the abduction of more than 300 students from Chibok Girls’ College, Borno State.

Nyako had in a memo to northern governors in 2014 titled: “On-Going Full-Fledged Genocide in Northern Nigeria” alleged that the Jonathan government was using “mass murderers/cut-throats embedded in our legitimate and traditional Defence and Security organizations” to carry out the genocide and that the regime was determined to create strife between Muslims and Christians. He also claimed that the regime organizes the killing of citizens but quickly “attributes the killings to so-called Boko Haram”.

Citing the kidnapping of Chibok girls then, Nyako claimed “these organized kidnappers must have the backing of the federal government for them to move about freely with abducted children”. The former service chief further averred that virtually all soldiers of northern Nigerian origin recruited to fight Boko Haram are poorly trained, ill-equipped, given only uniforms and killed by their trainers in Nigerian Army training centres being used by the “so-called Boko Haram insurgents. Virtually all the Nigerian army soldiers killed/murdered in these operations so far are of Northern Nigerian origin”.

These are by no means exhaustive of the weighty and combustible allegations raised by Nyako. The aim in highlighting these is in part, to demonstrate unambiguously that Gumi’s claims when he interfaced with the bandits could not have come as a surprise. Nyako had made more dangerous and more potentially explosive allegations bordering on the nation’s fault-lines and gotten away with them. So his, bore the imprimatur of the devious path Nyako treaded when we were assailed by the Boko Haram insurgency.

Nyako’s allegations during the period Gumi claimed he was referring to, are handy for the purposes of comparison and contrast. Today, what do we make of his claims of genocide against the north, serial cynical references to ‘so-called Boko Haram insurgents’ and ascription of culpability to the federal leadership then on account of the ease with which bandits abducted the Chibok girls?  How do we now situate these in the face of the continuing serial and very embarrassing experiences of Kankara to Kagara mass abduction of school children? What do we make of Jangebe mass abduction of about 300 students; the burning of villages, kidnappings and rape that forced the like of Gumi into questionable negotiations with the bandits?

In the face of serious attacks mounted by the Boko Haram insurgents five years after President Buhari claimed to have won the war, was it not naivety in its extreme form for Nyako through his cynical remarks to have been giving the impression that Boko Haram was a subterfuge? Today, he should know better if devious agenda of parochial hue was not behind his posturing.

Today, it clear that Boko Haram is real and has undergone mutations posing more lethal threat to our corporate existence. We know that the war against Boko Haram has nothing to do with alleged ploy to depopulate the north. Rather, Boko Haram insurgency and banditry are creations of years of mindless misrule by northern leadership for which they should take responsibility.

It also bears stating that it was during the same period that a former Chief of Army Staff, Azubuike Ihejirika was harassed and blackmailed by moles in the army and elsewhere opposed to the reforms he initiated. They bandied questionable statistics from a single army recruitment exercise to allege a plot to ‘Igbonize’ the army.

Ironically, when Abdulraman Dambazzau was the Chief of Army Staff, Insider Weekly magazine had in its June 2009 edition, reported that soldiers were grumbling over ‘parochial unbalanced deployments’ in the army, wondering whether “he is building a Nigerian Army, a Kano army or a northern army’. The magazine alleged out of 32 key appointments, Dambazzau gave the north 27, Southeast three, Southwest two and none to the South-south. How these could have been suddenly upturned by a single recruitment to the point of Igbo domination remains a moot issue.

Why ethnic and religious cards are always handy in periods of national stress are issues to ponder. But in that poser, can be located the crux of our inability to make substantial progress despite huge human and natural endowments.

By Emeka Omeihe

It is getting clearer that this country is home to a verity of the sovereignty of bandits.  Call them by whatever name; the reign of bandits or herdsmen especially in the north, is fast conveying the miserable impression that there exists a bandits’ republic within the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Sadly, the body language of the leadership to this manifest challenge to their authority seems to be exacerbating the matter. Since many of these forests are largely ungoverned, bandits took control and established strong authority from where they now dictate the rules of engagement with the government of the day.

But the bandits’ territory is not a normal republic where rule of law and due process form the basis for political action. What you find is a republic that shares common features with the Hobbesian state of nature where life has at once become nasty, short and brutish. This republic is governed by the law of the jungle, war of man against man reinforced by bestial and survivalist predilections.

No serious economic enterprise goes on in that jungle. Neither are the inmates under the dominion of a singular authority. But adjoining this jungle republic is a modern republic which the warlords are rebelling against. And from that jungle, they invade the territories of the more established and legitimate government with the latter seemingly and inexplicably helpless.

Curiously, this lethargy is rationalized on some tenuous grounds. The most canvassed is that hostage taking is a complex matrix requiring extreme care so as not to harm victims and innocent settlements in the forests. This has been the rationalization even as we are also regaled with the touted capacity of the government to decisively tame the monster.

Of recent, there emerged the laughable excuse from the Minister of Information Lai Mohammed that the government is being cautious in attacking the bandits’ enclaves for fear of destroying the ecosystem even as he pointed out that kidnapping also takes place in the United States of America and elsewhere. The purport of the latter part of this statement is that there is nothing special with the serial invasion of schools and abduction of pupils in their numbers since kidnappings also takes place in advanced countries. That is the kind of tepid, puerile and insensitive rationalizations that have exposed our citizens to the mercy of the marauding bandits.

This attitude is a measure of the dilemma we face in the festering insurgency of the bandits and herdsmen that has put the legitimacy of the government to serious test. Not unexpectedly, events have taken place in several fronts to depict unambiguously how helpless and hopeless we have become as the reign of the bandits looms larger than life.

Bandits seem to have perfected a devious technology for the serial abduction of school pupils’ and other innocent citizens in their hundreds with the nation’s security architecture offering no resistance. There was the Kankara abduction of about 400 school children in Katsina State on the very day President Buhari arrived that state for some rest.

As the dust of the Kankara abduction was about to settle, the government college in Kagara, Niger State became a victim when 42 students, staff and their relations were abducted in similar circumstance. Before the Kagara incident, travelers in Niger State mass transit bus had suffered the same predictable fate. Negotiations for the release of the travelers and the students went on contemporaneously.

That is not all. Zamfara State which had been at the epicenter of the bandits’ scourge had students’ abduction visited on it when over 300 students of Government College, Jangebe were abducted and ferried into the forest in similar circumstances with one student shot dead. Elsewhere in Kaduna, Plateau and Sokoto states, it has been a sorry tale of serial killings and kidnapping for ransom. As I write, reports of kidnappings and killings have continued to make the headlines in our national dailies despite the pledge by the president that the Jangebe abduction will be the last one.  About seven states in the north have shut down schools as a result of the kidnapping spree.

Why kidnappers target school children is not very clear. Speculation has it that it is to discourage school enrolment in those areas. This is also obvious from the closure of schools and confessions of some of the abductees who said they will not return to their former schools.

That takes us to the question as to whether there exists a link between the so-called bandits and Boko Haram insurgents that see education as evil. There is also the theory that bandits are lured into school children abduction because of the huge money they make from it especially given the sentiments associated with long incarceration of children in dangerous forests.

Curiously, the raging state of anarchy is being compounded by the inexplicable posturing of state and non-state actors. Even as the scourge of banditry has been with us for some years now, there is lack of unanimity on who these bandits are, what they really want or what their grouses are. Even then, there does not seem much difference between those termed bandits in the northern parts of the country and the herdsmen that are at the center of the mounting criminality in the south. The only difference is in their degree of criminality and territorial control. This difference can also be explained by environmental variables. We shall return to it.

The interface of Islamic scholar, Sheik Ahmad Gumi with Zamfara bandits, opened new dimensions to the bandits’ question. The two camps he met and had discussions with in the forests were those of the bandits and the Fulani. But in the presentations of their nebulous grievances, leaders of the bandits spoke for the Fulani. They fingered cattle rustling and attacks on Fulani by the military and Zamfara indigenes as part of their grievances. There was nothing in the report presented by Gumi that showed a difference between the bandits and the Fulani herdsmen. They struck as just two sides of the same coin.

This fact is relevant to understand the character of those termed bandits in the north and herdsmen in the south. It was largely on the same score that Gumi’s recommendation of amnesty for the bandits and the similarities he sought to draw between them and the Niger Delta militants failed to fly. Not with his disclosure that the bandits were on the verge of acquiring anti-aircraft ammunitions. If anything, revelations from Gumi reinforce the feeling that bandits have become law unto themselves; and we run the same risk in the south unless quick action is taken to tame the monster.

But there were some unintended payoffs from Gumi’s visit. It is evident that the interests and grouses of the bandits are similar with those of the herdsmen in northern forests Gumi visited. These interests are not dissimilar with events in southern forests and bushes occupied by the herdsmen. But their grouses and lethality of criminal attacks against host communities in the south vary because of environmental factors. And this is quite understandable.

In the north, both the bandits and herdsmen share the same cultural traits with the local population. They are entrenched within those environments on account of cultural affinity and religion. That gives them wider latitude to operate undetected. Their occupation of the forests had long been accepted as a way of life.

The situation is a different ball game in the south.  Herdsmen in the south do not share these features with their host communities. The forests belong to the host communities and they are regularly aware of the presence of the visitors. For the same reasons, it is not possible for herdsmen to embark on serial abduction of school children in high numbers without being detected. That may have been the constraint.

There is everything to suspect those causing trouble from the southern forests are a cell of the bandits. The risk of a bandits’ republic in the south in the same manner it is in the north must be avoided like a plague. Forests are our greatest challenge in the festering insecurity. President Buhari’s order to shoot bandits with AK-47 riffle though belated is nonetheless the way to go.

By Emeka OMEIHE

 

All is not well with this country and nobody seems to know where it is heading to. It is not that the foreboding signals have not been there all along. Neither are the nagging issues and their potentials to wreak incalculable harm on our corporate existence entirely novel.

What has been in criminal short supply is the absence of the political will, sincerity of purpose and courage to confront the challenges headlong to the satisfaction of all the constituents. Instead, we have had to contend with a growing culture of silence and official denials of the unmitigated damage such challenges are capable of inflicting on our collective being. Curiously, underneath this inexplicable official attitude lurk self-serving and clannish interests.

Notable Nigerians had drawn unceasing attention to the increasing slide to lawlessness with wanton wastages in human lives in the face of inability of the nation’s security architecture to rise to the challenges. Former president, Olusegun Obasanjo, had warned severally that Nigeria was fast drifting towards a failed state on account of the increasing slide to anarchy, a leadership enmeshed in nepotism and increasing lure of self-determination consequent upon the mismanagement of our diversities.

Obasanjo is with many in this. That was also the central theme of the homily by the Catholic Bishop of Sokoto, Most Rev. Matthew Kukah last Christmas. Instead of the Buhari regime to work on those observations, they resorted to name-calling and denials of the dangers lurking at the corner. A Muslim group in Sokoto state even served quit notice to the Bishop for speaking truth to power. But the killings by the herdsmen and bandits across the country neither abated nor were new effective therapeutic responses evolved to checkmate them.

It is little surprising that the chicken appears to have come home to roost with some state governments and individuals taking up the challenge for self-preservation in ways they considered expedient. Nature abhors vacuum. There is a limit beyond which a people will face threats of extermination by invaders without rising to the challenge of defending their territories.

That was the challenge that threw up one Sunday Igboho. The quit order by the Ondo State government for herdsmen to leave their forest reserves and the flushing out of criminal herdsmen from Oyo forests by operation Amotekun were all desperate responses to save their peoples from annihilation. The skirmishes in Orlu, Imo State, Abia, Ebonyi, Delta and parts of the south-south bear the same imprimatur.

But even as these states are increasingly getting restless on account of the insurgency of the herdsmen, kidnapping and hostage taking in the northern parts of the country have taken alarming dimensions. As I write, more than 42 students and staff of Government College Kagara, Niger State were taken captive by the marauding bandits who now seem larger than the government. Less than three months back, more than 300 students of Government College Kankara, Katsina State suffered the same fate.  Abduction of students from their hostels without any form of security resistance in the northern parts of the country has become a new normal.

When a former military head of state, Abdulsalami Abubakar warned last week that the country could disintegrate if Nigerians do not remain calm and united in the face of the current challenges, one could observe the same equivocation that put us in the current pass. Abubakar had told journalists in Minna Niger state that “in the last two weeks or so tension has been growing in the country and embers of disunity, anarchy and disintegration are spreading fast and if care is not taken, this might lead us to a point of no return”.

He fears with continuing insurgence, kidnapping and armed banditry in the country, emerging ethnic attacks in some other parts was bound to complicate the situation. He is right. But the issues are not new.

Yes, there is need for calmness and unity in the current challenges. But these precepts cannot suffice as solutions to the deliberate mismanagement of our diversities and escalating insecurity across the country. That a people are panicky and divided are signs of festering systemic ailments. The solution is to realistically address the issues that put them into those conditions. Mere exhortations as Abubakar would goad us into will serve little purpose.

Even then, the government is not lacking in recommendations on what to do to reverse the dangerous trend. The senate has called for the declaration of a state of emergency on security while urging the president to implement its subsisting recommendations to resolve the security situation. State governors have also met in Abuja to evolve ways out. These underscore concerns on the increasing prospects of heightened insecurity sliding the country to the edge.

But suggestions emanating from some quarters indicate that vested interests want to make political capital of the festering insecurity. In this category, fits the recommendation of Islamic cleric, Ahmad Gumi. He had after his tour of bandits’ and Fulani camps in Zamfara State called for amnesty for the bandits and killer herdsmen in the same fashion Niger Delta militants were handled.

If Gumi’s suggestion which amounts to rewarding bandits for their murderous activities is not provocative enough, the call by the minister of justice, Abubakar Malami for the setting up of a federal agency for herdsmen further exposes the hypocrisy in the festering insurgency of the herdsmen rated by global terrorism index as the forth deadliest terrorist group in the world. In all, positions as these, account for why we are unable to find a good handle to the danger which the insurgency of the herdsmen and the bandits had constituted.

But those who bear the brunt of these mindless killings, kidnapping for ransom, rape and maiming of their loved ones by strange elements hiding in their forests seem to have a new friend in the Minister of Defence Bashir Magashi when he urged them to defend themselves in the face of the security challenges. Magashi’s position could pass as admission of government’s failure to protect lives and properties-the raison d’être for its existence. But it is a statement out of frustration as former Chief of Army Staff Tukur Buratai has just told us that insurgency may be with us for the next 20 years.

Incidentally, that is where the country has found itself. That is why some state governments, groups and individual are now rising to the duty of defending themselves in the face of the orgy of violence that has reduced the country to a verity of the atavism of the state of nature.  Curiously, even in the face of the degenerate security situation, we are still engrossed in clannish rationalizations and trite excuses.

Of note is the energy dissipated on the alleged profiling of all Fulani herdsmen as criminals. Even when nobody has said so and it is not possible to tag all herdsmen as criminals, the media space is replete with efforts to debunk that touted insinuation. But in the attempt to do that, little compassion is given to the substantives issues in dispute-the mortal harm posed by criminals posing as herdsmen at the backyards of their hosts.

That is the key issue. The attempts to displace the real issues with such irrelevances as rationalizing why herdsmen carry AK-47 sophisticated riffles as was done by Governor Bala Mohammed of Bauchi State is part of the deception that has brought us to this pass. If the security of the herdsmen is the basis for carrying prohibited weapons unchallenged, then the host communities they terrorize courtesy of the same weapons have better reasons to be more armed.

The way out is to admit that the leadership of this country has been less than honest in handling the festering insecurity and other challenges of our federal order. The perception is that there is an agenda in the reign of terror by bandits and herdsmen across the country in the face of the ambivalence of the Buhari regime to stem the tide.  That is why those at the receiving end are now taking up the challenge to defend themselves. That is the new momentum nobody can predict unless quick and realistic measures are taken to reassure the people of the capacity of the government to protect all citizens and do justice to them all.

By Emeka Omeihe

Is there a link between herdsmen and bandits in the raging insecurity in the southern part of the country that has put us all on edge? Could it be that criminals hiding as herdsmen to levy terror on hapless citizens are an arm of the bandits that kidnap, kill and main in the northern parts of the country?

These posers have become urgent following developments from the recent visit of Islamic cleric, Sheikh Ahmad Gumi to Zamfara forests on a peace mission with bandits notorious for kidnappings, killings and other unlawful activities in that part of the country. They are also given further fillip by some similarities in the mode of operation of bandits and the activities of herdsmen that are often attributed to criminal elements infiltrating their ranks.

It is not that these questions have not been raised before now or that the nomenclature ‘bandits’ had not come under serious interrogation. They have. But each time they are raised, nobody, not even some of the northern governors that entered into questionable negotiations with the so-called bandits was forthcoming in providing answers. Thus, we have come to accept the danger posed by bandits even when we do not know the difference between the security risks they pose in that part of the country and that caused by herdsmen especially in the south,

Are they the same with herdsmen especially as they also live in the bushes and forests and cattle rustling is said to be one of their grievances? Nobody has cared to provide answers to this. But we are regularly assailed by bandits’ devious escapades-the sacking and burning down of villages, abductions, kidnappings and sundry criminalities. Nobody seems to know what their motivations really are or what should be done to get them out of the forests. It is not surprising that in those cases some governors granted them amnesty or offered them money to lay down their arms, the bandits were soon to return to their old ways.

In the face of the inability to decode who the bandits really are, there have been suggestions that they are not different from criminal herdsmen. Other interpretations of their mode of operation liken them to no more than an extension of the Boko Haram terrorists or Boko Haram in another garb. And there are signposts of their activities that seem to corroborate all these speculations.

But the recent visit of Gumi to Zamfara forests, notorious for harbouring the worst band of the bandits, appear to have thrown up new insights into the matter. These came obvious from the statements credited to Gumi, what he saw on ground and comments from commanders of the bandits. The fact that they have commanders says a lot on their organizational structure and even corroborates speculations that they share much in common with Boko Haram insurgents.

That is not all. There are comments from Gumi after the tour and reactions from Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State that appear to have removed the veil between bandits and herdsmen. Additionally, there are statements credited to some of the bandits and their commander that suggest that those in the banditry business are mainly herders.

Gumi led the way in this regard when while briefing Governor Bello Matawalle of Zamfara State on his findings he said “In most of the bandits and Fulani camps we have visited in Zamfara, I came to understand that what is happening in the state is nothing but an insurgency”. Buoyed by this, he asked the federal government to enter into negotiations with the bandits and the Fulani to reintegrate them the same way Niger Delta militants were handled.

By extrapolation, what Gumi said in essence was that those responsible for the insecurity arising from the forests they occupy are bandits and herdsmen. This is noteworthy. But he did not tell us who the bandits are and how to differentiate them from the herdsmen. At any rate, there was no need for that differentiation since they are all involved in insurgency.

The link between herdsmen and bandits is further evident from statements of some bandits and their commanders in the course of Gumi’s visit. One of them was reported to have said there would be no peace until the authorities stopped hunting the Fulani and that the Fulani were tired of living in the forest. The leader of the bandits, Kachalla Turji was also reported to have said that only reconciliation can stop the killings while accusing the people of Zamfara of selectively impoverishing and beating the Fulani on the road. Yet, another commander was quoted to have called for the halting of the “killing of our loved ones by security agents…as well as cattle rustling that denied most of us of legitimate means of livelihood’.

Central to all the discussions were the grievances of Fulani herdsmen such as cattle rustling, their fate in the forests and bushes and the treatment they receive from some unnamed people in Zamfara State. There were no grouses and demands that gave a clue of any difference between the bandits and the herdsmen. None at all!

Rather, we saw leaders of the bandits speaking for the Fulani and vowing there would be no peace until the authorities stopped hunting the Fulani. Why the conditions of the Fulani in the forests were the key issues and the fact that the authorities were hunting them further blurs any dividing line between the so-called bandits and the criminal herdsmen. And from what we have seen, there is no difference between the grouses and demands of the bandits and that of Fulani herdsmen. Rather, the bandits spoke for the Fulani herdsmen in the forests.

This point was given added credence by Governor Nasir El-Rufai when he disagreed with Gumi for asking the federal government to use security budget to address the bandits’ demands as most of them had lost all their possessions to cattle rustling and extortion. Hear El-Rufai “any man that thinks that a Fulani man that ventured into kidnapping for ransom and he is earning millions of Naira would go back to his former life of getting N100,000 after selling a cow in a year must be deceiving himself”.

The key issue here is the regularity with which the Fulani, cattle rustling and the fate of the herdsmen re-occur in all discussions on how to tame banditry in the north. One would therefore be stating the obvious to conclude that there is really no difference between the bandits and the herdsmen in the orgy of violence that has rendered life worthless in that part of the country.

But does that leave us with a clue on the complex security situation in the south that has of recent seen the local populations resorting to self-help to tame the scourge? Does that lead us anywhere in the accusations of profiling and stigmatization of Fulani herdsmen for complicity in kidnapping for ransom and sundry criminalities? Or are we now to believe that the criminal elements that terrorize us hiding under the cover of the forests are the bandits’ arm of Fulani herdsmen?

What seems obvious is the difficulty in drawing a line between the bandits and the criminal herdsmen. Gumi was unable to show us that difference. If one wants to be patronizing, he may admit bandits as the criminal arm of the herdsmen. For, the interests and grouses of the bandits are verily the same with those of the herdsmen. They are two sides of the same coin. And that is a mark of how complex and complicated the matter stands.

The same complexity has been responsible for stunting all efforts to confront the insurgency of the herdsmen in the south. Each time attempts are made to flush out the criminals hiding as herders from the forests the matter is deliberately misinterpreted and skewed as an attempt to sack genuine herdsmen making a living through their trade.  Yet, the indigenous populations have had to bear the brunt of these inhuman elements taking cover as herdsmen.

Reason is beginning to prevail with northern governors and leaders coming to terms with the anachronism of open grazing. El-Rufai succinctly captured the dilemma in fighting the terrorism of the herdsmen when he said if northern governors do not “come together for the federal government to provide us with soldiers and police to enter the bush and kill all the bandits, it will be difficult to succeed in fighting against banditry”. That has been the moot issue in the south that precipitated the quit orders on criminal elements in the forests.

By Emeka Omeihe

Events happened in many fronts in the last few weeks to highlight the inherent contradictions in extant practices in cattle rearing business in this country. Not that the issues are entirely new. But the momentum they gathered, seem to suggest that something more innovative, more enduring and futuristic has to be done before altercations and acrimony arising from the cattle rearing business tear this country apart. And ominous signals to that effect have begun to emerge in statements within the public domain.

Tension was seemingly ignited by the raiding of some forests in Oyo State by the States’ Security Network Agency-Amotekun to rid them of criminal elements terrorizing, kidnapping, killing and raping women hiding under the cover of the bushes. The raid was part of the determination of people of the state to protect themselves against sundry criminals in the face of the inability of the federal government to confront and tame the rising insecurity across the country.

In the ensuing operation, three alleged criminals were killed. The Fulani community raised dust claiming that the killed men were genuine herders and not criminals as alleged by Amotekun. But both the state government and Amotekun operatives insisted that those killed were criminals and not genuine herders as the Fulani community claimed.

However, another dimension to the Oyo forests’ raid emerged when 47 well armed Fulani men in buses were arrested by men of Operation Burst– a security outfit made up of soldiers and the police. Initial reports claimed that the armed men came to the state on the invitation of their kinsmen to avenge the killings arising from the raiding of the forests. But the leader of Fulani herders in the state said they were not criminals but members of the ‘Vigilante Group of Nigeria’ fighting banditry, kidnapping and robbery in the area. It remains uncertain under which law such arms-bearing group operates- Oyo State or the federal government. But that is part of the muddle you find in the scheme of things in this country.

Before the dust of the Oyo altercation could settle, the Ondo State governor, Rotimi Akeredolu issued an order on herders without authorization to quit their forest reserves within seven days. The governor said the government took the step to address the root cause of kidnapping in particular and other nefarious activities detailed and documented in security reports, the press and debriefings from victims of kidnap cases in Ondo State.

The governor said the security challenges are “traceable to the activities of some bad elements masquerading as herders…that have turned our forests into hideouts for keeping victims of kidnapping, negotiating for ransom and carrying out other criminal activities”.

But the presidency in a statement by its spokesman, Garba Shuhu said Akeredolu was least expected to “unilaterally oust thousands of herders who have lived all their lives in the state on account of the infiltration of the forests by criminals”. He sought to justify the inappropriateness of such quit orders by citing federal government’s positions when he claimed the IPOB issued an order to northerners to quit the southeast and the very recent one by a Sokoto Muslim group asking the Catholic Bishop of Sokoto, Matthew Hassan Kukah to quit.

But the statement misread the context of Akeredolu’s quit order. He never gave quit notice to all herdsmen living in Ondo State. He only asked those occupying the state’s forest reserves without permission to exit the reserves and get registered with the government. And he is within his rights as the governor to do so. This is especially so with security and media reports as well as accounts of kidnap victims indicting some herdsmen as the masterminds of such criminal activities.

The indecent haste with which Garba reacted and his obvious misinterpretation of the order led to accusations that the federal government was out to shield herders despite mounting complaints on their complicity in sundry criminalities emanating from the cover of the forests they occupy. Garba’s position fits into the overall attitude of the Buhari regime in shielding herders for the criminalities associated with their activities across the country.

Then, the emergence of one Sunday Igboho said to be a Yoruba freedom fighter. Apparently piqued by recurring complaints from the people of his area, Igboho had also issued a quit order to the herdsmen to leave. He did not stop at that but assembled his men and stormed the Ibarapa area of the state- the hotbed of the recurring crisis between herders and local farmers.

Igboho and his team also went to the premises of the leader of the Fulani community after passing through three security check-points allegedly mounted by the Seriki. There, he saw clear evidence that the Seriki was living luxuriously in an environment that had been despoiled by kidnapping and other criminalities. Reports had it that Igboho interrogated the Seriki on the sources of his huge wealth and could not get convincing answers.

After he left the area, a mob was said to have stormed the house of the Seriki, burnt it down together with 11 very expensive cars parked there. The Seriki has since fled that community. Some days after the incident, one of the houses of Igboho in Ibadan was set on fire in what was alleged to be a reprisal attack. That appeared to have set the stage for serious tension.

The southwest is not alone in this as there have been some skirmishes in parts of the southeast and the south-south with women groups staging demonstrations against open grazing.  Some northern groups have reacted angrily with some warning of possible reprisals if the trend continued. One of such came from Bashir Tofa, chairman of Kano Elders Forum when he alerted there could be attacks on southerners in the north.

He said tension was beginning to build and “if revenge attacks against southerners begin in the north, it would be difficult to control”. But the reaction of the Northern Elders Forum NEF was to ask Fulani herders to return to the northern region if their security cannot be guaranteed by their host communities in the southern parts of the country. NEF said the advice became necessary following alleged attacks on Fulani herders, their families and communities in some southern states. There have also been interventions from some governors calling for calm and stressing the dangers in self-help in the festering crises.

Parallels have also been drawn with other crimes where people from certain sections of the country were allegedly found most complicit without tagging those sections with that crime label to underscore the incongruity in profiling Fulani herdsmen as kidnappers etc. That may as well be.

But in all the references to the criminal activities that take place through the cover of the forests and bushes, the point raised is that criminal elements hide as herders to perpetrate these crimes. Akeredolu made that point very clearly citing security reports and accounts of victims. He even said that most of these criminals are foreigners.

If accounts of kidnap victims and security reports show that those in that devious enterprise in the forests are mainly of the Fulani ethnic stock, that makes matters difficult and the attempt to exculpate that ethnic from crimes emanating from the forests the mainly occupy, patently diversionary. The snag is in the inability to draw a line between the genuine herders and the criminal ones.

Those who complain about the profiling of Fulani herders as criminals must also be concerned with this fact. That is by no means to imply that all herders are criminals. No! But they have to come up with suggestions on how to make that differentiation in the face of worsening criminalities associated with their business in the face of the waning patience of the host communities.

And for how long shall we engage in blame games when life has been reduced to nothing in many communities by criminal elements hibernating in their forests. That is the puzzle. That is the monster some state governments seek to confront by flushing out suspicious elements from those forests. It is a desperate solution to a desperate and debilitating problem.