As I ended this column last Sunday, I write again: “the President owes it a duty to peace – loving Nigerians, to first rein in these enemies within, no matter their status or how untouchable they consider themselves”.
This has become of considerable importance now that he has to dispel the unverified, trending video of a Northern Lady, who claimed she refused an appointment, early in his presidency because he said he cannot fight sponsors of terrorism in the North as doing so would eventuate in his being killed.
My instant reaction to that balderdash was that this would certainly not be the doughty Ashiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu I have known for well over two decades.
Today I go further into what I described as the predisposing factors for the mercurial and egocentric U.S President Donald Trump declaring Nigeria a Country of Particular Concern whereas in truth, both Christians and Muslims are being Killed in Nigeria’s orgy of unrelenting bloodletting in the North of the country where, by far, too many Christian communities had been deliberately targeted for annihilation and expulsion from their ancestral lands.
To do this, as is fast becoming my wont, I re- publish below, an article that was first published here in 2021 titled:
Insecurity In Nigeria Can Become History If The Buhari Government Is Sincere In Fighting It
Happy reading.
The chicken has, indeed, come home to roost. I have always known that the predominantly, mono – thought process underpinning the Buhari administration, majorly a result of his North- centric appointments into critical areas of government, was bound, sooner or later, to impact Nigeria negatively. The evidence is all over the place: that the monopoly a particular culture – one that believes that an elder cannot / should not, be controverted on any issue, was going to have its consequences. This is the same culture that made the North an arid zone for newspapering for a very long time in the region. Other than the New Nigerian, Newspapers die off as soon as they were established because there were simply too many cultural taboos.
This situation worsened by the coming to power, of the awe- inspiring persona of President Muhammadu Buhari. All over Nigeria, at least until he became president and began to show a seemingly unquenchable love of the North over the others, he was massively loved and respected.
Indeed, more than being respected, he was lionised as a highly principled military General who, unlike many of his compeers, was not tainted with corruption.
When the highly respected Tai Solarin came up with the allegation of some stolen oil money, Nigerians so disbelieved it had anything to do with Buhari until Pa Solarin confessed that it was a mere molue (public transport) gossip.
Such was General Buhari’s incandescent honesty and widespread respect then. Indeed, both when Boko Haram named him one of its representatives at negotiations with the federal governmenr and when he led a Miyetti Allah delegation to the Oyo state governor, Lam Adesina, to protest on behalf of Fulani herdsmen, most Nigerians believed that it was those groups – Boko Haram and Miyetti Allah – which wanted to profit from his huge profile; a profile that was fast approaching that of a god, nationwide.
Unfortunately, these past six years have so reduced this halo to only within his government circle where happenings in the country suggest that people closest to him are too respectful of him, if not overwhelmed by his persona, to offer him any good advice.
Nothing affirms the truism of the diminution of how the president was held, pre office, more than bandits going to his home state of Katsina to kidnap school children who would not be freed from the kidnappers’ embrace until two weeks later, and after hundreds of millions of naira must have been paid in ransom.
And to resolve the problem, President Buhari must have assembled an entirely Northern group, probably all Muslims, military and civilian.
Even if he has been magnanimous enough to involve his entire security council, the group would have been more than 80 per cent Northern – that same group that not only think alike but are culturally forbidden to oppose their elders.
According to the Report of The Chinua Achebe Foundation Research Project on Fulani Herdsmen, “Most Nigerian Fulanis are no longer migratory herdsmen. They are either Emirs, Sultans, heads of parastatals, oil barons, Imams, Christian Pastors, Governors, Federal Reps and Senators. However, they all maintain their cultural ownership of cattle. These wealthy Nigerians increase their wealth astronomically through cattle rearing by using their not well off brothers, impoorted from outside Nigeria, to rear these cattle. Instead of investing in ranches or buying of grasses from the South, they chose the cheaper alternative of having their kinsmen, imported from outside the country, arm them with AK 47’s, and order them to take these cattles from the north to the south seasonally. For these people, the entire Nigerian space is their “grass kingdom”.These cattle, in turn, destroy farms on their path, rendering farmers economically bankrupt to further enrich the wealthy Fulani “remote herders”.
All these, under the Buhari administration, and probably now, under President Tinubu, with no security agent – military or police – bold enough to question them.
What the above shows is that non – Fulani Nigerians are wrongly accusing poor Fulani herders of all the criminalities they commit whereas the various cattle owners mentioned above are the real troublers of Nigeria, the reason the President simply has no interest in solving the massive insecurity problem caused by these people.
This is why they attack in hundreds on motor cycles, kill in scores but with a single one of these terrorists, never arrested nor tried.
Indeed, in the one case tried, the victim, who barely escaped before he eliminated the Fulani herdsman terrorist, was sentenced to death in a case that went up to the Supreme court.
I was not surprised when I heard Human rights lawyer, Femi Falana (SAN), say that security agencies were informed of the killings in Igangan, Ibarapa North Local Government Area of Oyo State, over a week before the attack but that nothing was done by the Nigerian security.
I was not surprised, thanks to the same research of the Chinua Achebe Foundation which took the team to the
“Ama Hausa and Garki” camps in both Enugu and Abia States where they interviewed neighbors from the local communities living within and around the Hausa communities in both states. They affirmed that both the Northerners and the local community were very open and volunteered valuable information to their team.
Below is how the report captured a typical Fulani herdsmen attack:
“Fulani Herdsmen Attack”:.
We learned from the surrounding communities and from some of the Hausa elders about what constitutes a Fulani herdsmen attack. According to information we received, when there is a disagreement between host communities, or between herdsmen and farmers, the Fulani herdsmen who accompany the cattle will locate the nearest Fulani settlement and if there is none, they will locate the nearest Garki or Ama Hausa. When they arrive, they will narrate their story. The Fulani (Nigerian middlemen) cattle managers will notify their top Fulani Herdsmen which in this case, include governors and other top Fulani top officers who own the cattle.
A decision will be made about whether there should be an attack or not on the said village or host community. If an attack is sanctioned, then modalities will be mapped out and a date will be chosen for the attack. Most times, Fulani herdsmen in the military and police are notified and everyone sends a representative. Neighboring settlements sends out representatives and arms cache are opened and arms are distributed to the participants. The major participants are the 20 to 40 Fulani herdsmen who reside in the Garkis and Ama Hausas. These are the Fulani warriors whose job is to kill.
During an attack, every Fulani person in the area knows there will be an attack and all will contribute to make sure it goes on successfully. Fulanis in the higher levels of the military will ensure all commands under them stand down, and the top Fulani police officers will do the same. The road is then clear for the Fulani herdsmen to carry out their attacks.,
Based on the findings from which they understood that the attacks are never carried out by the herdsmen we see escorting cattle on the roads and bushes, but are well coordinated and most times sanctioned by very influential Northerners, nearly all of them, herd owners.
The Foundation proposed the following solution:
“Many of those who interacted with us suggested solutions that are very interesting. Most of the northern Hausas and the local communities suggested a ban on grazing in the affected states. A total ban would be the only way to solve this problem. Some argued that with the Fulanis’ nature of encroaching on other people’s land and territories, any attempt to give them land would aggravate the problem and not solve it.
Most villagers from Abia State suggested that these cattle be penned in the north while government releases money for people in the South to cut grasses, process the grass, and send to the north. This is the practice all over the world. They indicated that any attempt to take their lands and give to the Fulani would definitely result to a civil war.
We agree, the solution is very simple; ban grazing, establish ranches for the cattle in the north, pay the southerners to harvest grass and send to the north. With this, everyone would be pleased with the outcome. This solution is expected to generate 1 million jobs in the South and about 500,000 jobs in the North. Also Fulani herdsmen terror will be totally eliminated”.
The correlation between this 2021 article and President Trump’s threat of an attack on Nigerian killers, not Nigerians, is that nothing has changed between then and now, whether they were protecting their herd or killing and running Christians away from their ancestral homes.
Otherwise the likes of Sheik Gumi, who is in and out of these killers’ lairs would long have been run out of town, and our prisons would, by now, be crawling with concicted terrorists as well as their sponsors, at least those ones criminally protected from trial by President Buhari and his attorney – General after they had been convicted and sent to Nigeria by the UAE.
The lesson of all these is that to solve the menace of insecurity and avoid constant external embarrassment, the Nigeran government must put its house in order.
