By Gabriel Amalu
When the Nigerian military failed abysmally to protect the people of the northeast from the rampaging Boko Haram murderers, there arose an aberration called the Civilian JTF. By that adulteration of the military JTF, civilians untrained in weaponry acquired arms to defend themselves. Soon enough, the bumbling military accommodated it and the federal government acquiesced. Many have gone ahead to call for their integration into the national army.
So, while in the beginning, the Civilian JTF was a rebellion by the people and their state government over the failure of the federal government and its military to protect them, it has morphed into a recognised arm of the national security architecture against the insurgents. I guess it was a classical instance of a fait accompli. A government which has failed in its primary duty to protect lives and property will be talking balderdash, if it engages in the polemics of the legality of civilians bearing arms.
A people left at the mercy of marauders, who have shown themselves superior to the national security agencies, cannot be expected to fold their arms and be slaughtered like chicken for a bohemian festival. A similar scenario as in the northeast with regards to the emergence of the Civilian JTF is unfolding in the southwest and eventually will spread to other parts of the country unless the federal government rises up to its primary responsibility of protecting lives and property.
To avoid that, the federal and state governments must wake up to the clarion call of section 14(2)(b) of the 1999 constitution (as amended), which provides: “the security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government.” Where and when the government fails in that primary assignment, it is an invitation to the people to take up the cause of protecting themselves and their property. For reasons not far-fetched, the federal government has treated the scourge of armed herdsmen with levity, and predictably the crisis is coming to a head.
In Ondo State, Governor Rotimi Akeredolu, SAN, who may be considered as sympathetic to President Muhammadu Buhari’s faction of the APC, had no alternative than to seek alternative police in the face of the failure of the Nigerian Police and allied security agencies to protect the people of the state. Of course, he saw that if he continues to wring his hands in frustration and explain away the murderous acts of the armed herdsmen, the people by themselves will raise their own police.
To the consternation of the presidency, Akeredolu started his intransigence over the failure of the Nigeria Police with championing the establishment of Western Nigeria Security Network, otherwise called Amotekun. He has raised the ante by outlawing herding in the reserved forests of the state and asking herders to register with the state among other measures. How far these measures can go to ensure the security of lives and property in the state remains to be seen; but at least his people will not accuse him of doing nothing in the face of the kidnappings and killings.
A similar void in effective policing in Oyo State has resulted in the emergence of one Sunday Igboho, as a hero of the Ibarapa people of the state. While many have painted Igboho’s past in sundry infamy, he has risen to fill the gap, as the state authorities are bumbling in the face grave insecurity. An order by the Inspector General of Police to arrest the people’s hero has been treated with scorn by the people. The police on their part are afraid of further raising the tension by arresting Igboho.
The Oyo State governor, Seyi Makinde, who has been talking tough over the activities of the killer herdsmen in his state, has mellowed down, and is doing everything possible to distance himself from the activities of Igboho. Perhaps because he belongs to a minority party (PDP) in the region, and an opposition party at the centre, he is afraid that he could become a victim of politics, if Sunday Igboho is cast in the shadow of his apparel.
So, Governor Makinde who was a strong champion of Amotekun is playing soft, when the main reason for the outfit knocks on the door. But while Governor Makinde can save his political skin by playing coy with the clamour by the people for an alternative to the bumbling Nigeria Police, he should realise that if the authorities fail, the people will create an alternative for themselves. Those who think that there will be peace if they take out Sunday Igboho, may find many more discontented persons ready to dare a moving train, regardless of the ominous consequences.
With the Ondo forest becoming too hot for the herdsmen, it was reported that they are massively moving into the Ogun State forest. While the state government is denying the development and the police authorities in the state are down playing the import of such migration, the Ogun State House of Assembly wants a speedy passage of the state law banning open grazing. Of course, the thousands of herdsmen in Ondo, as confirmed by the presidential spokesman, Garba Shehu, would not just disappear.
If the southwest forests become unbearable for the practice of their trade, the herdsmen would migrate towards the south-south and southeast, as long as the archaic practice of open grazing is allowed to fester in our country. Those who hold the view that the Fulani has an agenda to create new fiefdoms across the country, would continue to propound that theory as long as the federal government allows the abuse of animals and Fulani herders by their wealthy compatriots and their associates.
Of course, the argument against open grazing will never cut ice with the real owners of the herds, most of whom are the movers and shakers of the society and government, because it is very economical to rear animals with free pasture and cheap labour. Imagine the gains accruable, where the owner of 100 herds gives even as much as 10% of the cows to herdsmen, to take care of them until there are sold. By that arrangement, the cost of feeding, caring, transporting and marketing are all absorbed by the herders, who bears the inevitable losses associated with that dangerous practice.
Compare that obnoxious business practice, with the apprenticeship model of the Igbos, where the trainee after a number of years, is given the seed money and helped to become a trainer. Those in government who are Fulani should stop telling lies that the Bororo Fulani prefers to live in the bush, and cannot be transformed. The truth is that they use them as cheap labour to fester their economic interest.
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