National insecurity

A letter trending in the social media allegedly written by a consultant medical physician of Fulani descent expresses discontentment that a certain cattle breeders association known as Miyetti Allah has become the face and spokesperson of all Fulanis in Nigeria. That over-generalization is instructive of the danger ahead of Nigeria, as substantially captured by former President Olusegun Obasanjo in his latest letter to President Muhammadu Buhari.

The danger lies in categorizing all Fulanis as enemies of other cultural groups in Nigeria. Perhaps for political expediency this recalcitrant group has been allowed to become a mirror of the reaction of the Fulanis to the danger, a rogue group of Fulanis now pose to the rest of Nigerians.

Each time the Miyetti Allah makes a statement, one is left wondering whether the group is unaware of the grave danger their irresponsible behavior pose to the wellbeing of those they claim to represent who are scattered across the country. Unfortunately because of them, many Nigerians believe there is an ominous agenda, fuelled by the slow-pace reaction of the federal government to the state of insecurity across the country.

While the tragedy that befell the family of Pa Reuben Fasoranti over the dastardly killing of Mrs. Funke Olakunri deserves all the out pouring of grief Nigeria has witnessed the past few days, it is instructive to note that similar criminal conducts have been happening on that axis for a while without much reaction by government. Agreed that criminality is not the exclusive preserve of any ethnic group, the challenge posed by the recent development in Nigeria is that many believe there is an agenda to foist a certain religion, culture and life style on the rest of Nigerians.

Unfortunately because the president is a Fulani man and the commander-in-chief at this inauspicious time, it has become trendy to claim that the president has acquiesced to such an agenda. While this writer do not buy that reasoning, it is difficult to convince many that there are other Fulanis who do not own cows and who do not subscribe to the insensitive actions and inactions of the Miyetti Allah group on this issue.

Rising up to the status of statesmanship, the Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Ogunwusi has been shuttling Abuja to rouse the federal government to action. He has said clearly that the Yorubas do not wish to press their youths to war, even as he warned that many people are beating the drums of war. Instead of berating the Ooni as alleged, the civil authorities should commend the Ooni of Ife for his preemptive step to rouse the federal government to fulfill their constitutional obligation.

While sending a delegation led by the Vice President Professor Yemi Osinbajo to visit traditional rulers in the Southwest to reassure the region is good, the federal authority should take steps to find and disarm the marauders who are giving the entire Fulanis in Nigeria a bad name.

In other to avoid exposing the federal government to accusation of banding to sectional interest by sending the vice president to his kith and kin, the president should summon a meeting of leaders across the country, to explain the steps the government is taking to stem a descent into anarchy across the country.

One of such steps should be to use the advantage of a friendly National Assembly to further amend the 1999 constitution, to accommodate state police.  It is bad enough that the federal government has proved incapable of policing our expansive country, but it should be unacceptable to deny states the opportunity to provide security for their indigenes.

So instead of waiting for the anger aroused by the murder of Mrs. Olakunri to abate, so that we can continue our wobbling and fumbling as a nation, the federal government can use that tragic incident to start the renewal of our nation. Without equivocation our country needs new security architecture, if we want to survive as a nation-state. With the security challenge of a modern state mutating, it is foolish to continue to rely on the outmoded structure of a centralized policing for a country as large as Nigeria.

On the eastern flank of the country, the Southeast Governors Forum has advised herders in the region to stop moving their cattle on foot; rather the cattle should be transported to the cattle markets. If they can jointly enforce that, the clashes between farmers and herders in the region would substantially abate, and women can return to their farms, abandoned because of cases of rape and killing by the recalcitrant marauders masquerading as cattle herders.

In southeast states, there are big cattle markets and northerners transacting in those markets for decades have become enmeshed with the natives. Rarely is there any conflict between this grade of Fulanis and their hosts. Those markets are also well organized with the provision of water, food for cattle, and access roads.

Those who live near these markets have access to other social infrastructure like other members of the community. They access hospitals, schools, markets and other basic needs of metropolitan life. While persons from the northern part of the country are predominantly the traders in such cattle markets, they have no exclusivity.

But of course since they have access to the sources of cattle, they dominate the market, without any person feeling excluded. It is such ethnic mix that we need to sustain Nigeria, not the proposed exclusive preserve of an ethnic group as many contemplate the RUGA proposal to be. What causes crisis is the movement of cattle across farmlands and homesteads, with the destruction that follows in its wake.

Also, the initiative by Igbo leaders in Kano to condemn the call by Miyetti Allah group that northerners in southern part of Nigeria should relocate to the North is commendable. The killings, kidnappings and insensitive herding practice that have raised the stakes in inter-tribal relationship in Nigeria is not caused by all northerners. Most likely it is championed by a few rogue elements that do not care what happens to their malleable kith and kin.

So the northerners who speak Igbo, who were born in Igbo land (and they are several of them) would feel very offended if forced to relocate to the northern part of Nigeria, just like the Igbos who were born in Kano and other states in the north, who speak Hausa Language like the indigenes. Both groups would be hamstrung if forced by hateful sabre-rattling to relocate to ancestral homesteads they have no communal connection to.

It is for these peace loving people whether of the Fulani, Hausa, Yoruba, Itsekiri, Urhobo, Igbo, Kalabari, Bini, or other several stocks that make up Nigeria that President Muhammadu Buhari must rouse himself and his government to action to save Nigeria. The war mongers in government and outside are few, and they should not be allowed to goad the country into an avoidable tragedy.