Tag: Agatu killings

The people of Benue State are asking for a N100 billion compensation for the attacks on the Agatu by Fulani herdsmen.

The state government insisted that cattle ranching was the only solution to the recurring clashes.

Inspector-General of Police (IGP) Solomon Arase said 18 persons had been arrested in connection with the attacks.

He, however, said the police were yet to gather enough evidence to prosecute the suspects.

At the continuation of the House of Representatives public hearing on the Agatu killings, the IGP told the Committee on Police Affairs that preventive measures were put in after interactions with Governor Samuel Ortom and town hall meetings were held with communities in Benue and Nasarawa states.

President-General of the Mdzough U Tiv (MUT), a socio-cultural organisation, Edward Ujege said about 500 persons were killed in the attacks. He asked for N100 billion compensation.

Ujege, who said the attacks were deliberate and professionally executed, lamented the deterioration of the relationship with the Fulanis, who, according to him, had barely 50,000 herds of cattle in 2010 but now having more than a million.

He disregarded suggestions for grazing routes, stressing that cattle ranching is the solution and that cattle rearing should be treated as a private business.

Deputy Governor Benson Abonu said the attacks should not be treated with levity because “there is more than meets the eye because of its manner of execution.” According to him, the attacking herdsmen were seen in black, stressing that government’s position on the solution was cattle ranching.

The number killed has however varied, with MUT putting it at 500, the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) puts it at, while the IGP said the police could only find three.

Representatives of Miyetti Allah did not attend the second day of the hearing before it was adjourned indefinitely.

Former Senate  President David Mark, who turned 68 years yesterday,  has pledged to continue to serve God and devote the rest of his life to the less privileged in the society.

He  spoke  at a thanksgiving service to mark the occasion.

But it was devoid of fanfare in solidarity with the people of his constituents –the Agatus- who were recently massacred by Fulani herdsmen.

Mark’s spokesman, Paul Mumeh, quoted the senator as saying: “My heart bleeds when I see my people massacred in Agatu. I am saddened that suddenly our people became refugees in their homes.

“I pray that peace returns as soon as possible so that the survivors and all the displaced people scattered in various internally displaced persons (IDPs) camps return to their homes.”

He urged  the state and Federal Governments to “do everything possible to resettle the beleaguered Agatu people.”

He added:  ”We must do all we can to live in peace in Nigeria. I earnestly crave for a crime-free society where all citizens are free to pursue their legitimate ambitions anywhere without molestation.”

Mark said it was only in a peaceful environment that meaningful development could be achieved.

He added that as a part of his dedication to God, he had forgiven all those who offended him in one way or the other.

“I have forgiven all those who offended me. I also request that all those I may have offended forgive me.

“Even those who hate me with passion, may God touch their hearts to allow me exist. For me and my family, we will continue to serve and thank God,” he said.

DURING his tour of Agatu Local Government Area, a part of his constituency, Senator David Mark told reporters that more than 500 people were killed by suspected Fulani herdsmen in retaliation for the alleged slaughter of 10,000 cows. The early March clash occurred over a period of days, with the law enforcement agencies doing very little to arrest the bloodletting. In his visit to Benue state, the Inspector General of Police, Solomon Arase, attempted to debunk what he described as unsubstantiated casualty figures. Responding to initial media reports that 300 Agatu indigenes were murdered by the herdsmen, the IGP said he saw no evidence of that kind of casualty figures, insisting that it was overstated. But in his reaction to the attempt to downplay what happened in Agatu, Senator Mark, who is himself former Senate President and a retired army general, said: “The villages are totally bereft of any social or economic activities. All the primary and post primary schools, health centres, worship centres as well as the police station in the area have been burnt down. What is left of a hitherto boisterous Agatu communities of Aila, Akwu, Adagbo, Okokolo, Ugboju, Odugbeho, Ogbaulu, Egba and Obagaji are the debris of the wreckage.”

It was not until many days after Senator Mark visited Agatu that the Internal Affairs minister, Abdulrahman Danbazzau also visited the blighted area to assess the level of destruction. But whether 300 or 500 were killed in Agatu or not, President Muhammadu Buhari has not visited the affected areas. He only vowed through one of his spokesmen that the killings would be investigated and, through the Agriculture minister, that a solution would be found to the perennial clashes in many Nigerian communities occasioned by grazing problems and misunderstanding between farmers and herdsmen. No panel has been constituted yet. While the clashes raged fiercely early March, Benue State governor Samuel Ortom shouted himself hoarse, visited Aso Villa to intimate the seat of power with the harrowing problems his state was confronting, and returned almost helpless. For, after all, the security agencies do not report to him. Other than downplaying the casualty figures, the security agents were unable to prevent the destruction from running its full course.

The conflict between farmers and herdsmen is as old as Nigeria itself. It says a lot about the competence of Nigerian leaders that in more than five decades of Nigeria’s existence as an independent nation, no one has been able to find a lasting solution to the problem. The consequence is that the country now faces an unhealthy mix of aggravations between herdsmen, farmers and cattle rustlers, with the last group compounding the crisis and obfuscating the frontlines of the skirmishes, and predisposing the killings to ethnocentric interpretations. Indeed, even now, the seeming helplessness of the authorities in combating the menace and halting the killing spree is unfortunately interpreted as the Buhari presidency taking sides. This dismaying conclusion is sadly, and perhaps unkindly, predicated on the president’s contrastingly fiery reaction to the activities of militia groups in other parts of the country who neither bear arms nor engage in killings.

During his maiden media chat last year, President Buhari had bristled when asked why he kept former National Security Adviser, Col. Sambo Dasuki, and Nnamdi Kanu, leader of the Independent Peoples of Biafra, in apparently perpetual detention despite court rulings. Said the president: “If you see the atrocities these people committed against this country, we can’t allow them to jump bail…They would just say to Central Bank give so and so, 40 billion naira just like that; 40 billion…It would be bad to allow Dasuki to travel to London to see his doctor…What of the over two million people displaced, most of them orphans whose fathers have been killed, what type of government do you want to run? We cannot allow that”. With about 500 dead in Agatu, or perhaps fewer than the 300 the IGP conjectured, it should be apparent to the presidency that many sceptics would begin to ask why the official response to the Benue disaster has been tepid, indecisive, desultory and even conniving.

The Agriculture minister, Audu Ogbeh, has suggested that firm measures would be put in place to put a lid on herdsmen attacks. The tension, he assured, would die down in less than two years, in fact 18 months, as he put it. It is not certain how he hopes the Buhari presidency can solve a problem in 18 months that has lasted for decades, perhaps even predating independence. Herdsmen attacks are ubiquitous all over the country, and grazing fields and feed supplements are not projects that are easy to implement in months, especially when there are ongoing federal projects targeting the economies of herdsmen in their nomadic redoubts.

But while Mr. Ogbeh pursues his federal projects to ameliorate farmers’ agonies and eliminate or reduce clashes between farmers and herdsmen, the Buhari presidency must dispel doubts about its bona fides. Sacking and burning villages supposedly in retaliation for cattle rustling or wholesale slaughter of cattle is both an unlawful resort to self-help and sheer criminality. In the Agatu case, some reports suggested that one of the causes of the clashes was the slaughtering of 10,000 cows that angered the herdsmen. It is not immediately clear how that was possible, nor how the animals, if indeed they were slaughtered, were disposed off. And while the IGP has characteristically waffled about tackling what is obviously direct and unmitigated lawbreaking, it does appear that many law enforcement officers like to second-guess the presidency and pussyfoot over their responsibilities. That pussyfooting was evident in the Ese Oruru-Yunusa Dahiru abduction saga. It is now also evident in the Agatu catastrophe.

Mr. Kanu’s IPOB may have engaged in activities and made speeches that threaten the peace and unity of the country, but he and his group have neither borne arms nor used them. On the other hand, herdsmen, not farmers, have openly borne arms and used them on the excuse of battling rustlers, hostile farmers and host communities. But there can be no justification for anyone other than the security agencies to bear arms, no matter the provocation. The law is very clear on this. While herdsmen deserve the protection of the state in order to pursue their economic activities, just like farmers too, there is no law whatsoever that expiates their bearing and using of arms. The state has a responsibility to use very strong deterrent tactics to compel obedience to that law. By failing to discharge its responsibility to secure life and property, the state is indirectly encouraging self-help. And by appearing to be helpless against herdsmen, whom the security agents consider invincible, the state may be giving the impression it is even complicit in their viciousness and atrocities.

At the rate herdsmen attacks are reported in many parts of the country, the rising frustration among victims of the attacks could tempt them to call the bluff of security agents and also begin to take up arms. The government must anticipate this and put urgent, firm and unbiased measures in place to check the looming apocalypse. The argument that the herdsmen are not Nigerians, a position dubiously propagated by some state officials and other interested parties, is untenable. It is unlikely that non-Nigerian herdsmen could mobilise on the scale seen in many farmers-herdsmen clashes to wreak such extensive damage. Nor is it sensible to imagine that non-Nigerian herdsmen could display familiarity with the local terrain as proficiently and effortlessly as the hypothetical foreigners do.

The Buhari presidency has a responsibility to arrest the drift towards chaos. Antagonisms against herdsmen are rising in many parts of the country. And herdsmen themselves are deploying increasingly more potent force both to defend themselves and to project their economic interests often at the expense of host communities and farmlands. If the situation is not arrested, not only will communities consider organising and defending themselves using all means at their disposal, the future of Nigeria itself could be called to question. The Buhari presidency does not have the option of doing nothing, or perfunctorily doing little. The time to act is now, and that action or series of actions, must be fair, just and equitable. Above all, even though for a long time Nigerian governments have shied away from what is obviously a difficult task, leaders must recognise that there can be no lasting solution to this conflict and many others that does not incorporate wholesale restructuring of the polity. It is doubtful whether the constitutional tinkering of the past years can really and substantially address and resolve the stresses and discordance destabilising and threatening the country.