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Tag: Fulani herdsmen

  • Our Girls; Fulani Herdsmen: Farmer War, Boycott Blood Meat: Be a political journalist. Count Your Vote 

    Our Girls; Fulani Herdsmen: Farmer War, Boycott Blood Meat: Be a political journalist. Count Your Vote 

    Our Girls’ are still missing since April 15 2014. To them, and 15,000+ murdered, add 90 executed in Damasak and those wives murdered directly by Boko Haram to keep them ‘pure’ till a heavenly reunion. Did someone say ‘Negotiate with Boko Haram’?

    As Boko Haram reduces under the offensive, we face the Fulani Herdsmen Vs Farmers War claiming 5,000+ lives, and another 90 Fellow Nigerians cruelly massacred last week. Election win or not, statesman, Fulani leader and General, Buhari, must resolve this festering Fulani Herdsmen-Nigerian Farmers leprosy sore before it causes an ECONOMIC BACKLASH BOYCOTT OF ‘BLOOD MEAT’ defined as ‘Meat transported and eaten at the cost of lives & livelihoods of fellow farming Nigerians’.

    I disturbingly see cow meat on my plate as the flesh of those murdered children and parents.  This senseless War should stop if Nigerians at the end of the cow transport chain, ‘EAT NO MEAT’ for three months. Speaking medically, no one will die from not eating meat, so why should people die BECAUSE WE EAT MEAT? Why can you eat meat delivered by the death of a child? You are an accessory and receiver of stolen goods- farm grass and crops eaten by the cows. You have blood on your hands.

    This is how it was in the 18th C Wild West of America. The war will continue after a boycott if, as suggested by some, it is a cover for a territorial Fulani war disguised as a cow-farmland war. A seeming senseless war or a cunning expansionist strategy?    The wickedness of unleashing weaponised OPC on Lagos citizens shows no difference between that group, its leaders and Boko Haram.

    Death and terror are just that. No ‘political’ excuses. Boko Haram members murder their wives. We know what OPC does to victims.Enough of the personalisation or ‘partyisation’ of Nigeria’s governance and public institutions by all parties in power at federal, state and LGA level and the traditional institutions.

    Governance, the private sector and traditional responsibilities are timeless and transcend political tenures. They should not be partisan. Politicians are hired and fired at elections and are 4-8 year employees of the citizens. They must not extort endorsements from the landlord, the institution of governance.

    Holding teachers, handicapped, civil servants and unions etc., to ransom to ‘declare for us’ is abuse.  ELECTION ALERT: INEC says we must not leave the polling booth after voting. The IGP must retract any wrong information. Leaving the polling booth unprotected by citizens is an invitation to fraud. In this election, INEC must make more statements that CITIZENS must OBSERVE & ‘COUNT YOUR VOTE’. Remember to take WATER AND SNACKS in a transparent bag for security for yourself and others including the election staff, neglected for 10 hours, with shops closed.

    I worry for young NYSC staff, so much is expected of them, for so little. Have you seen the squalor, poor sanitation and facilities of NYSC camps? Since 1973 or so, Nigeria has stolen billions from the NYSC Scheme. I served NYSC in Jos and Lafia in 1975/6 and am sickened by the debasing hovels given NYSC as accommodation today.

    With indifference to any lethal consequences, we again risk their nationalistic NYSC lives for Nigeria. Let no drop of NYSC members’, or anyone else’s blood, be spilt by murderers in the false name of politics. Too many NYSC heroes have died for other people’s greed. NYSC members, we salute you. Nigerian politicians should protect their NYSC ‘children’.

    No one should be allowed to make inoperable the PVC Card Readers with the protective role of an impartial Police and the Armed Forces uncompromised by criminal governors. Any ruling party agents cannot be allowed to repeat Ekitigate election revealed by the patriotic military whistleblower who deserved promotion and induction into the ‘Hall of Fame for Whistleblowers’. Recall the whistle blowing Police officer ‘O’.

    He should be the Foundation Hall of Fame whistleblower. All political parties should participate at ‘Political Security Meetings’.World expectations are high for the triumph of democracy in Nigeria. Rigging and Violence are a CIVILIAN COUP ATTEMPT, treason, and prosecutable. Do not forget the newly elected ‘Democracy Saint’ Obasanjo’s role in the recent election ‘victories’.

    On Sat March 28th, let no one say ‘no’ to voting. Every voter who ‘siddon look’ and refuses to vote is a vote against his candidate. Let no one be intimidated. We are all ELECTION MONITORS AS RESPONSIBLE CITIZENS. TURN ON YOUR CELL PHONE, RECORD SECRETLY ANY iniquity, UPLOAD TO PREPLANNED INTERNET AND MEDIA’. I suggest you download Meerkat through Twitter and use it to expose political wrong-doing. We are all POLITICAL WAR JOURNALISTS-say Kunle   and Kolade M. Let the good outnumber the bad, let honest voters outnumber riggers, let truthful lawyers outnumber lying lawyers, let honest judges outnumber corrupt judges, let police and courts accept electronic evidence of violence- a criminal code crime, let the court injunctions stop, let good overcome evil. NO ONE’S POLITICAL LIFE IS WORTH THE DEATH OF EVEN ONE NIGERIAN. Stay alive to tell the 2015 election story. Long Live Nigeria! VOTE FOR YOUR CANDIDATE, FREELY AND FAIRLY ON SATURDAY MARCH 28TH2015.PS NERC again totally failed to protect Nigerians by not preventing the recently reversed hike in electricity tariff. The NERC board should resign or be sacked for incompetence. And why don’t American police disable people by shooting the people in the arms and leg instead of dead?

  • Nigeria’s most dangerous road!

    Nigeria’s most dangerous road!

    Much as everyone would claim to know the extent of the regression in our national lives, the truth is that you never know really how bad things have gone until you experience an avoidable tragedy. That is when one comes to appreciate how bad things have become. Sometime last month, I got this terrible call from a family member that a younger cousin of mine based in Abuja had been shot between Eruku and Obbo-Ile, two communities at the Kwara State end of the Ilorin-Kabba-Lokoja highway.

    A group of armed ‘Fulani herdsmen’ (!), I would find out later, had blocked his car at one of the many notorious failed portions on the highway. They ordered him and his young family out of the car after which they thoroughly ransacked it. Their mission partly accomplished, they turned on the occupants, dispossessing them of cash and other valuables. As the now distraught family was being herded back into their car, a bullet from one of the more trigger-happy members of the gang was said to have hit the young man.

    Of course, he did not die – at least not immediately. The wife who could have taken him to the nearest hospital, unfortunately, could not drive. And as has become increasingly familiar in such circumstances, help from fellow motorists who saw him in the pool of his blood would not be forthcoming. Knowing how dangerous the entire 255 kilometres stretch had become, the unwillingness by the hapless motorists to act the Good Samaritan was perhaps understandable. In the circumstance, the best they could do was to wish the traumatised wife and children luck after which they abandoned them to their fates! With time ticking on and with no signs of help coming their way, the poor chap reportedly took to the wheels obviously believing that he could make it to the nearest infirmary. Well, he never did.

    So, you can understand my reluctance to venture on that road and the anxiety of other family members when only days after the terrible experience, my father, as we say in Christendom, would join the saints triumphant. My still grieving mum of course insisted that the journey was needless at this point in time – more out of hyper-sensitivity to that particular tragedy than anything else. Few of my friends on the other hand would regale me with gory tales of near misses on the same road. In the end, much as I regarded some of the fears as overstated having driven on the road at least twice this year, I needed no convincing that I would require than the normal dose of prayers and fasting before venturing on that road with Yuletide approaching!

    Between the penultimate week, when I finally did, and now, I can now testify that the Ilorin-Kabba-Lokoja road is not just one of the most dangerous routes to ply at this time, the stretch from the Kwara State end of the road right up to Kabba, headquarters of Okunland would number among the most ungoverned swathes on the Nigerian territory! I do not exaggerate. And I say this with all sense of responsibility. Today, there is nothing that needs to be said about terrible state of the road that has not been said.

    I need to be clear: nothing – except of course the countless craters dotting the stretch – has been added to the road constructed in the early 70s when yours truly was barely entering secondary school. The result is that a journey of less than 300 kilometres currently takes a whole day to make – and that for those lucky to make it alive. Of course, I have not even talked of the palpable sense of general insecurity reinforced by the displacement of the regular police by an army of ill-clad vigilantes now spreading along the highways – a window into the state capacity in full retreat. Coincidentally, whereas the vigilantes I encountered tended to be polite, less obtrusive, and in fact more business-like in their approach, the men of the Nigeria Police appears far more interested in checking vehicle particulars most especially tinted glass permits!

    Now, give it to the Kwara State government, they are at least doing something at their end of the road. In the course of the trip, I saw FERMA, the federal road fixing agency at work. I saw heaps of bitumen on the Ilorin-Idofian stretch of the road, evidence of something being done to ameliorate the terrible situation on the road.

    Now, what about my home state of Kogi? The absentee government in Lokoja under Captain Idris Wada is apparently too far gone in its Rip Van Winkle sleep to bother about road and security matters! Although I haven’t visited of late, I am reliably told that the Lokoja- Obajana-Kabba road is worse than hell! Lokoja-Okene-Kabba is no better. The spate of robberies on the two highways, I am told, is perhaps surpassed only by the daily orgy of blood-letting from the Boko Haram! All across the state, there is a sense of siege with neither acknowledgement nor help coming from any quarters – including an administration that claims to govern in their name. That is how bad things have become in my dear state of Kogi!

    Yes, I am aware that leading politicians from the area have done their very best to get federal government attention. I know for a fact that my very good friend, Senator Smart Adeyemi, has been on the neck of Works Minister Mike Onolememen pleading with him to do something. For his efforts, the federal government awarded the contract for the road – GEJ-style – without the needed cash backing! See why our nightmares will endure?

    Finally, let me comment on the siege on the two communities of Egbe and Odo-Ere by armed robbers last week. Of course, the attack on two old generation banks in the two separate communities which left three people dead was, to say the least, predictable given reports that the dare-devil robbers had long served notice! Many thanks to the power of the social media, particularly the Facebook, I actually monitored the siege as it took place. Odo-ere by the way is the capital of Yagba West Local Government where yours truly comes from; I say this lest anyone dares to accuse me of writing fiction. The question I couldn’t resist at the end of the siege was – where was the police? What did the absentee government, which had the experience of the last few years to guide, do while the siege lasted?

    No doubt, some Nigerians are truly endangered.

  • Oritsejafor to herdsmen: Forget grazing reserves

    Oritsejafor to herdsmen: Forget grazing reserves

    The President of the Christian Association of Nigeria, Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor, has advised those clamoring for grazing reserves to forget the idea and embrace modern ranches.

    He also revealed that 80 percent of the people killed by Boko Haram are Christians, saying the sect is advocating a jihad in Nigeria.

    In his key note address at the CAN National Executive Committee meeting held in Makurdi, Benue State, Oritsejafor said the cattle rearers , especially the Fulani herdsmen should embrace modern ranches which would be created for meat processing .

    On Boko Haram, he said, “Who gave them AK 47, who trained them on how to handle the weapons and I wonder why they are not arrested and prosecuted?

  • We’re not responsible for attacks, say Fulani herdsmen

    We’re not responsible for attacks, say Fulani herdsmen

    Fulani herdsmen say they know nothing about the spate of attacks on individuals, villages and properties in some parts of the North in the country.

    The attacks have claimed many lives in Benue, Taraba, Katsina and Southern Kaduna.

    Speaking at the maiden meeting of the national executive council of Miyyeti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN), in Kaduna, its national president, Alhaji Muhammadu Kirowa, said the Fulani are peace loving and easy going people and could not have been responsible for the wave of violence attributed to them.

    He said: “We decided to hold this meeting in Kaduna to show the world that we Fulani are peace loving people. We are not just going to stop here, we are going to meet with all tribes of Nigeria to find the way forward towards ensuring peace in the country.

    “That is why we have invited the National President of Southern Kaduna People’s Union (SOKAPU), Dr. Ephraim Goje to this meeting.

    “We know there are bad eggs in every community, but we know that those killing people here and there are not our members.”

    He said the association has resolved to register its members nationwide with a view to identifying real herdsmen and monitoring their activities.

    Addressing the gathering, the National President of Southern Kaduna People’s Union (SOKAPU), Dr. Ephraim Goje challenged the association to warn herdsmen from neighbouring countries who might want to come and cause trouble in Nigeria to keep away.

    He urged brotherliness among the various ethnic groups in the country.

  • Governors to herdsmen: Expose deviants in your midst

    Governors to herdsmen: Expose deviants in your midst

    The Northern States Governors` Forum (NSGF) has called on Fulani associations to expose deviants in their midst who perpetrate evil in northern part of the country.

    The forum made the call at its meeting with the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association and other Fulani associations on Thursday night in Abuja.

    The meeting, which ended at 11.30pm, was convened to deliberate among other issues, the incessant clashes between Fulani herdsmen and farmers in northern states.

    The clashes, according to the forum, are posing serious security challenges to the region and other parts of the country.

    Reading a communiqué of the meeting to journalists, the Forum Chairman, Governor Babagida Aliyu of Niger, also called on members of Fulani associations in the region to encourage their wards in their educational pursuit.

    “We recognise that the nomadic education, as conceived, will not solve the purpose, so we welcome the idea of settling the Fulanis so that they could enjoy the two world of educational pursuit and rearing their cattle without too much movement,” the News Agency of Nigeria quoted the governor as saying at the meeting.

    He stressed that it was important for the Fulanis to expose deviants in their midst, following insinuations that most crimes committed in their names were actually perpetrated by other strangers.

    The governor said that people with evil tendencies now dressed like Fulanis to commit crimes.

    He decried sporadic killings of law abiding citizens by bandits camouflaging as herdsmen.

     

     

  • Addressing the scourge of Fulani herdsmen

    SIR: Apart from Boko Haram, one recurrent security challenge that confronts many states in the country is the scourge of Fulani herdsmen. The attacks by the herdsmen on the sedentary communities have been

    increasing with each passing day. The magnitude of such attacks are often associated with terrorist aggression and have been experienced in states like Benue, Nassarawa, Plateau, Taraba, Kaduna, Adamawa, Zamfara, Oyo, Imo, Cross-River, Enugu among others. It is important to observe that the experience of these states with acts being perpetrated by the nomadic herdsmen will only

    heighten insecurity and tension but will never resolved the grievances that stimulated them.

    In Benue State, the scourge of Fulani herdsmen that bear the imprints of terrorist incursions indicates the dawn of a new regime of security concern in the state. Such attacks have in the recent past been

    experienced in places like Agatu, Guma, Gwer west, Makurdi, Kwande, Katsina-Ala and Loggo Local government areas. The consequences include the loss of lives and property of innocent citizens and increase in apprehension on the questions of security in Nigeria. They also pose threats to government’s commitments to peace-building, sustainable democracy and political instability in the state.

    It should be realized that whatever their motivations, these dastardly acts constitute set back to the pursuit of unity, peace and development and should be condemned in entirety.

    Benue State is presently at a dawn of a new beginning which requires investments in infrastructural development, environmental governance and re branding of her image. Benue State is in an era where government should be encouraged to foster unity and integration, stimulate economic development and enhance the standard of living of her citizens. These goals cannot be attained in a security vacuum characterized by constant attacks and other acts reminiscent of terrorism.

    It is in line with this that the following recommendations are proffered as recipe to halt the scourge of killings in the state. The state and National Assembly should enact relevant legislations that address the scourge of the Fulani herdsmen and related security challenges in the state. The security agencies should intensify inter-agency cooperation to combat the menace. .The general public should make vigilance their watch word since the task of security is a collective responsibility. Grazing reserves and dams should be established in the northern states like Sokoto, Kano, Jigawa, Katsina, Zamfara, Bauchi, Borno and Yobe to restrict the activities of the Fulani herdsmen who are mainly foreigners from Chad, Mali, Senegal, Guinea and Niger.

    • John Akevi,

    Bauchi

  • Fulani herdsmen kill 10 in Taraba

    Fulani herdsmen kill 10 in Taraba

    • 40 houses burnt

    Ten people were killed and 18 others injured in Nwokyo, Wukari Local Government Area of Taraba State yesterday, following another attack by Fulani herdsmen. Properties worth millions of naira were destroyed.

    Police spokesman Joseph Kwaji said the marauders came from neighbouring Plateau State.

    Kwaji, who gave the casualty figure as sevean, said 40 houses were burnt.

    He said: “There was an attack on Nwokyo village by Fulani herdsmen from neighbouring Plateau State. They crossed over through River Benue and killed seven persons in Taraba. They also burnt 40 houses during the attack.”

    An eye-witness said the invading herdsmen were dressed in military uniform and were over 300.

    The source said a woman was burnt as she was trapped when her home was set ablaze.

    “An MDG Hospital in the area was razed down as health workers were attending to patients,” another eyewitness said.

    A former senator, Joel Danlami Ikenya, said he was “dismayed” over the continuous attacks by Fulani herdsmen.

    The former governorship candidate of the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) said he was sad that the government has not found time to visit any of the areas.

    Ikenya said: “In some states when there is crisis, government visits affected areas and gives relief materials to survivors.

    “But in Taraba, the government has not deemed it fit to visit these areas.

    “It is the responsibility of government to protect lives and property so that people can live with each other peacefully.”

    Ikenya added that the MDG Hospital and some worship centres were torched by the herdsmen.

    “No house is standing there now,” he said.

    The senator said it is unfortunate that lives are no longer valued in Nigeria.

    He said: “Now, there is no difference between us (Nigeria) and Somalia. The government must take the issue of security very serious.

    “Members of the House of Assembly and National Assembly from Taraba must do something to end the attacks because the people they claim to be representing are being killed daily.”

  • Army to battle Fulani bandits in Benue, Nasarawa

    Army to battle Fulani bandits in Benue, Nasarawa

    The Army is now to lead the battle against suspected Fulani herdsmen who have been attacking villages in Benue, Nasarawa and Plateau states, it was learnt yesterday. Many people have been killed in attacks on villages.

    The Defence Headquarters announced the major military response to the ongoing killings and wanton destruction of property by armed bandits in three Northcentral states.

    A statement by the Director of Defence Information, Major General Chris Olukolade, said the operation, which started on Sunday, is being coordinated by the Army.

    Gen. Olukolade said troops had already been deployed in the various enclaves and flash points from where the armed bandits launch their attacks on remote communities in the three states.

    The operation is largely aimed at capturing the itinerant armed bandits with the view to recovering their illegally acquired firearms and turning them over for investigation and prosecution.

    “The internal security operation is meant to capture and neutralise all the enclaves of criminal gangs. The Nigerian Air Force, Police and other security agencies are also participating in the operation designed to restore peace in the affected states.

    “Law abiding citizens in the affected states are enjoined to cooperate by providing timely and useful information to facilitate the operation as it affects their localities,” the statement added.

    Also yesterday, the military dismissed as “totally untrue” accusations by an international rights watchdog, Amnesty International, that government troops – currently embroiled in a prolonged conflict with Boko Haram insurgents – were committing war crimes and grave rights abuses.

    “We cannot understand these claims of human rights abuses against our men who are putting their lives in danger to ensure the safety of the masses,” Gen. Olukolade said yesterday.

    In a report dated March 31, the London-based Amnesty International asserted that increasing Boko Haram attacks and “uncontrolled reprisals” by security forces had killed at least 1500 people – more than half of them civilians – in the first quarter of 2014.

    “The scale of atrocities carried out by Boko Haram is truly shocking, creating a climate of fear and insecurity,” the report stated.

    “But this cannot be used to justify the brutality of the response that is clearly being meted out by Nigeria’s security forces,” it added.

    Amnesty cited a daring March 14 attack by Boko Haram militants on a military barracks in Maiduguri, aimed at freeing hundreds of detained group members.

    “Amnesty International has received credible evidence that, as the military regained control, more than 600 people, mostly unarmed recaptured detainees, were extra-judicially executed in various locations across Maiduguri,” it said.

    “The international community cannot continue to look the other way in the face of extrajudicial executions, attacks on civilians, and other crimes under international law being committed on a mass scale,” Amnesty asserted.

    The Nigerian army spokesman described the report as “unfair and totally untrue”.

    Gen. Olukolade said government troops were constantly reminded of the need to respect human rights and ensure that no innocent person is harmed.

    “We have some of the most professional soldiers in the world.

    “Our men understand and follow through on the rules of engagement, even as they engage faceless enemies who have wasted thousands of innocent lives and destroyed public infrastructure,” Gen. Olukolade added.

  • Fulani herdsmen kill 25 in Benue village attack

    Fulani herdsmen kill 25 in Benue village attack

    Benue State’s Guma Local Government Area headquarters Gbajimba was under fire yesterday from Fulani herdsmen who turned the town to a killing field.

    No fewer than 25 farmers were killed by the militia who bore sophisticated weapons.

    No fewer than 50 were injured. A few of them were taken to the hospital in the state capital, Makurdi, where they are receiving treatment.

    The attack is a continuation of the onslaught on Tiv villages by the Fulani herdsmen who were suspected to have attacked Governor Gabriel Suswam’s convoy when he visited the area.

    Minister of State for Trade and Investment Chief Samuel Ortom who hais from the local government, cried out yesterday.

    Ortom lost his house in an earlier invasion.

    Narrating how the invasion was carried out, the Senior Special Assistant to the governor on Investment, Abraham Kwaghga, who also hails from the local government, said: The Fulani militia, numbering over 200, launched the attack on the town at 10am, when residents were in the church.

    “Some came through the bank of River Benue. Others came through Nassarawa State road and positioned themselves on the west side of Gbajimba town. Those that came through the River Bank launched attack first. Others started shooting and killing indiscriminately. I saw about 20 bodies on the ground,” said Kwaghga.

    The governor’s assistant said he took five wounded victims to the Benue State University Hospital Makurdi. He put the number of injured at about 50.

    Kwaghga alleged that the Divisional Police Officer(DPO) and his men fled the town, leaving the unarmed peasant farmers at the mercy of the militia.

    Doctors of the Benue State University Teaching Hospital recommended x-ray for the victims so as to determine where the bullets were lodged in their bodies.

    Mr. Cephas Hough, said five persons with bullets wounds were on admission.

    Police spokesman Daniel Ezeala said he was yet to get in touch with his men in the crisis area.

    Ortom, a one-time chairman of Guma Local Government told The Nation on phone that “Fulani hired mercenaries have taken over Gbajimba, shooting and killing”.

    Benue State Deputy Governor Steven Lawani pledged that residents would reclaim their land being occupied by Fulani herdsmen.

    He spoke at a thanksgiving service organised yesterday by the family of the late Conrad Wergba, the deceased Water Resources Commissioner, at NKST Central Church, Wadata in Makurdi.

    He described the invaders as terrorists who took the peace-loving people by surprise, adding that working with the Federal Government the state would work towards pushing the invaders out of the land.

    Lawani said distribution of relief materials to the displaced would begin today adding that the delay was as a result of the sorting out of logistics details.

    The mother of the deceased, Madam Christiana Wergba, said it would have been better if she had died and her son buried her. She said God, however, took him when he was prepared to meet Him.

  • Now, the Fulani herdsmen

    It is getting clearer by the day that something urgent has to be done to stem the recurring clashes between Fulani herdsmen and farmers across the country. If anything, last week’s attack on the convoy of Benue State Governor, Gabriel Suswam by suspected Fulani herdsmen has brought to the front burner the potent danger which the clashes have become.

    Reports had it that the governor’s convoy came under the heavy gun fire of the herdsmen when he made a stop over at Tse Aekenyi in the Guma Local Government Area of the state to assess the damages done by the invading herdsmen the previous week. In that invasion, 72 villages were said to have been destroyed while 25 residents lost their lives. About 50,000 people were displaced even as tension is very high with frightening prospects of total breakdown of law and order.

    But for the agility of his security men who forcefully bundled him back to his car and repelled the attack, the story would have been another thing altogether.

    Expectedly, the incident has attracted wide condemnations from various quarters. Chief Barnabas Gemade, the senator representing the area has raised alarm on what he termed the incessant attacks and killing of the people of Tiv and Idoma ethnic groups by the herdsmen with a warning that the destruction will destabilize the country if not quickly arrested.

    He had also alleged that most of the attackers were not herdsmen but hirelings from Chad, Niger and Cameroon with the intent to cause internal crisis or war in the middle belt region.

    Coming from such a highly placed personage, it is difficult to dismiss the issue with a wave of the hand. Not with the suspected culpability of Chad, Niger and Cameroon in the current war against the Boko Haram insurgents in the North-eastern part of the country. Curiously, Benue does not share any common boundary with these African countries. Which raises the question of how the insurgent managed to infiltrate Benue communities with the military arsenal credited to them without being detected?

    It is not that confrontation between herdsmen and farmers is new in this country. Over the years and across the country, loss of lives and property on account of such clashes has been a recurring decimal. From Plateau to Benue, Oyo to Ogun, Nassarawa to Kwara and Imo to Abia, constant clashes between the herdsmen and local farmers have been occurring. In many of these cases, the source of friction can be traced to the destruction of farm crops by the herds. In some others, the crises had their roots in cattle rustling. But by far the main bone of contention has been the crops destroyed by the herds in the process of searching for pasture. That is why suggestions have of recent been made to the effect that grazing routes should be mapped out for the herdsmen and their cattle. A couple of weeks back, the House of Representative apparently moved by these recurring clashes called on the federal government to establish grazing routes for cattle in all the geo-political zones of the country. This followed a motion which chronicled that within 30 days this year, more than 100 lives and property of inestimable value were lost in Plateau, Ogun and Benue states on account of the clashes.

    The motion by Sunday Karimi (Yagba West, Kogi State) also gave account of how herdsmen riding on about 100 horses raided border towns and villages in Guma Local Government Area of Benue State killing two soldiers, 18 farmers and displaced 3000 people. That is not all as Benue has since been the theatre of constant attacks by the herdsmen. As this article was being put together, more chilling reports of the killing escapades of the herdsmen in Benue continue to trickle in. To add salt to injury, the ancestral home of Suswam has been reportedly sacked even as the governor is yet to recover from the trauma of his encounter with the marauding herdsmen and their hirelings.

    But the Fulani herdsmen have blamed Suswam for being the brain behind the clashes between them and the Tiv. According to them, tension rose when Suswam announced that he did not want the herdsmen in his state thus giving rise to the attendant clashes. They claimed that they have lost 134 of their members and 11,915 heads of cattle to the clashes in Benue, Plateau and Taraba states in the last three months.

    Implicit in this recrimination is the fact that the clashes have assumed a disturbing dimension that must be urgently halted. The way things stand this confrontation may well become another veritable source of instability in the country. This is more so with the allegation that foreign African countries may be behind the clashes. And when it is realized that the same countries have contributed in frustrating efforts to contain the Boko Haram menace, the danger in the resurging herdsmen attacks can be better appreciated. The attack on Suswam bears uncanny similarity with the manner the Borno State governor, Kashim Shettima was recently attacked when he visited to sympathize with those attacked by the Boko Haram insurgents.

    From all indications, it is clear the herdsmen have axe to grind with Benue for whatever reasons. The claim that the crisis was precipitated by Suswam’s alleged statement that he did not want the herdsmen in the state may be part of the grouse. But it cannot account for all. Not with the sophistication in the planning and execution of the attacks by the herdsmen who do not even reside in the state. In one of the accounts at the weekend, the attackers infiltrated through a neighboring state when the indigenes were at the farms and wreaked incalculable havoc on defenseless people. It is therefore clear that these attacks have gone beyond the usual skirmishes that arise from the destruction of farmlands and crops or cattle rustling. That is why the lead that there is a political dimension to this crisis must be explored to the fullest. Gemeda alleged that there is a plan to decimate the Tiv and Idoma ethnic groups. He also averred that the intention is to simulate war within the middle belt region. These allegations are very weighty and cannot be waved aside. This is more so, given the political tension in the country as a result of the fast approaching general elections. From the bitter acrimony generated by power competition at the centre, there is no doubt that we are home to an array of disgruntled politicians. With the dynamics of realignments throughout the country, old patterns of political support are changing. Some of the zones hitherto assumed to be monolithic with very predictable support direction are now confronted with the challenges of self determination. It will not be surprising, if the resurging insecurity in the middle belt bears positive correlation with this state of flux.

    If a governor could be so attacked even with the security at his disposal, then the matter is turning into something else. That seems to be the point that has been poignantly underscored by the attack on Suswam. Perhaps also, the Benue attacks will serve to draw the attention of governments to how political grouses can find ventilation through the instrumentality of the herdsmen. That is why the idea of mapping out grazing areas for the herdsmen in the six geo-political zones cannot fly. Such exclusive areas could further provide the base for the herdsmen to now attack and conquer the zones. There are standard practices in cattle farming. The herdsmen should be made to key into them.