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Tag: herdsmen killings

  • Reckless, indefensible explanations on herdsmen killings

    IN its immediate reaction to the horrifying killings in Plateau State last weekend, in which over 200 people lost their lives according to some estimates, the presidency sought more than anything else to find an explanation for the deaths rather than seek urgent ways to hold perpetrators to account. Speaking through the president’s spokesman, Garba Shehu, the presidency, according to a News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) report, traced the root of the killings to how some 100 cows were rustled in a community and some herdsmen killed. The governor, the report added, was still trying to mediate a solution when the retaliatory killings occurred, leading to thugs taking advantage of the breakdown of law and order.

    But not done, and still insensitive to the inappropriateness of the angle from which the government sought to indirectly rationalise the killings, Mallam Shehu adds: “We know that a number of geographical and economic factors are contributing to the longstanding herdsmen/farmers clashes. But we also know that politicians are taking advantage of the situation. This is incredibly unfortunate. Nigerians affected by the herdsmen/farmer clashes must always allow the due process of the law to take its course rather than taking matters into their own hands.” Significantly, too, a spokesman of the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association (MACBAN), Danladi Ciroma, justified the retaliation before the huge scale of the outrage over the killings forced other MACBAN leaders and spokesmen to walk back on the unjustifiable reasons he issued over the killings.

    If the coterminousness of the MACBAN and presidency explanations does not strike Mallam Shehu and worry the presidency, then the country is in far worse trouble than Nigerians imagine. Every time these killings take place, the government has always sought for explanations rather than immediate or lasting solution. The government’s approach has not inspired majority of Nigerians to repose hope in the Buhari presidency summoning the courage and understanding to tackle the crisis. Much more worrisomely, few Nigerians now believe that the president can find the neutrality and decisiveness to unite the country, farmers and herdsmen alike, and project unity.

    In a previous piece on the herdsmen killings, Undertow had observed the retrogressive attitude of the government in fishing for explanations, many of them contradictory, shallow, pedantic and counterproductive. Now, to these obtuse explanations, the presidency appears to be adding another one suggesting that politicians were taking advantage of the killings, as if anyone could take advantage when there were no killings. Here was how Undertow on May 12, 2018 presented the government’s multiple but futile rationalisations, starting with the president’s statement in his reaction to the 2018 New Year’s Day killings in Benue State where more than 70 people were killed by herdsmen:

    1) “Your Excellency, the governor, and all the leaders here, I am appealing to you to try to restrain your (Benue farmers) people. I assure you that the police, the Department of State Service (DSS) and other security agencies have been directed to ensure that all those behind the mayhem get punished. I ask you in the name of God to accommodate your countrymen. You can also be assured that I am just as worried and concerned with the situation.”

    President Buhari, January 15, speaking with Benue State leaders at Aso Villa

    2) “Obviously it is a communal crisis, for herdsmen are part of the community. They are Nigerians and are part of the community; are they not? Let’s use the example of Benue, you know most of these states where you have several languages, you know it is an issue of communal misunderstanding. I think what we should be praying for is for Nigerians to learn to live in peace with one another, I think it is very important.”

    IGP Ibrahim Idris, January 5, after the New Year’s Day massacre in Benue

    3) “Whatever crisis that happened at any time, there has to be remote and immediate causes. What are the remote causes of this farmers/herders crisis? Since Independence, we know there used to be a route whereby these cattle rearers use. Cattle rearers are all over the nation, you go to Bayelsa, you see them, you go to Ogun, you see them. If those routes are blocked, what happens? These people are Nigerians, it’s just like you going to block river or shoreline, does that make sense to you? These are the remote causes. But what are the immediate causes? It is the grazing law. These people are Nigerians, we must learn to live together with each other, that is basic. Communities and other people must learn how to accept foreigners within their enclave, finish!”

    Defence minister, Mansur Dan Ali, January 25, after emerging from a meeting with the president and other security chiefs

    4) “The problem is even older than us. It has always been there, but now made worse by the influx of gunmen from the Sahel region into different parts of the West African sub-region. They were trained and armed by Muammar Gadaffi of Libya. When he was killed, the gunmen escaped with their arms. We encountered some of them fighting with Boko Haram. Herdsmen that we used to know carried only sticks and maybe a cutlass to clear the way, but these ones now carry sophisticated weapons. The problem is not religious, but sociological and economic. But we are working on solutions.”

    President Buhari, April 11, speaking in London with Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby

    Sceptical and baffled, Undertow had feared that because the government was ineffective in tackling the crisis, yet more futile explanations could still emanate from them. Here again was how Undertow put it in that May 12, 2018 piece:

    “Before the year is over, no one can tell whether the government will still not propound another theory of the killings. They will probably continue to reel out theories until they run out of explanations. Meanwhile, what Nigerians demand of their government are expertise and competence in understanding crises — for crises will always come — and firmness and fairness in finding and applying solutions. The government has demonstrated no competence in both. It will, therefore, continue to be susceptible to well-founded suspicions, and the country itself unnerved by all manner of theories and complications about the killings. Christians will feel justified to wonder why they must be on the receiving end, and the Middle Belt of Nigeria will wonder whether there is really no subterranean plot to expropriate their lands. The longer the crisis persists, the more complicated and intractable it becomes.

    Given the government’s inexpert approach to the crisis so far, not to say the propagation of untruthful and puerile theories, there is no indication it can get to the bottom of the crisis any time soon. This is apocalyptic. It is truly shocking that the government has been unable to assemble the team needed to help the country reason and forge a way out of the terrible quagmire. It has spoken contradictions and acted contradictorily. The country even senses that their government is at sixes and sevens over the killings, approving costly but ultimately unworkable and tedious establishment of security bases in the time-worn flat-footedness that has unhinged security operations in the country. There may be no significant opposition rallying force at the moment, but the Buhari presidency must still urgently find a way out of the bloodletting if it is not to be undone by the kind of panic that finished off the Goodluck Jonathan presidency. This government has been more heavy-handed than its predecessors, but it is not certain that a resort to strong-arm tactics, as it has begun to show in its overconfident approach to governance, would not eventually doom its electoral chances in next year’s polls.”

    The question today is whether last weekend’s horrendous killings in Plateau State, a state that has not enacted any anti-open grazing law, will outrage the presidency enough to get them to end their dithering in the face of what is clearly a threat to peace and unity, and finally establish a diversified and unifying security council made of officers from different cultures and backgrounds. Sadly, there are no such indications. The Middle Belt has become a killing field; the president should solve that problem now or tell voters next year why he chose not to.

  • Afe Babalola, Ewi, others for meeting on herdsmen killings, kidnapping

    A pan-Yoruba socio-cultural group, the Yoruba Ko’ya Movement, will on June 14 hold an interactive session with vigilantes and hunters on how to checkmate renewed cases of kidnapping and destruction of farm lands by suspected Fulani herdsmen in Ekiti State.

    The group said it will inaugurate the Lagos State chapter of its steering committee at the event and donate security gadgets, such as patrol vans, raincoats, boots, torchlights and whistles to the vigilante and hunters.

    In a statement yesterday in Lagos, Yoruba Ko’ya’s National Director of Organisation and Publicity Maxwell Adeyemi Adeleye said the parley will examine the effects of attacks by Fulani herdsmen on food security and safety of lives and property.

    The statement also said it will examine the causes of herdsmen and farmers crisis in Ekiti State.

    The event, which will be chaired by the Alaaye of Efon Alaaye Kingdom, Oba Emmanuel Adesanya Aladejare, will discuss the options of managing Fulani herdsmen and the crisis they cause to farmers and the effects of their actions on food security.

    The statement also said the group was worried by recent cases of kidnapping around Ekiti and Osun State boundary.

    It stressed that the parley is meant to protect Ekiti State and Yoruba land from being encircled by rampaging Fulani herdsmen.

    The statement said keynote speakers for the event are: the founder of Afe Babalola University in Ado-Ekiti (ABUAD), Aare Afe Babalola; the Ewi of Ado-Ekiti, Oba Rufus Adeyemo Adejugbe; seasoned media entrepreneur and Co-founder of Yoruba Ko’ya Movement, Otunba ‘Deji Osibogun; the Iyaloja of Ekiti State, Mrs Waje Oso and others.

    The event, which will hold at Dave Hotel Event Hall, Adebayo, Ado-Ekiti, will start at 10 a.m.

  • Herdsmen killings: Miyetti Allah threatens to sue journalists

    The Nasarawa state chairman of Miyetty Allah cattle breeders association (MACBAN) has said that he will take legal action against any journalist that carries any report considered to be malicious to the Fulani tribe.

    The chairman, Husseini Muhammed made the threat following wide media report on the killing of three policemen and eight Agatu farmers in Mararaba-Udege, in Nasarawa local government area of Nasarawa state.

    While reacting to the involvement of Fulani herdsmen in the killings in Lafia on Thursday, he said his association is ready to sue any journalist who dares to involve Fulani herdsmen in their report in the event of any killings”.

    Read Also:Again, Miyetti Allah leaders rise against Benue anti-open grazing law

    “Why should the word Fulani herdsmen be used anytime there are killings of people? That amounts to criminalizing the entire Fulani tribe and we will not take that again”.

    “The media is the one fueling this hatred against the Fulani people and we will sue any journalist whose report reflects this henceforth,” Husseini said.

    “We are not in support of any Fulani man who kill or involved in any criminal activities, the police should arrest and prosecute any Fulani man if caught”.

    “Other tribes like the Niger Delta people started the kidnapping but nobody mentions Niger Delta whenever a kidnapper is arrested, but whenever killing is committed then it is the Fulani herdsmen, we can’t take this anymore”.

    The association, therefore, cautioned reporters to desist from using the word Fulani herdsmen in the event of any killings else it will engage them in a legal battle.

  • Herdsmen killings: Buhari must act now – Monarch

    A traditional ruler, the Onirun of Oke-Irun in Boluwaduro Local Government Area of Osun State, Oba Isaac Adetoyi Adetulurese, has advised President Mohammadu Buhari to act fast in providing a solution to the menace of killings by Fulani herdsmen. Speaking with reporters in Osogbo, he urged Buhari to inaugurate a panel with the core mandate of profering a lasting solution to the ‘senseless killings of innocent Nigerians and destruction of farm lands and other valuable properties in many parts of the country.”

    Oba Adetulurese, who said he suspected the menace was the handiwork of enemies of Buhari and Nigeria, further advised that the panel must comprise of patriotic and accomplished Nigerians with distinguished carrers in the military, police and public service. According to him, the killings have been allowed to drag for far too long that it is now causing disaffections among Nigerians and instigating feelings of distrust that can damage  national peace and unity.

    “People tend to ask where the herdsmen get the sophisticated weapons they use to unleash terror on the innocent Nigerians from. But I suspect that retired military men maybe the smokescreen and sponsors of this national disaster. The federal government must not give us the impression that some Nigerians are bigger than this nation. Let those behind this dastardly act be fished out and brought to justice. The primary focus of the government is protection of lives and property but now how do we account for a situation where citizens don’t feel safe in their homesteads and farmlands,” he said.

     

  • Herdsmen killings and Garba Shehu’s theory of war

    THERE will obviously not be an end to the government’s theories explaining the persistence of killings in many parts of the country. A significant section of the worried public blames herdsmen, suggesting that the conflict between cattle breeders and farming communities was taking its toll on the country and predisposing the society to complete breakdown of law and order. But the government continues to struggle with many explanations, some of them quite difficult to  rationalise. After the seemingly unending rigmarole and dithering, the presidency, through one of its spokesmen, has now propounded a new theory about the killings.

    According to the presidential spokesman, Garba Shehu, the killings are an attempt by some nameless characters to instigate war. Said he: “These persistent killings are not spontaneous; there are subterranean forces with a sinister agenda to instigate war in the country for selfish purposes. Although unconventional war is particularly complicated, our security forces are making rigorous efforts to better understand these enemies, with a view to decisively checkmating their evil attacks…It is very clear that there is an attempt by some people, within and outside the country, to create a war. There is intelligence available that clearly indicates that, yes, there are Fulani herds people who kill, but this country also suffers from attacks by ISIS, which has come into the country and they found a place in the cleavages that divide the country.” At last, Mallam Shehu has grudgingly conceded that perhaps sceptics were right in some of their suppositions all along, particularly as it relates with the activities of herdsmen. “Yes, there are Fulani herdsmen who have taken to this criminality,” he moaned; “there is also the Islamic State in West Africa factor, and the fact that the opposition political party seems to be operating from a different country.”

    In the statement he released a few days ago, Mallam Shehu made no mention of the earlier four theories bandied about by the same government he serves. So, Why should the public take this latest explanation, the fifth so far, seriously? Here are some of the past theories given by the same government to explain the killings:

    1) “Your Excellency, the governor, and all the leaders here, I am appealing to you to try to restrain your (Benue farmers) people. I assure you that the police, the Department of State Service (DSS) and other security agencies have been directed to ensure that all those behind the mayhem get punished. I ask you in the name of God to accommodate your countrymen. You can also be assured that I am just as worried and concerned with the situation.”

    President Buhari, January 15, speaking with Benue State leaders at Aso Villa

    2) “Obviously it is a communal crisis, for herdsmen are part of the community. They are Nigerians and are part of the community; are they not? Let’s use the example of Benue, you know most of these states where you have several languages, you know it is an issue of communal misunderstanding. I think what we should be praying for is for Nigerians to learn to live in peace with one another, I think it is very important.”

    IGP Ibrahim Idris, January 5, after the New Year’s Day massacre in Benue.

    3) “Whatever crisis that happened at any time, there has to be remote and immediate causes. What are the remote causes of this farmers/herders crisis? Since Independence, we know there used to be a route whereby these cattle rearers use. Cattle rearers are all over the nation, you go to Bayelsa, you see them, you go to Ogun, you see them. If those routes are blocked, what happens? These people are Nigerians, it’s just like you going to block river or shoreline, does that make sense to you? These are the remote causes. But what are the immediate causes? It is the grazing law. These people are Nigerians, we must learn to live together with each other, that is basic. Communities and other people must learn how to accept foreigners within their enclave, finish!”

    Defence minister, Mansur Dan Ali, January 25, after emerging from a meeting with the president and other security chiefs

    4) “The problem is even older than us. It has always been there, but now made worse by the influx of gunmen from the Sahel region into different parts of the West African sub-region. They were trained and armed by Muammar Gadaffi of Libya. When he was killed, the gunmen escaped with their arms. We encountered some of them fighting with Boko Haram. Herdsmen that we used to know carried only sticks and maybe a cutlass to clear the way, but these ones now carry sophisticated weapons. The problem is not religious, but sociological and economic. But we are working on solutions.”

    President Buhari, April 11, speaking in London with Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby

    Clearly, Nigerians want both the killings and the government’s vacillations to stop. They are tired of the back and forth, and are exasperated by the government’s seeming impotence in the face of the relentless murder of their fellow countrymen. They are right to distrust the government, and to fear that it may not even be sincere in trying to put down the malady and stanch the flow of blood. The government has been anxious to suggest that the killings have nothing to do with the country’s religious divides. But by failing to curb the madness, and by initially offering what seemed to many victims justifications for the killings, they open themselves up to public suspicion, and the country and the crisis itself to all sorts of nefarious explanations.

    Garba Shehu
    Garba Shehu

    Now, the dismal show of combing for theories is continuing, with Mallam Shehu arguing that some shadowy characters and groups might be working hard to instigate a war, and that the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) might be unhelpful in their criticisms. Alas, the APC did worse in their days in opposition. Even then, the PDP has been very restrained in taking the government to task both in terms of the government’s understanding of the crisis and the application of solutions. But both in the president’s London analysis and Mallam Shehu’s latest theory there were no indications that the government understood nor could explain why the instigators and agent provocateurs they so glibly talked about skipped over the Sahel region of Nigeria to land smack in the middle of the country. Mallam Shehu suggests implausibly that the reason for selecting the points of attacks may be because the instigators know the Middle Belt to be the fragile and vulnerable dividing line between Christians and Muslims, and between the North and the South. And though he suggests that there is a welter of intelligence to underpin this curious theory, it will remain far-fetched until more proof is found.

    Before the year is over, no one can tell whether the government will still not propound another theory of the killings. They will probably continue to reel out theories until they run out of explanations. Meanwhile, what Nigerians demand of their government are expertise and competence in understanding crises — for crises will always come — and firmness and fairness in finding and applying solutions. The government has demonstrated no competence in both. It will, therefore, continue to be susceptible to well-founded suspicions, and the country itself unnerved by all manner of theories and complications about the killings. Christians will feel justified to wonder why they must be on the receiving end, and the Middle Belt of Nigeria will wonder whether there is really no subterranean plot to expropriate their lands. The longer the crisis persists, the more complicated and intractable it becomes.

    Given the government’s inexpert approach to the crisis so far, not to say the propagation of untruthful and puerile theories, there is no indication it can get to the bottom of the crisis any time soon. This is apocalyptic. It is truly shocking that the government has been unable to assemble the team needed to help the country reason and forge a way out of the terrible quagmire. It has spoken contradictions and acted contradictorily. The country even senses that their government is at sixes and sevens over the killings, approving costly but ultimately unworkable and tedious establishment of security bases in the time-worn flat-footedness that has unhinged security operations in the country. There may be no significant opposition rallying force at the moment, but the Buhari presidency must still urgently find a way out of the bloodletting if it is not to be undone by the kind of panic that finished off the Goodluck Jonathan presidency. This government has been more heavy-handed than its predecessors, but it is not certain that a resort to strong-arm tactics, as it has begun to show in its overconfident approach to governance, would not eventually doom its electoral chances in next year’s polls.

  • Killings: Nigeria’s security system compromised – CAN

    The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) on Friday condemned the serial killings in Benue and other states in the country.

    CAN told President Muhammadu Buhari that recent development in Nigeria showed that the nation’s security system has been compromised.

    Briefing journalists on the state of the nation in Abuja, the General Secretary of CAN, Rev. Musa Asake, said the gunmen have legalized murder with the daily killings.

    He said: “Under Buhari the murderous Fulani herdsmen enjoyed unprecedented protection and favoritism to the extent that the herdsmen treat Nigeria as a conquered territory. Rather than arrest and prosecute the Fulani herdsmen, security forces usually manned by Muslims from the North offered them protection as they unleash terror with impunity on the Nigeria people.”

    “These criminals have been operating with impunity, leaving a strong impression that the security architecture in Nigeria has collapsed. There is also the suspicion that the entire security system in Nigeria is compromised. Unarguably, lawlessness and impunity are reigning supreme in Nigeria while the country is fast heading to chaos and anomie. It has never been this bad in the country that had lived relatively peacefully since independence.

    “The sad angle to it is that the Nigerian President, Muhammadu Buhari is not giving majority of Nigerians the impression of being deeply touched by the turn of events. He has been acting complacent and indeed unmoved by the reign of terror that his administration has permitted since the past three years of being the President. Most painfully, the President seems to depend on his media aides to make responses, which often times had no bite on widespread bloodletting across the federation, most especially in the Middle Belt part of the country.”

  • Herdsmen killings: the Libyan angle

    The claim that killings attributed to Fulani herdsmen in parts of the country are perpetrated by foreigners is not entirely new. Some government functionaries including a former Inspector-General of Police IGP, Solomon Arase had fingered foreign herdsmen taking advantage of ECOWAS protocols to infiltrate the country for the rising spate of killings.

    Those who canvass this viewpoint are quick to point to the traditional stick-wielding, harmless and itinerant Fulani herdsmen of the past as against the sophisticatedly armed herders as evidence of the penetration of the ranks of the traditional herdsmen by foreign killers. If the purpose of this conjecture is to absolve Fulani herdsmen of complicity in the killings, it should have gone further to establish on which side the bandits are fighting. Failure to establish that did incurable damage to whatever purpose it was meant to serve. It is difficult to fathom how the excuse would be of help when all indications show the bandits fight on the side of the herdsmen.

    Having identified those responsible for the killings as foreigners, the minimum expectation is for the government to take decisive action to flush the foreign bandits out from within our shores. But that has failed to happen and the killings have continued unabated, threatening the very existence of this country. It is cloudy the objective meant to be served by constant recourse to claims that those who kill our citizens; despoil their communities rendering them refugees in their own country are foreigners. Even as we are being made to buy into this claim, farmers who bear the brunt of the attacks are not under any illusion as to the identity and promptings of those who attack and despoil their communities.

    At other times, attempts have been made to present these attacks in the mould of communal clashes. The current IGP toed this perilous line when he described the killings in Benue as a consequence of communal clashes. He was later to tender apology when put to task to furnish the details of the communities involved in the conflagration.

    What should be of relevance is not whether the killers are foreign herdsmen or their local counterparts since they share cultural, linguistic and tribal affinities. Of essence is the therapeutic effectiveness of measures taken by the government to tame the scourge. And each time this excuse is proffered, the impression one gets is that the leadership of this country is rationalizing its failure to maintain law and order. Perhaps, that is why the scourge has festered.

    The same foreboding rationalization was again at play when President Buhari met the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby in London. The president told the archbishop that clashes between herdsmen and farmers “are now made worse by the influx of armed gunmen from the Sahel region into different parts of West Africa. These gunmen were trained and armed by Muammar Gaddafi of Libya”.

    He said when Gaddafi was killed, the gunmen escaped with their arms and crossed to Nigeria. According to him, the problem has nothing to do with religion but sociological and economic even as he blamed “irresponsible politics” for the lingering crisis.

    The quantum of security information at the disposal of the president cannot be underestimated. When he said clashes between herdsmen and farmers are made worse by the influx of gunmen from the Sahel region especially those fleeing from the crisis in Libya, he may have his facts. But, that is the much we can possibly admit on this matter. Any attempt to stretch the argument further, is bound to run into irreconcilable contradictions.

    There is the undertone that our inability to get a handle to the killings is because of the influx of gunmen armed by Gaddafi. The first problem with this is that we are dragging the name of a man killed some seven years ago into our domestic politics. That is not fair at all to his family. Even if some gunmen were found to have infiltrated our shores, we shall still be hard put to prove they were actually armed by Gaddafi.

    Nigeria does not share any border with Libya. Before any bandit from Libya could cross over to this country, he would have passed through some of our neighbouring countries and other Nigerian states with no record of such clashes. That makes it difficult to fathom if the purported gunmen are really from Libya or some other neighbouring countries that share common affinity in the cattle rearing business.

    Even if we admit the possibility of some bandits fleeing Libya with their guns into the country, why have such guns remained very active years after they left that country? Why has their gun power not dried up since? Or what has been the source of the replenishment of their arms and ammunitions? And why have they found comfort operating only in those states where clashes between Fulani herdsmen and farmers are recurrent?

    Curiously, some of these states hardly share boundaries with our foreign neighbours. Why they chose to operate in those states Fulani herdsmen are in constant clashes with local farmers needs elucidation. And what could be their motivation and reward in the fight if they were not hired by Fulani herdsmen?

    These posers underscore most poignantly that the attempt to blame the so-called Gaddafi trained gunmen for the escalation of the herdsmen/ farmers clashes cannot fly. Not with the account of the conflict in public space. Not with all we know about the immediate and remote causes of the clashes.

    That Buhari chose this angle as a plausible explanation for the festering crisis is at the root of the inability of his government to find a handle to the killings. Yet, the same president had appealed to the Benue people when they visited him to accommodate their fellow citizens. His minister of defence had also attributed the clashes to the enactment of the anti-open grazing laws by some governments and the blocking of grazing routes. Where do we now factor in the so-called Gaddafi-trained gunmen within this matrix?

    It will be difficult to find permanent solutions to the clashes as long as we fail to come to terms with the realities of the conflict. For, it is commonplace in medical parlance that a proper diagnosis of an ailment is half way to its cure. The president said the problem is not religious but sociological and economic. It is also cultural and ethnic. As the president was busy rationalizing the causes of the conflict, Suleiman Adokwe representing Nasarawa South Senatorial district was lamenting what he termed, ethnic cleansing of the Tiv-speaking people in the continuing crisis that left over 50 people killed with thousands displaced in that state.

    The killings have also continued in Benue and Taraba states in spite of the efforts of the military exercise tagged Operation Cat Race. Perhaps, what is to be gained from the disclosure by the president on the role of gunmen from Libya in the continuing crisis is the international dimension the matter has assumed. Perhaps also, Buhari was only drawing attention to the increasing difficulty in containing the herdsmen and the need for foreign assistance as mooted in some quarters.

    But if there are elements of the Gaddafi trained gunmen in the fight; if the escalation is due to their presence, they are there at the behest of their employers – the herdsmen. Perhaps, that is why they operate with near invincibility. The blame should therefore be rightly placed at the shoulders of the Fulani herdsmen who have need for the services of soldiers of fortune. The touted role of Gaddafi trained gunmen pales into insignificance in the face of extant rating of Fulani herdsmen as the fourth deadliest terrorist group by Global Terrorism Index coming after Boko Haram, ISIS and Al-Shabab.

    It is of little help deluding ourselves with tepid excuses for the festering crisis many years after lives of innocent people have been snuffed out in the most dastardly manner by the rampaging herdsmen. Whether the killers are rag-tag army of the defunct Gaddafi regime or a home grown insurgent group with an agenda, the government must rise to the challenge of maintaining law and order or share culpability for the interminable killings.

  • ‘Herdsmen killings could jeopardise agric gains’

    The Companion, an Association of Muslim Men in Business and Professions, has urged the Federal Government to urgently bring the carnage perpetrated by herdsmen to an end.

    The group warned that the huge gains that have been reported in food production nationwide will be jeopardised if urgent steps are not taken to arrest the situation and enduring solution put in place.

    Its National Amir (President) Alhaji Thabit Adewale Sonaike told Vice president Prof Yemi Osinbajo during a visit to the latter in Abuja.

    “Of particular concern is the herdsmen and farmers clashes that have been widely reported in different parts of the country. The wanton killing and destruction of lives and property is worrisome and calls for an urgent solution,” he said.

    The Companion described the proposed establishment of cattle ranches or gracing reserves as right steps to take towards finding a lasting solution.

    This, Sonaike said, will eliminate cattle rustling, engender peace, create jobs and generate income for all stakeholders including the government at all levels.

    He said: “Our take is that government should take the lead in the establishment of ranches, provide generous incentives that will make the establishment of more ranches attractive to businessmen and educate and encourage the cattle owners to embrace the option of modern cattle rearing as against the current practise of open gracing. We must find a way to turn the situation into huge economic opportunities for the people.

    “Still on agriculture and food security, we commend the government for the twin achievement of increased food production in the country and the drastic reduction in food import bill. However, our concern is sustainability devoid of politics and sentiments. The government must put in place a mechanism to sustain the current agricultural production through local technology and adequate incentives. To this end, we call on the government to invest massively in the development of human capital and local technology…

    “The ultimate goal in agriculture should be to attain digital agriculture whose outcomes include more productive, profitable, and sustainable systems for food security.  It must be stated however that the focus on agricultural production should be complemented with similar attention to storage, the establishment of more agro-allied industries and exportation of food products.”

    Prof Osinbajo thanked the association for coming, saying he is looking forward to constructive engagement with them as Muslim professionals in supporting government with good ideas.

    Government, he said, has improved a lot in agriculture as “we now depend largely on local rice production which has reduced import by about 90 percent. We are looking at improved capacity at the refineries and reduce dependency on importation of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS). Government is determined to do a lot particularly at improving our standard of education particularly vocational education and tertiary institutions and infrastructure. We cannot rest until social infrastructure is improved and election promises are met.”

  • Herdsmen killings: Government speaks from both sides of the mouth

    ON Wednesday, while receiving  the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, in London, President Muhammadu Buhari strangely decided this time to blame the influx of Libyan gunmen into Nigeria for the unending killings many thought were perpetrated by herdsmen. He did not indicate that he had a rethinking of the subject, nor did he struggle to convince anyone that his previous thesis on the killings, and those of his security aides, do not brazenly and disturbingly war against his present convictions. After the august visit, no one, not any of the president’s aides, has argued that he was misquoted. Here is how he apportioned the blame for the killings when the archbishop raised the issue of herdsmen/farmers clashes with him: “The problem is even older than us. It has always been there, but now made worse by the influx of gunmen from the Sahel region into different parts of the West African sub-region. They were trained and armed by Muammar Gadaffi of Libya. When he was killed, the gunmen escaped with their arms. We encountered some of them fighting with Boko Haram. Herdsmen that we used to know carried only sticks and maybe a cutlass to clear the way, but these ones now carry sophisticated weapons. The problem is not religious, but sociological and economic. But we are working on solutions.”

    The President then went on to suggest that “irresponsible politics” had been infused into the farmers/herders’ crisis, without indicating that had the clashes not occurred, and seemed to have defied all solutions,  no one would have politicised the mater. Indeed, it is hard for the president to substantiate his allegation of politicisation, as the opinions of his security chiefs in the past few months will show presently. Worse, it is even harder for him to link what he described as the “sociological and economic” underpinnings of the clashes to his present thesis of Libyan gunmen influx. After all, that the so-called Libyan gunmen were encountered in the Boko Haram insurgency does not in any way imply they were behind, or were involved, in the herdsmen killings. The gunmen, assuming they were of a significant number, were nothing but mercenaries during the insurgency, just as the Goodluck Jonathan government also hired mercenaries from South Africa to fight Boko Haram.

    It is indeed becoming increasingly clear that the herdsmen killings have defied an answer because the Buhari presidency has been curiously unable to accurately decipher and explain the problem. Not only does the president give the impression he is finding it difficult to delink himself emotionally from the subject, he has also apparently not been able to assemble dispassionate and hard thinking security chiefs and advisers able to afford him deep and sensible analysis of a crisis that is threatening to completely undermine his presidency.

    It is also clear that the president has since his assumption of office vacillated between describing the killer herdsmen as foreigners and describing them as domestic troublemakers and militiamen. He is not helped by the initial impression angrily communicated by the Sultan of Sokoto, Sa’ad Abubakar III, who during his 2016 Eid-el-Kabir message, argued against stereotyping Fulani herdsmen, most of whom he said were peace-loving and law-abiding. He had said: “All those so-called Fulani herdsmen, moving with guns, causing violence, fighting with farmers, are not Nigerians. These are foreigners coming into Nigeria to cause a breach of the peace of the nation. They are therefore terrorists and should be treated as such by the Nigerian security agencies.” It is apparently to this 2016 message of the Sultan that the president has finally returned last Wednesday in London. Meanwhile, the Sultan as well as Nigeria’s top security leaders have since moved on from this misleading perspective, not to say the president himself who in January this year described the herdsmen as fellow Nigerians.

    Here is what the president said on January 15, when Benue leaders and the state governor sought an audience with him over the killings: “Your Excellency, the governor, and all the leaders here, I am appealing to you to try to restrain your (Benue farmers) people. I assure you that the police, the Department of State Service (DSS) and other security agencies have been directed to ensure that all those behind the mayhem get punished. I ask you in the name of God to accommodate your countrymen. You can also be assured that I am just as worried and concerned with the situation.”If they were Libyan gunmen, it would be hard to justify the president asking for accommodation instead of military engagement, not to talk of looking for reasons both to justify the government’s pusillanimous approach to foreign invasion and misleading perspective, not to say the president himself who in January this year described the herdsmen as fellow Nigerians.

    Here is what the president said on January 15, when Benue leaders and the state governor sought an audience with him over the killings: “Your Excellency, the governor, and all the leaders here, I am appealing to you to try to restrain your (Benue farmers) people. I assure you that the police, the Department of State Service (DSS) and other security agencies have been directed to ensure that all those behind the mayhem get punished. I ask you in the name of God to accommodate your countrymen. You can also be assured that I am just as worried and concerned with the situation.”If they were Libyan gunmen, it would be hard to justify the president asking for accommodation instead of military engagement, not to talk of looking for reasons both to justify the government’s pusillanimous approach to foreign invasion and to explain why Libyan gunmen would leapfrog over borders and come right smack into the middle of Nigeria to levy war.

    It is even much worse that there seems to be no coordination at all between the president and his security chiefs. If last Wednesday the president could blame Libyan gunmen and not the local herdsmen for the attacks and killings, how does he explain the statement by his top police officer, the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Ibrahim Idris, who on January 5, a few days after the New Year’s Day massacre in Benue suggested that the crisis was communal, as if that justified the lack of capacity, indolence and poor expertise demonstrated by the law enforcement agencies. Shortly after meeting the president on the Benue crisis and other security problems, Mr Idris had told the press that, “Obviously it is a communal crisis, for herdsmen are part of the community. They are Nigerians and are part of the community; are they not?” Then,  continuing, he had shocked reporters by saying, “Let’s use the example of Benue, you know most of these states where you have several languages, you know it is an issue of communal misunderstanding. I think what we should be praying for is for Nigerians to learn to live in peace with one another, I think it is very important.” Two disturbing facts come out of the IGP’s conclusions. First is his rhetorical question about the nationality of the attackers, whom he described as a part of the community. And second is the feeling of helplessness and hopelessness which he exhibited before the public when he asked them to pray for peaceful co-existence.

    But if the IGP prevaricated very badly, the perspective of the Defence minister, Mansur Dan Ali, was even more flabbergasting. Speaking with reporters on January 25, more than three weeks after the Benue massacre, and shortly after he joined other security chiefs to meet with the president on the crisis, he rationalised the herdsmen killings in the following befuddling manner: “Whatever crisis that happened at any time, there has to be remote and immediate causes. What are the remote causes of this farmers/herders crisis? Since Independence, we know there used to be a route whereby these cattle rearers use. Cattle rearers are all over the nation, you go to Bayelsa, you see them, you go to Ogun, you see them. If those routes are blocked, what happens? These people are Nigerians, it’s just like you going to block river or shoreline, does that make sense to you? These are the remote causes. But what are the immediate causes? It is the grazing law. These people are Nigerians, we must learn to live together with each other, that is basic. Communities and other people must learn how to accept foreigners within their enclave, finish!”

    First is the fact that the Defence minister in company with other security chiefs just came out of a meeting with the president in which apparently the terrifying issue of the clashes were presumably discussed. Second,  the minister twice described the attackers as Nigerians, perhaps to emphasise the Nigerianness of the herdsmen whom many were beginning to say should be forced out of the country for bringing so much trouble. And third is the simple and unambiguous fact that he attributed the clashes partly to the passing of anti-open grazing laws by Benue State and others, without saying why Ekiti State, which was the first to pass a law on the matter, had not witnessed the scale of barbarity experienced by Benue and others. Indeed, the IGP, after first recanting and apologising  for describing the clashes as communal in origin, was to later identify with the Defence minister’s explanations. Said Mr Idris on February 28, shortly after honouring an invitation by the House of Representatives: “It will do us good if we avoid the hasty formulation and implementation of such laws (anti-open grazing laws) across the country in the interest of peace and unity.”

    Perhaps the president did not anticipate a question on the herdsmen/farmers clashes and the horrendous bloodletting that has accompanied it. But even if he did not anticipate such a question, had his security team looked at the problem dispassionately and approached the crisis as patriots in whose hands the levers of power have been deposited in trust, they would have since come out with a sensible and practical understanding of the problem, and devised workable solutions. But as his London outing suggested, and in particular his response to Archbishop Welby’s question on the herdsmen crisis, it is profoundly disturbing that the government simply does not appear at all to have an understanding of the nature and course of the crisis. With no understanding in sight, there does not seem to be any prospect of a lasting solution. In an election year, the people must be poised to force the president to address the issue to the country’s satisfaction. But much more critically, in the same election year, the Buhari presidency must be quite apprehensive that this issue, particularly the chaos in the presidency’s approach to the cancer, could very well complicate the president’s re-election chances.

  • Danjuma: Military colluding in herdsmen killings

    •Alleges ethnic cleansing
    •Says ‘we must resist it, we must stop it’

    FRom an unlikely source yesterday came a massive indictment of the military for allegedly aiding killer herdsmen in the country.

    Former Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant General Yakubu Danjuma (rtd) said the armed forces “are not neutral” in the intermittent attacks on innocent Nigerians by “armed bandits.”

    “The armed forces are not neutral. They collude; they collude; they collude with the armed bandits that kill people and kill Nigerians. They facilitate their movement. They cover them,” Danjuma, an ex-defence minister said yesterday in a rare outburst.

    He spoke at the maiden convocation and 10-year anniversary celebration of the Taraba State University (TSU), Jalingo.

    He is from Taraba, which along with Benue and Adamawa, have borne the brunt of the herdsmen attacks.

    Danjuma, a one-time minister of defence, described what is happening in Taraba and other states as ethnic cleansing and warned that it must stop, “otherwise Somalia would be a child’s play.”

    Responding to remarks by the university’s vice chancellor, Prof Suleiman Bagoro, moments after an honorary degree was conferred on him, the former chief of army staff said: “I wish I was asked to donate something more relevant to the university than a sports complex I was asked to. I would have loved to donate artificial intelligence to the university.

    “But being as it is, I will make my own pledge. I pledge to donate the sum of N100 million.

    “The orator referred to me as a politician. This is one profession I do not belong to, and I have no desire being a politician.  Because, if I were a politician, I would not be saying what I am going to say to you all now.

    “When I arrived here, I watched the cultural display by the theatre and cultural department. It was fascinating to see the rich diversity of cultural heritage.

    “Taraba State is a mini Nigeria where we have many ethnic groups living together peacefully.

    “But the peace in this State is under assault. There is an attempt at ethnic cleansing in this State, and of course all the riverine states of Nigeria.

    “We must resist it. We must stop it. Every one of us must rise up. The armed forces are not neutral. They collude; they collude; they collude with the armed bandits that kill people and kill Nigerians. They facilitate their movement. They cover them.

    “If you are depending on the armed forces to stop the killings, you will all die one by one.

    “This ethnic cleansing must stop in Taraba State. It must stop in all the states of Nigeria. Otherwise Somalia would be a child’s play.

    “I ask every one of you Nigerians, to be alert to defend your country; defend your territories, because you have nowhere to go.

    “Thousands have been displaced from their homes which have been destroyed. Many, injured, are still hospitalised. Farmlands have been lost. Hunger is looming.

    “God bless our country.”

    Danjuma’s indictment of the military came on the heels of a similar allegation by Amnesty International (AI).

    The international human rights watchdog, in a January 29, 2018 statement, said little or nothing was being done to curb the mayhem by the herders.

    The statement signed by its country director, Osai Ojigho, said: “The Nigerian authorities’ response to communal violence is totally inadequate, too slow and ineffective, and in some cases unlawful. “Clashes between herdsmen and farmers in Adamawa, Benue, Taraba, Ondo and Kaduna have resulted in 168 deaths in January 2018 alone.

    “Hundreds of people lost their lives last year, and the government is still not doing enough to protect communities from these violent clashes.

    “Worse, the killers are getting away with murder. In 2017, clashes between nomadic herdsmen and local farmers resulted in at least 549 deaths and thousands displaced across Enugu, Benue, Taraba, Zamfara, Kaduna, Plateau, Nasarawa, Niger, Plateau, Cross Rivers, Adamawa, Katsina, Delta and Ekiti states.”