Last week the peace deal between the warring Agatu people of Benue and the Fulani herdsmen midwifed by Governor Samuel Ortom of Benue and his Nasarawa State counterpart, Umaru Tanko Al-Makura to rebuild confidence after what the former described as “ the massive and unprecedented destruction of Agatu and killings by herdsmen”, and the latter as “the culture of impunity where a group of individuals entered other people’s land and began to kill them or attack others and their cattle” crumbled no sooner it was publicly proclaimed by the peace makers. The highlights of the collapsed peace deal designed to end five decades of reprisal massacre of cows and human beings include the call for “forgiveness by the victims while keeping silent on the need for genuine contrition; a creation of dedicated grazing route along Oguto Adanyi – Ogumagbo- Bagana communities for the movement of cattle by indigenous Fulani herdsmen’; a proposal by the peace makers to make representation to the Federal Government, donor agencies, development partners, voluntary organizations and philanthropists to assist victims of the crisis in the affected communities of Benue and Nassarawa states and contribution of the sum of N30m by the two peacemakers which would be used to provide building materials for the ravaged Agatu Communities”.
I sympathise with both governors. It was obvious from their body language they were trying to walk the tight rope instead of striking the nail on the head (apology to Alhaji Ishmael Jose). These are governors who under a freely negotiated federal arrangement are expected to be independent and equal with the centre but who in reality exist at the behest of a dysfunctional centre that runs a multi-ethnic society without residual powers for the federating units. The result is that the federating units that depend on the centre for payment of salaries of local council workers, primary school teachers, and protection of life and properties which is the major reason they exist as states, cannot publicly admit the problem of our nation is the tyranny of the government at the centre.
Thus, instead of Al Makura talking truth to the Fulani hegemonic power whose members arm herdsmen with sophisticated weapons, he spoke from both sides of the mouth without making a distinction between the victims and aggressors. Of course, Ortorn like his fellow new generation of Middle Belt politicians like Gabriel Suswam, Joshua Dariye and Jonah Jang appealed to his compatriots to allow God fight their battle while reminding them that the only safeguard for peace and development is forgiveness as if there can be peace without justice. The Middle Belt military politicians are not different. Their genius only find expression in planning coups (military and civilian) or threatening to shoot MKO Abiola if his mandate was allowed to stand. None of the grovelling military Generals-turned-politicians have been able to tell truth to the Fulani hegemonic power, in the manner of the inimitable Joseph Tarka who suffered deprivations from the dominant northern establishment over his demand for self-actualization for his people within the context of Nigerian politics in the pre- and post-independence years.
Of course, vengeance as Governor Ortorn has said, belongs to God. Of course, the indigenous Fulani born in the land who have no other place to call home and identify with the aspirations of their host communities should be supported by the community to make a living like the rest of the people. But peace as end of justice can only be achieved by listening and coming to the aid of those whose source of subsistence living has been destroyed. Compensating those whose cattle were massacred and above all, bringing those who engaged in mindless killing of innocent men, women and children to justice.
Our crisis of nationhood as this column has consistently maintained, is the resistance to restructuring to make our federal arrangement work by the groups that seem to derive temporary benefit from the current unwieldy and unviable 36 states and 774 LGAs. This is why some federal lawmakers with false sense of self-worth will declare during a grazing bill debate that herdsmen have the right to graze their cattle anywhere in the country by virtue of the constitution. The question that follows is which constitution? The current constitution as many informed Nigerians have concluded is a military document designed to keep the military that has directly or indirectly been in power since 1966 relevant in our national affairs? The document gave an edge to the North because the military leadership was dominated within this period (1967 and 1999) by military officers of northern extraction. Obasanjo, the only influential exception owes allegiance to the North that tolerated him as Head of State following the assassination of Murtala Mohammed in 1976. (Brigadier Babafemi Ogundipe who as the most senior surviving military officer, was rejected as Head of State by the North in 1966). The result of this is the emergence of a new generation of northern politicians who despite lacking the vision and mission of the late revered Ahmadu Bello who once referred the restive Middle Belt region shortly after independence as extension of his great grandfather’s fiefdom, have with this false sense of entitlement continued to resist restructuring of the country to free federating units from the tyranny of a dysfunctional federal centre.
It is but a dysfunctional centre that will choose to waste resources it does not generate on grazing zones over state lands it does not control when it has the options of either establishing or empowering private concerns to establish commercial ranches as obtains elsewhere in the world. And precisely because the centre has been busy playing politics with resources it does not generate instead of providing leadership, few of the unwieldy 36 states have exhibited the type of resourcefulness associated with pre and post-independence regional leaders,
Why for instance can’t the government of Benue, Nasarawa and some other states in the north jointly set up or empower the wealthy Fulani farmers to set up commercial ranches that can provide employment for thousands of unemployed northern youths? Why can’t a Governor Ayo Fayose, currently obsessed with building bridges over land and an airport take a break from chasing errant cows around farms to rehabilitate the dairy farm established by Adekunle Ajasin during the Second Republic in order to take advantage of South-west’s huge market where 10,000 cows are consumed daily?
And finally for the patrons of Fulani herdsmen in the National Assembly who want to live in the 19th century with their thesis of fear about desertification forcing Fulani herdsmen to overrun the southern states in desperate search for grazing field if the passage of the grazing bill failed, let me call their attention to the miracle of Botswana. Here is a country of two million people, the size of France with 70% of the land covered by Kalahari desert but exports more meat to the world than the combined efforts of other African countries. Cattle are the mainstay of Botswana economy which depends on deep-bore-hole water for 95% of her human and animal water need. Botswana was one of the poorest nations in the world with per capita income of about $70 at independence in 1964 but today one of the fastest growing economies in Africa with per capita of about $18,825.
