The Nation Newspaper

Tag: herdsmen

  • Herdsmen attacks: Agatu indigenes threaten to defend selves

    We may take up arms to defend ourselves from the continuous attacks of Fulani herdsmen, indigenes of Agatu community in Benue State said yesterday.

    Leader of One Idoma Initiative, Mr. Paul Edeh, who addressed reporters yesterday in Abuja at a Peace Concert organised to raise funds for Agatu indigenes, said though indigenes of the community had started raising funds to rebuild their area, they would not continue to wait for the government to protect them.

    His words: “It is no longer breaking news that Fulani herdsmen attacked our people and over 2,000 houses were destroyed. We have gathered here today to advocate for peace for our people and also raise funds for the rebuilding of Agatu.

    “We are talking about peace in Idoma Land and Agatu is an Idoma community. We are saying enough is enough of these attacks on the Idoma people; we want the government to know that if you are pushed to the wall, there is this resistant spirit within every man. If the government cannot come to our aid, we might not have the luxury to wait. The government should do the needful so that our people are not forced to defend themselves.

    “If we are forced to defend ourselves, it might lead to the proliferation of firearms, which is what we don’t want. And if it gets to that, government will even spend more to disarm citizens. So we are saying let there be peace and the government has a role to play in ensuring this.”

    Edeh, however, said there had been relative peace in Agatu after an accord was signed, urging the Fulani herdsmen to leave the community.

    “A communique was issued and the first two items urged the Fulani herdsmen to carry their people and leave Agatu and they truly left.

    “Within three days after that communiqué was signed, the herders left Agatu and till date, I can confirm to you that though we have some Fulanis coming in at times, they have left the community in the last two or three months the communiqué was signed.”

  • Police: it’s criminal for herdsmen to carry unlicensed arms

    Police: it’s criminal for herdsmen to carry unlicensed arms

    Rivers State Police Commissioner Musa Kimo has said herdsmen have no business carrying AK-47 rifles, unless such are licensed by appropriate authorities.

    The police chief described those carrying unlicensed rifles and other firearms as criminals.

    Kimo spoke yesterday in Port Harcourt, the state capital, at a stakeholders’ meeting on how to resolve the face-off between farmers and herdsmen in Rivers communities.

    The meeting was in compliance with the directive of the Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Solomon Arase, that police commissioners should get support from the public to end the frequent clashes between Fulani herdsmen and famers.

    Kimo said herdsmen were supposed to give attention to their cows, adding that they should not bear arms.

    He said: “Let us know that herdsmen and other criminals, who carry arms, are nothing but criminals. So, we are aware that there are some herdsmen who carry AK-47 rifles.

    “I cannot confirm arresting any, but it is possible they were arrested by some other commands. Certainly, it is unlawful for herdsmen to carry AK-47; anyone caught would be arrested.”

    Kimo also said it was wrong for anybody to embark on a reprisal against herdsmen or any other suspect across the state.

    According to him, it is better to report security breaches to security agencies than to seek revenge.

    Kimo urged farmers not to engage herdsmen in a fight to avoid worsening the security situation.

    The police chief described the recent development in the country as disturbing and saddening.

    He said: “There are issues of herdsmen and farmers’ skirmishes. They are more prevalent in the North Central; the Southsouth and Southwest are not left out. This is not comfortable; this is disturbing and this is saddening.

    “We are all aware that there was this skirmish between herdsmen and farmers in Enugu State, where property, including homes and lives were lost. This is not acceptable.”

    Head of herdsmen in Rivers State, Alhaji Usman Mohammed, denied the allegations against his members. He said he and his men were not troublemakers but gentlemen who were in the state to make legitimate living.

     

  • Herdsmen, fuel price hike, Biafra and worst angst ever

    Herdsmen, fuel price hike, Biafra and worst angst ever

    AFTER few public officials, especially the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Solomon Arase, had suggested that the herdsmen troubling Nigeria were of foreign origin, President Muhammadu Buhari has in far away London finally succinctly addressed the matter. The herdsmen are indeed foreigners, he said, and those responsible for pillaging communities would not go unpunished. No one complains any longer that the president addresses salient national issues during his foreign trips. Perhaps the ambience is responsible. Neither Mr Arase, who has vigorously defended the thesis, nor the president, who has just latched on to the strange idea, has presented incontrovertible proofs showing how foreign attackers could penetrate Nigeria so deeply with foreign cattle unchallenged, knew the terrain so well, and had such lasting disagreements with many local communities that their famed ‘long memory’ prompted them to unimaginable bestiality.

    This sad and inconsistent thesis is compounded by the president’s intriguing response in Katsina to the issue of herdsmen trouble and agitation for Biafra. Speaking at the Emir of Katsina’s palace during his last visit to the state, the president seemed to find a tenuous link between the herdsmen crisis and the Biafra agitation. Said he: “I always say the civil war was fought for the unity of Nigeria because then we hadn’t even discovered oil, let alone enjoy it. But two million people were killed. The way the Sahara is advancing, with Boko Haram, growing number of people, and uncertainty over rainfall, in a land where we fought civil war leading to the death of about two million, for someone to just say he will chase us out? So where do we go?” It is not clear whether the president was misquoted. If he was not, he should like to clarify who the ‘us’ are that Biafra agitators want to chase out. Was it the rest of Nigeria? That would be untenable. Was it herdsmen or people living in the Sahelian belt? It was no doubt a curious and worrisome statement to make.

    So far, the herdsmen problem has assumed terrifying dimension only because government officials have demonstrated incompetence or conflict of interest. They claim the herdsmen are foreigners, and attribute their arms to the crises in Mali and Libya. Yet, leaders of cattle rearers associations in parts of Nigeria have owned up to fomenting reprisal attacks on the grounds that local populations and angry farmers provoked them. This was clearly the case in Agatu Local Government Area of Benue State where herdsmen recently sacked many farming communities. What is also clear from the statements of the herdsmen is that the Fulani think like a transnational people operating like musketeers. An attack against one is an attack against all. They may come to one another’s aid; but it does not absolve local herdsmen of blame and responsibility. It is reckless and preposterous for any Nigerian official to make claims that even local herdsmen find ludicrous and specious.

    AS if the trouble from herdsmen is not enough, it is mystifying that the president is inexpertly handling the Biafra problem as well. Regardless of this column’s opinion of Biafra, he has repeatedly counselled that Biafra is an idea that cannot be crushed because of its location in the minds of its adherents. To tackle it would require much more than diatribe, threats and federal might. If Biafra military campaign were to be triggered today, its militants are unlikely to engage in open and direct confrontation. Its proponents would embark on the Iraqi, Afghanistan and guerilla-type of campaigns. It would be a cruel and unwinnable war. Is that the road Nigerian leaders want to impulsively travel? The problem is that there was no closure to the civil war. No amount of blackmail to the Igbo young who were not born before the war will eradicate the idea of Biafra until the country restructures and finds a closure to the recurring nightmare.

    And just as the whole country had transformed into a seething cauldron of troubles, the government caps the crises with a hike in fuel price from N86.50/l to N145/l. They’ll probably get away with it, and the unions, which are angling for negotiations, will have an ineffectual response. The economic imperatives on the ground do not favour the sustenance of former price regimes and paradigms. But what if the naira further plunges in value and crude oil prices begin to rise strongly? Can anyone guarantee there would be no further rise in prices of fuel and other goods? No one trusts the government to embark on a scientific and systematic response to the expected pauperisation of the people, whether the response comes in terms of palliatives or in terms of organised economic measures to shore up wages and employment. There is no history of that kind of salutary response in these parts. And it is not clear whether this government, which is groaning under old and retrogressive political and economic paradigms, can unleash the creative potential within all Nigerians.

    Nigeria is facing its worst moment of angst since the civil war. The problems are multifarious and spreading, but the language of the federal government is disturbingly full of threats and violence, making it hard for them to summon the honesty, ingenuity and realism needed to successfully tackle a problem poised to get worse in the coming months and years.

  • Anambra celebrates peace with herdsmen

    Anambra celebrates peace with herdsmen

    Elsewhere, relations between Fulani cattle herders and local communities may not be at their best following suspected herdsmen’s attacks, but in Anambra State, there is peace. NWANOSIKE ONU tells why

    While many states are still smarting from their encounters with suspected Fulani herdsmen, Anambra is happy being left alone by the herders. At Nimbo, an agrarian community in Uzo-Uwani Local Government Area of Enugu State, suspected cattle herders reportedly killed scores of residents less than three weeks ago, but in Anambra State there are no such worries, the state said.

    An aide to Governor Willie Obiano, Hon. Tony Collins Nwabunwanne explained the state’s celebratory tone, saying it is at peace with the Fulani community in the state.

    Speaking with The Nation in Awka, the state capital, Nwabunwanne, who is the governor’s Senior Special Assistant on Political Matters, said herdsmen will not attack any Anambra community because of the cordial relationship between the state and the Fulani community.

    Nwabunwanne was quick to credit Governor Obiano with the peace.

    He said Anambra would have been the first place for such attacks based on the boundaries shared with such neighbours as Enugu and Kogi states, where herders have clashed with the local communities, but for Obiano’s vision and some measures he took.

    What were those measures?

    Nwabunwanne said, first, the state government set up a tripartite committee involving security operatives, host communities and Fulani leadership.

    That committee is headed by the state commissioner of police, Mr. Hosea Karma.

    Also on the committee are  Department of State Service (DSS), the military and Civil Defence, among others.

    Furthermore, Obiano, according to him, came up with the idea of paying compensation to herdsmen or host communities depending on who was at fault.

    “And because of these strategies, Anambra has been at peace with the herdsmen, the governor is the man who saw tomorrow, the issue of herdsmen does not exist in the state.”

    He called on other Southeast and Northern governors to emulate Obiano to forestall further herdsmen’s attacks in the country.

    Since the killings of the Nimbo people in Uzo-Uwani Enugu State on April 25, there had been outrage in all the communities in the zone.

    As a result, Movement for the Actualisation of Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) had entered into consultations with other Igbo groups in the zone according to the leader of the movement, Comrade Uchenna Madu.

    The Nation gathered that other militia groups like the Bakassi Boys have also mobilised to ward off any further attacks by the Fulani herdsmen on their people.

     

  • Fulani herdsmen: Between cow meat and rabbit meat

    Is cow meat good for human health? Are snail and rabbit not better sources of animal protein? And can they not replace cow meat in our diet? These and other similar questions have filled my thoughts since nomadic Fulani herdsmen became a new serious factor in Nigeria’s political turbulence a few month ago. Man began earthy life as a nomad millennia ago. But in many parts of the world today, Nigeria inclusive, most men live in settled communities, in many cases peacefully under a social contract known as the LAW. But there still are nomadic people. Some Fulani are settled, others nomadic. The nomadic Fulani are shepherds and cow rearers.

    In Nigeria, they walk their cows over thousands of kilometres, grazing them on greens and herbs in the bush and on crops in farmland they fall upon. When the owners of these farms challenge them, the Fulani open fire from AK47 assault rifle, killing and maiming. They have killed thousands of agatu farmers this way in the middle Belt region of Nigeria. Last month, they killed more than 40 people in their sleep at night in some villages in Enugu State. They claimed some farmers in these villages assaulted or killed herdsmen and cattle which grazed on their farms. So, the nomadic shepherds mobilised reinforcement to avenge their loses. To rub salt on injury, as we say in Nigeria, the presidency may have masterminded the bill in the national assembly under which governors of the states would be forced to reserve land in their states for the exclusive grazing of Fulani cattle, or, if they do not, the Federal Government can make compulsory acquisition for these purposes.

    This has led many Government watchers to wonder anew if the Fulani is, indeed, a special race in Nigeria “Born to Rule”, as many of them say they are. Many media writers have reminded the nation that the Fulani sneaked in on the Hausa states, overthrew their governments, imposed Fulani religion, Islam and sought to expand territorially south worlds, in particular into Oyo Empire. They were halted at Oshogbo. But the army general, Afonja, the Alaafin of Oyo, supreme commander of Oyo forces, sent to Ilorin to defend the northern boundary, connived with Alimi, leader of the Fulani, to seed Ilorin from Oyo Empire. He succeeded only to be consumed soon afterwards by Fulani forces. Today, a Fulani Emir, not a Yoruba Oba, presides in the royal court of Ilorin. It is not surprising, therefore, that many southern Nigerians see the attempt to set up Fulani cattle ranches in southern states as a modern move by the Fulani to conquer the south politically.

    This bid has failed through political party machines such as the Northern People’s Congress (NPC), Nigeria’s National Alliance (NNA), and National Party of Nigeria (NPN) and lately the People’s Democratic Party (PDP). As one government critic has pointed out, the proposed Fulani cattle ranches may grow in two or three generation of their families to formidable military bases from which a Boko Haram-type military/political conquest of the unsuspecting south of Nigeria will be launched.

     

    BUHARI’S ROLE?

    any people suspect president MuhammadBuhari, a Fulani, is pursuing a Fulani agenda, from the way he has handed Fulani herdsmen aggression so far. If this is true, it is capable of overthrowing his Change agenda which, on the surface, is guided to be a fight against corruption in the Nigerian system which would make the country more efficient. South western love efficient government, and fell for this trap, say Buhari’s critics. If the agenda turn out to be a mere fluke for some other initiative, it should take no time for him to learn that the billions of naira recovered from individual public thieves every day cannot compare with the life of a southern Nigerian killed by Fulani herdsmen because he would not permit that his property be stolen by armed robbers. For armed robbers, and nothing else under the law, are what Ak-47 wielding Fulani herdsmen are when they forcibly break into a farmland or a suppress resistance to a break-in with the force of guns.

    President Buhari’s guild, according to many people, is that he kept mute while his kinsmen were rampaging other people’s farms, and even sought to extract land for them from the state governments, as a way of stopping the carnage. Thus, Buhari is seen as fighting corruption and thieving public officials and private business men on one hand and, on the other, condoning the same actions among his kith and kindred. The much he has done in public, and that was after the governors of Igbo states took the fight of their people to him, was to ask the Inspector-General of Police to fish out the hoodlums. Did the Inspector-General have to be told by the president before he would know that was the job for which the public pays his salary and takes care of him and his family? Did the Government of Enugu State not appeal to the Commissioner of Police in the State for help before the carnage occurred in which 40 people were murdered callously in deep sleep at night and 300 were critically injured?.

    Was it not worth the while of the Inspector General to visit the affected villages? Was the inefficient commissioner of police compensated with his deployment to another state, rather than sacked for the loss of lives and disturbances of public peace which he was meant to protect? Was his deployment a salute for correctly reading the body language of the president and the Inspector – General?.

    BUHARI BLAMELESS?

    Left to me the blames belongs not to Buhari, the Inspector-General, the Police Commissioner or the Bridgade Commander. The trouble lies with southern political leaders. Every President from the south (Obasanjo, Jonathan) loves to maximise Federal power and might, in order to stay in power for as long as is possible. Obasanjo and Jonathan stoutly rejected the idea of the states having their own police forces because they wished to use the Army and the Federal Police exclusively to rig and win elections.

    The south-eastern state, where the Fulani carnage has just occurred, were the loudest in the south in the opposition against state police, simply because Jonathan, their mentor, didn’t want state police the states of the south-west, except, perhaps Ekiti State, were loudest in the demand for their own police forces. At that time, as always, I had learned not to blame other people for any uncomfortable experience I encountered. Rather, I ask myself about how I got into it, extricate myself from the equation and discover that the equation collapses.

    Had the eastern states joined the demand for state police and had their police forces, would they need to go to president Buhari, like chicken beaten by rain, to complain that neither the Nigeria police nor the Army gave their people cover in their hour of need? The Nigeria Police Force (NPF) is for Federal agenda. If the Federal body language backs the Fulani herdsmen right or wrong, so will the NPF and the Army respond. When the debate over state Police Force came up about two years ago, this column suggested that the question be seen only in the light in which Mother Nature would have wanted the security of the human society organised. After all, Nature is our guide and teacher. The human body presents a wonderful example of this guidance and teaching. There are about 100 trillion cells in the average adult human body. These cells are organised into homogenous tissue, organs and systems. Each cell is capable of its own defence. So are the tissue, organ and system. There are, in addition, body-wide defence system. In the human society, this suggests a need for several layers of defence systems as well. If one fails, the next level drops. Many countries adopt this defence scenario. Nigeria is still archaic, leaving every matter of security in Federal hands. Thus although the governor is the chief security officer of his state constitutionally, this is only a borrowed legal role. He is impotent, as the south-eastern governors have discovered. To kill the idea of Police Forces in the 36 States, northern governors sold the idea that they would be abused, citing the examples of Local Government Police abuse by State governments in the First Republic. They even threaten to walk out of the conference which discuss this matter if State Police was approved. This column asked them if the Federal Police at that time wasn’t abused as well. Now, too, hasn’t it shown potential for abused?

    Would it not have been better if the baby had not been thrown out with the bath water? Couldn’t a Police service complaints court of sort have been set up, composed of respectable men and women to hear cases of Police misuse and promptly and judiciously decide such cases? What is happening today reminds me of the three groupings mankind is said to fall into… those who live in the past, those who live in the present and those who live in the future. Those who live in the past do not understand present events. They understand them only when these events have become “past tense” and hits them flat on the face. Such is the case with the need and demand for state Police. The natural people are people who experience on-going events and understand the messages they are bringing to them. So, personally, I do not blame Buhari for the crime his kinsmen are committing all over the country. I blame the lack of State Police Forces for them. Had the governors their own Police commands, they would easily get the herdsmen arrested and arraigned in court for armed robbery, ingress into another man’s property, or for murder. And surely they would be jailed or executed if found guilty under the law. So, to the drawing tables, let us all return. And in the interim, what do we do?

     

    ANOTHER WAY OUT.

    Must we eat cow (red) meat? The Hindus do not, and are alive and healthy. Adherents of the Seventh Day Adventist Mission, like other vegetarians, to be among the earth’s healthiest and longest living people. Many Scientific Studies have shown that eating red meat increases blood cholesterol level, damages the arteries and the heart, raises hormone levels and causes hormonal imbalance, impedes digestion, causes colon cancer and shortens lifespan among many of its’ health hazards. If we can give up red meat on these account, the market for cows in the south of Nigeria will diminish and the nomadic Fulani will return home with all his troubles. He will not ask for a portion of your land for a cattle ranch that someday in the future may create an Zagon – Kataf in your state.

    ALTERNATIVE TO RED MEAT

    We cannot eat fish all the time, otherwise meal times will become boring times. So, fish, oily fish in particular, is suggested only as a part of the mix of alternatives to red meat. Since I began to withdraw from red meat, I have found the good old snail and rabbit meat to be good options. Going by pilot projects at Umudike and Ile-Ife in the 1980s and 1990s, it is possible to produce snail in millions every year. At that time, was involved in a rabbit farming project named FARM NIGERIA, which was the brain child of one gentleman from Edo State whose interest was rabbit farming throughout Nigeria. Brigadier Samuel Ogbemudia (rtd) was our chairman, former President Shehu Shagari, the National Patron. The idea was to set up a pilot project in every Local Government Area in Nigeria. That meant 774 Pilot projects supported by extension workers from agriculture departments in Universities and Polytechnics nearby. If 1,000 rabbits are supplied to one pilot project and one female rabbit produces about 40 offspring every year that means, Nationwide, 3,096,000 or about 31 million rabbits from the foundation stock alone, not to mention their offspring as they mature. If about five projects surface in every Local Government Area that may yield almost 200 million rabbits in one year. In south-western Nigeria where red meat is served at wedding and funeral banquets, rabbits may easily replace red meat. A cow which costs about N150, 000 cannot serve more than 200 guests. At about N2, 000 per mature rabbit in Nigeria, N150, 000 should procure 75 rabbits. A half rabbit on every plate will yield 150 plates served. Imagine a half rabbit on your plate of rice!

    In rise and shine rabbitry.com, we are offered 10 reasons why we should eat rabbit meat. It says:

    It is one of the best white meat available on the market today. The meat has a high percentage of easily digestible protein. It contains the least amount of fat among all the other available meat. Rabbit meat contains less calorie value than other meats. Rabbit meat is also cholesterol free and, therefore, is heart-patients friendly. The sodium content of rabbit meat is comparatively less than other meats. The calcium and phosphorus content of this meat are more than any other meat. The ratio of meat to bone is high, meaning there is more edible meat on the carcas than even the chicken.

    onversely, Jan Ann Igan, in Demand Media, speaks of “Adverse effects of Red Meat”:

    “Red meat can increase your risk for heart disease, cancer and diabetes. Red meat includes fresh beef, pork, lanil, muton and veal as well as processed milk that comes from these animal sources. These foods can add value to your diet as they are rich in protein, iron, vitamin B and Zinc. However, their saturated fats and cholesterol content can adversely affect your health and the manner in which red meat is produced, processed and cooked can also impact your wellbeing.  For these reasons, limiting your intake of this type of meat can improve your overall health and limit your risk of developing disease.

    Animal – based dietary fat such as the ones found in red meat can contribute to risk factors associated with heart disease and stroke. They add cholesterol and saturated diet, which can increase the accumulation of a fatty substance called plaque to the walls lining your arteries. In this condition known as arterosclerosis, your heart works harder to pump blood through the named blood vessels, increasing your chance of heart attack. The fat in red meat can also cause you to put on extra weight, a risk factor for developing high blood pressure which is also a risk factor for cardiovascular disease. Red meat can increase your livelihood for developing cancer in several ways. For example, the iron in red meat is contained in a protein called heme and this protein can easily undergo a chemical change in your guts to form carcinogenic heme – nitrosome, compound associated with, for instance, colorectal cancer. The fat content of red meat may be a contributory factor in the incidence of estrogen and progesterone sensitive breast cancer, and, in addition, hormones used in the production of red meat can exhibit estrogenic activity and might also boost your breast cancer risk.

    The greater the amount of red meat you consume, of processed red meat in particular, the greater your risk can be of developing type 2 diabetes. Processed red meats can contain preservatives such as nitrosamines that are toxic to the pancreatic cells that produce in addition”.

    So, do we really need red meat the way we consume it and the skin (ponmo – Yoruba)? The wise will discover he or she doesn’t. If majority of the population is well advised to minimise or keep off red meat, demand for it will decline, the Fulani herdsmen will find the southern market less lucrative, will cause less human mayhem in this region and everyone will live happily with one another ever after. For now, the Fulani herdsmen are believed to be mere agents of army generals and emirs who supply them cows to nurture and sell in southern markets, and, for their protection and the protection of the animals, AK 47 riffles to bully their way through grazing farms. Thus, the Fulani herdsmen value the cow more than human life. In the south, human life ranks higher than animal life. These are two opposing worlds in collision the earlier they are separated the better for the country, the better for the Buhari Administration. Territorial Fulani expansion is not what Buhari became President for. Many of us saw him as one of the rarest Nigerian…Incompatible and imbued with love for the Nigerian project.

  • Southeast students protest herdsmen attacks

    THREE HUNDRED students, under the aegis of the Federation of Association of Nsukka Students (FANS) and Southeast Students Association (SESA) have protested the killing of 48 persons in Nimbo, Enugu State, by herdsmen.

    The students marched on major roads, displaying placards with inscriptions: “We don’t want Fulani herdsmen in Southeast again”, “Federal Government should disarm herdsmen and call them to order”, “If herdsmen kill all our parents, brothers and sisters, who will feed and pay our school fees” and “We say no to killing in Southeast”, among others.

    FANS national president Hilary Omeke said  the demonstration was necessary to draw attention to the atrocities being committed by herdsmen. He condemned the Nimbo killings where more than 40 people were killed and property worth millions of naira destroyed.

    Hilary said: “What happened in Nimbo was an unprovoked attack on the people of the community by herdsmen. We embark on this protest to tell the herdsmen and the Federal Government that enough is enough. If the government and relevant security agencies fail to call the herdsmen to order, we will retaliate if such killing happens again.”

    Kenneth Odo, a student of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN), said the youth were not happy with the incident, saying Nimbo killings should make the government address the menace of herdsmen.

    He said: “The herdsmen attacks have affected our colleagues whose parents were killed in the incident. Injury to one is injury to all. Herdsmen should either live in place peacefully or leave the Southeast completely.”

    Linda Nwagu, who spoke on behalf of students from other Southeast states, condemned the activities of herdsmen in the region, urging the Federal Government not to treat the incident with kid’s glove.

    “It is unfortunate that herdsmen move around with dangerous weapons, such as AK-47, without any question by security agents. Students from the Southeast want the government to cut the excesses of herdsmen before they become deadly insurgents,” she said.

     

  • OPC warns herdsmen against attack

    OPC warns herdsmen against attack

    Oodu’a Peoples’ Congress (OPC), a Yoruba socio-cultural group, has warned herdsmen against continuous attacks on innocent people and communities, saying it would not tolerate killing of farmers in the Southwest.

    The group also cautioned the Federal Government against initiating the controversial grazing bill, saying it would vehemently resist the move to promulgate a law that would give privilege to a section of the country.

    Rising from a general meeting held Tuesday in Gbagada, Lagos, OPC members described the controversial grazing bill as “insult” to the people.

    OPC National Publicity Secretary, Shina Akinpelu, said: “It is an insult to collective psyche of Nigerians to hear that a bill is being considered to allow or create grazing zones for the herdsmen. The OPC and the whole Yoruba nation reject such proposition and will resist it with all that we have.”

    The OPC members also called on Otunba Gani Adams to stop parading himself as leader of the group. They accused Adams of trading off the group for personal gains. They all condemned Adam’s style of leadership.

    More than 1,000 members of the group across states attended the meeting.

    OPC national officers, who attended the meeting, included Chief Boye Mayunpe, Alhaji Amusa Musiliu, Lagos Island chapter chairman, Alhaji Lateef Oshodi; Oyo State chapter chairman, Chief Adeola Adeagbo and his Kwara and Bayelsa states counterparts, Comrade Moruf Olanrewaju and Comrade Akeem, among others.

     

  • Herdsmen: IG orders CPs to convene town hall meeting

    Herdsmen: IG orders CPs to convene town hall meeting

    •Force seeks partnership on forensic investigation

    The Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Solomon Arase, has directed Commissioners of Police (CPs) to convene town hall meetings in their respective commands.

    The meeting, according to a statement by the force spokesperson, Olabisi Kolawole, would address the misinformation, anxiety and animosity being generated in relation to the current security challenges associated with local communities and herdsmen.

    The IGP also directed all Assistant Inspectors-General of Police (AIGs) in charge of Zonal Commands to personally oversee the process to ensure urgent compliance.

    The statement added that the forum is expected to be attended by traditional rulers, community leaders, public officials, religious actors, youth bodies, local vigilance groups, women/market associations, Police Community Relations Committee, other sister security agencies, professional bodies, media, state and non-state actors.

    Reassuring the public of the force’ commitment to the safety and security of all, Arase urged the people to put their differences aside and continue to support the Police.

    The force yesterday said it would partner forensic organisations to ease criminal investigation.

    According to the Assistant Inspector General (AIG) of Police, Zone 2, Bala Hassan, this will reduce the cost of investigations and hasten the outcome of criminal cases without negating standards.

    Hassan spoke at the Range DNA Analytical Services Forensic Forum, which was themed “Insight into forensics: Key dynamics for societal benefit”. He was represented by the Deputy Commissioner of Police/ Officer in-charge of Zonal Criminal Investigations and Intelligence Unit, Zone 2 Headquarters, Onikan, Lagos, Isaac Akinboyede.

    Hassan said carrying out forensic investigation was capital intensive as well as time consuming, especially with data problems. He called for the harmonisation of data to enable the police track criminals.

    The police, he said, has forensic experts, adding that it sends its personnel abroad for more training.

    The policeman added that DNA analytical services are useful to unravel difficult criminal cases.

    “I hope at the end of the programme, we will find a common ground and, as such, the police can benefit in forensics,” he said.

     

  • Herdsmen and specialists

    If this headline echoes Wole Soyinka’s Madmen and Specialists, fulsome apologies to Africa’s first Nobel Laureate in Literature.

    Still, can you differentiate the “sane” and the “insane” between these two : the homicidal herdsmen, a band of criminals that must be condemned by all;  or the torrent of no less irrational reactions, to this national tragedy of monumental proportions?

    The grisly murders, on an impunity beyond scale, and the grim reactions, on an emotiveness beyond measure, speak of equal-opportunity insanity, in a vast, vast sanatorium.

    Yet, the answer to the problem is simple: crime and punishment, to borrow the title of Russian writer, Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s classic.  The state must punish every crime.  When it fails, it fosters the impunity to commit more.

    That is the long and short of the herdsmen madness.  The moment the Nigerian state cracks down, and brings to book the criminals, this crime, of wilful murder of innocent citizens, would vanish.

    The killer herdsmen are mad — and it wouldn’t matter whether they were Fulani, Hausa, Yoruba, Igbo, Itsekiri, Ijaw or Berom.  However, a clinical execution of the law will, posthaste, cure them of their madness.

    But so too are the specialists (again, apologies to Prof. Soyinka) — the Fulani of the cattle herding lobby, that tend to push odious cultural chauvinism, if not outright imperialism; and rationalize the wilful massacre of innocent citizens, simply because the killers are kith-and-kin.  Such obduracy hardly edifies their civilisation.

    No less so are the other specialists — Igbo, Yoruba, Ijaw, Edo, etc, with a shrill media: the southern cauldron seething with understandable rage and hurt, given the gruesome and soulless killings.

    But what is not understandable — nay, should be intolerable if the motive is to solve the problem — is the emotive criminalization of every Fulani, starting with the president of the Federal Republic; and the demonization of Fulani culture, on account of a few Fulani criminals.

    Trading mutual hurt and exchanging mutual insults would grab sensational headlines.  Pushing savage reprisals would milk explosive passion, guaranteed to end in mutual ruin.  But  to solve the problem, just go after and punish the criminals.

    Crime, after all, has no ethnic coloration!

    Indeed, it is commonsense to de-ethicize criminality: you don’t attack a person’s treasured essence, and yet expect that person to listen to you.

    Take President Muhammadu Buhari.  Criminals, allegedly of Fulani stock, have gone on a binge of killings — utterly condemnable and despicable.

    But then, the mass anger in the land illogically suggests the killings are a Fulani project, to which the first citizen may well be complicit!  If a man is unfairly tried and practically found guilty, how would he be primed to do his duty by law?  And that job he must do, if the menace must vanish!

    Besides, would any Nigerian leader, past or present, merrily hug an unfair slur on the essence he holds dear?

    Obafemi Awolowo?  Awo declared he was Yoruba first before he was Nigerian.  So, if you attack his Yoruba essence, you can predict how far you would go with him.

    Ahmadu Bello and Tafawa Balewa?  The duo were, not unfairly, accused of being champions of northern interests — hardly illegitimate — to stave off southern domination at independence.  Therefore,  their northern core was manifest. Attack that, and you are almost always sure of a negative reaction.

    Nnamdi Azikiwe?  Zik was born in the North, of Igbo parentage, was a smooth and lovable “Lagos boy” for much of his adult life and was an unfazed champion of the “Nigerian”.  Yet, when broke out in 1967, and until Zik made a dramatic appearance in Lagos in 1969, he could not pull himself off the trauma of his Igbo people.

    Sure, Olusegun Obasanjo, in his Not My Will, mocked Zik’s alleged “descent”, in old age, from the Zik of Africa to the Owelle of Onitsha.  But with all due respect to the former president, that attack was offensive, immature and baseless. Zik followed a natural progression from cradle to grave, which neither diminished his “Nigerian-ness”, nor compromised his Igbo-ness.

    In other words, his Igbo nativity only complemented his Nigerian nationality.  That is how it should be.  The two need not be mutually exclusive.

    Obasanjo?  Perhaps only Chief Obasanjo would entertain that grand delusion: that his Nigerian-ness is everything; but his Yoruba-ness is nothing.  Yet, even Obasanjo, the ultra-nationalist, would appear to enjoy his bitter-sweet moniker of Ebora Owu!

    As Awo would say, you need to be first a good Yoruba man before you are a good Nigerian!

    But the point in all of these is simple: Nigerians, even in times of extreme national crisis, must learn to be cautious, polite and clear-headed.  The ethnic profiling of tarring everyone with the criminal brush of a few, only compounds the problem.  That is manifest in the herdsmen killings.

    The result is silly and over-generalized accusations — from the enraged; but equally asinine and bland rationalization of criminality, by victims of such ethnic profiling.  It is a shame.

    How much simpler would it have been, had crime been isolated and condemned by all!  How much simpler, had the ethnic bogey, by accusers and defenders, not cropped up, to create a needless but costly distraction!

    Still, it must be declared that this extreme reaction has resulted from a Nigerian state that has, for too long, abandoned its sacred duty of citizen security and protection.  That must stop.

    Besides, the notoriety and hostility that have greeted Fulani herdsmen come from perceived unevenness, over the years, in the government’s handling of inter-ethnic matters; so much so that some feel so privileged they could virtually do and undo; while others feel so brow-beaten they can only gawk at injustice.

    If the so-called Fulani herdsmen have been so unconscionable in their killings, it is because they have permitted themselves the delusion that they could always get away with crime because of their ethnic connections with the powers-that-be.

    Too bad — and just as well the president has told the security agencies to swoop on the killers, even if that order appears rather superfluous.  The Police and others should need no especial orders to crack down on criminals.

    But then, so skewed is contemporary Nigeria that, without that presidential order, not a few would swear, if not at presidential inactivity, then at presidential complicity!

    Still, it is high time the Nigerian state exploded that costly illusion, bring these criminals to book and be clearly seen to have done so! The state’s primary function is citizen security.  That is the basis of the Social Contract, which itself is the basis of government and the modern state.

    Let the Nigerian state, therefore, use the killer herdsmen to reassert itself, and give anyone or group that threatens Nigerian life a bloody nose.

    That is the only way to show these criminals that crime attracts serious consequences.

  • Herdsmen’s leader: any Fulani with AK47 is a killer

    Herdsmen’s leader: any Fulani with AK47 is a killer

    National President of Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria Alhaji Muhammad Kiruwa Zuru, in this interview with reporters, says herdsmen who carry sophisticated weapons should be arrested. KHADIJAT SAIDU was among the reporters. Excerpts:

    Sir you met with the Service Chiefs recently. What did you tell them?

    Yes, we met with the Service Chiefs and we pledged our support and loyalty to the security agencies and we also advised that proper investigation should be done in order to apprehend the real criminals and not the innocent persons for peace to reign in our land and we also called on the security agencies to use their discretion to clamp down on these criminals.

    Again,  any Fulani seen with weapons like AK47  is a criminal and is up to something; he should be arrested because our Fulani move with their wives  and children  wherever they go. How can they go and kill people and their wives and children will be safe?

    Are you saying these people committing these atrocities   are not Fulani?

    I’m not certain because once  a particular crisis occurs people will just say it is Fulani, for example, the issue of Enugu  crisis, which happened at night. I wonder the eyewitnesses were to have  concluded  that it was Fulani herdsmen.  I think jumping into conclusions should be with evidence but nobody was arrested.

    What will you say about the  Agatu case in Benue State?

    You see, the people of Agattu   usually cross over with canoes at night to kill Fulani cattle and then put these cattle inside their canoe and go away with them, even then nobody was arrested. Then how will you say it is Fulani herdsmen that committed this particular crime?

    Let me tell you one thing, it is not only Fulani that breed cattle; we have many tribes now that breed cattle who are herdsmen. Even former President Olusegun Obasanjo is a herdsmen. So can we just conclude without proper investigation it is Fulani herdsmen that are committing these atrocities?

    I urge the security agencies to  investigate this matter very well. And I also call on all Fulani to be watchful of strangers that are coming in from other countries. And they should know the kind of persons they are, before associ-ating with them.

    What can you say now that President Muhammadu Buhari has given the order to deal with the situation?

    In my capacity as the President, Cattle Breeders Association, I am worried and I will be very happy if government and security agencies can fish out the culprits and we as Fulani disown and disassociate ourselves from whoever is involved in such killings and kidnapping and government should take decisive  action  because it is   disastrous.

    What is the solution to this problems?

    The immediate remedy to this problem is justice and fair play by the leaders. The issue of cattle ranches or grazing reserves is secondary. It is painful to know that even the Sir Ahmadu Bello International Airport here in Birnin Kebbi, Federal Polytechnic, Birnin Kebbi and the entire Federal Capital Territory Abuja are all set aside as grazing reserves but today it is no longer there and the Fulani are left alone without  any other option.

    Government should have it as a policy to always compensate for the grazing reserves taken away from the Fulani by the government. Secondly, if government will enhance the quality of the present grazing reserves, and provide water and other things,  then there will be no mass movement of Fulani from Jigawa to Enugu or to Lagos or to Ibadan.

    Therefore, we are in support of the establishment of grazing reserves. In addition, there is also need for proper enlightenment of the Fulani on the importance of the establishment of ranches and if this is done, a Fulani man can sell his property to establish ranches in their domains.