The Nation Newspaper

Tag: herdsmen

  • Re: Ranches or prisons for herdsmen

    SIR: Nigeria is a land of absurdities – abundant crude oil yet scarcity of petrol, large expanse of waters yet no potable water, quantum of gas, yet none to power electricity, countless churches and mosques yet increasing crimes.

    How else can one explain a situation where people violently take over farmlands to feed their own cattle at other people’s expense and in the process kill the innocent farmers, rape their wives or kidnap farmers with brazen impunity.

    Absurdly enough, the secretary general of Gan Allah Fulani Development Association (GAFDAN) one Sale Bayari in The Nation Wednesday April 27, saw all the actuality reports by local and foreign media on the rampaging by Fulani herdsmen as mere propaganda.

    Reports of herdsmen kidnappers of Chief Olu Falae who confessed and reports of killed and burnt victims are also propaganda.

    Bayari also sees the right of free movement as right to trespass and poach other peoples’ properties with impunity. He is also oblivious of the land use act provisions.

    His defence smacks of some illogicalities. The rangers, cowboys in America he refers to do not violate the rights of other farmland owners by feeding their cattle on other peoples farms. Perhaps it would interest Bayari to know that there are ranches in South Africa and Zimbabwe.

    It is just economically wiser for the money bag owners of cattle to purchase some exotic breed which will multiply with time and give them better earnings in meat, fat, hides and skin, dry bones and animal waste for manure. Most importantly it will expose the illiterate crude handlers to a settled civilized life, livestock technology, and education of their children.

    It is unprogressive to stick to cultural or traditional ways of life without some moderation.

    Creating ranches will tame the animals and their crude and blood-thirsty handlers.

    For instance if the poultry farmers had stuck to keeping local breed perpetually, they would not have discovered better option in the imported broilers. The cattle keepers can move out of their traditional model and move with modernization in livestock trading instead of depending on other peoples farms to feed their cattle free of charge. Even if the government establishes grazing zone, it must not be free because the state cannot behave like Father Christmas.

    If this trend is not checked the agro diversification programme of President Muhammadu Buhari government will be endangered as large farmlands will be plundered.

    It is a pity that in the defence of the Fulani, the spokesman did not even sympathize with victims of Fulani plunderers meaning that cattle is more precious  than human lives.

    Another issue in the whole scenario is the neglect of intelligence report of the planned invasion by the herdsmen by the relevant authorities. It is pure show of official irresponsibility and people involved deserve punishment.

    The Enugu State governor shedding crocodile tears is just a political weeping. President Buhari should arrest the situation before it grows to another Boko Haram scourge.

     

    • Julius Kayode,

    Isolo, Lagos.

  • Madmen and herdsmen

    Madmen and herdsmen

    This is an open letter to the men of the moment. Or are there women in the house? Well, going by their name, it is all about men.

    First, I say congratulations to you, the herdsmen on rampage. My main reason for congratulating you is your strides in the Niger Delta. You guys rock. Wao! I am impressed. Your popularity – don’t mind those who say it is notoriety– is growing day-by-day.

    Forget Agatu, forget Enugu, forget elsewhere, you, the madmen– sorry the herdsmen– are taking new territories in Delta, Edo and Rivers.

    The fear of you guys is the beginning of wisdom in Cross River.  No wonder the plea by the chairman of Ogoja Local Government Council in Cross River State, Rita Agbo Ayim, that some of you who came in from neighbouring Benue State should return home because her people can no longer sleep well.

    “More than five thousand cattle have been shifted to Ogoja and the community is not happy over the development, and the Fulani herdsmen are danger to the people,” she said.

    As I was about to start this intervention, another headline jumped at me: “Fulani herdsmen hold 8 persons hostage in Delta” and my reaction was “there is no stopping these guys”.

    According to the report, residents of Obiaruku community, Ukwani Local Government Area of Delta State were thrown into confusion following the kidnap of eight persons for several hours by suspected Fulani herdsmen.

    Comrade Chika Uwabuofu, the community’s Youth Leader, told reporters that the victims who were working in a farmland were held hostage at about 6am by the herdsmen and released at about 1pm. Of course, after serious torture.  Reason: four cows, which you guys laboured so much on, were killed by some people in the community who failed to realise that the lives of four cows equal the lives of eight men.

    Uwabuofu added that you guys (herdsmen) had over time been terrorising the people. He urged the government to assist the community in evacuating the herdsmen from their farmlands, which have been destroyed by cows. He also spoke of a meeting where you guys agreed to quit the farmlands.

    “They left, but after some days, some women came to report that some Fulani herdsmen were seen with their cows in the community. Then today, they held eight of our men hostage,” he said.

    For you madmen – not again, I need to change this keypad which keeps substituting herdsmen with madmen or is there a relationship—the Biblical injunction ‘touch not my anointed’ means absolutely nothing and that explains why you caused the death of a cleric in Rivers. That was early this month.

    According to the police, Ohali-Elu town in Rivers State was invaded by suspected herdsmen. By the time they left, six people, including a cleric, lay in pools of blood. Public Relations Officers DSP Ahmad Muhammad said the men were killed over a case of missing cows. He said of the six men said to have been slaughtered only the pastor was confirmed dead. The bodies of five were not seen for confirmation.

    Muhammad punctured the claim that you guys used guns to kill your victims. Machete, according to him, was all you need to revenge the killings of your beloved cows, which you will choose over your biological children any day, any time.

    The PPRO said: “The command found it instructive to state that last Thursday, at about 5:30a.m, the police in Egi Division received a report  that on Wednesday at about 10:00 p.m, unidentified assailants suspected to be herdsmen struck in Ohali-Elu town leaving one Pastor Geoffrey Ogagaghene with severe cutlass cuts that later led to his death.

    “It’s also pertinent to state that in the build-up to the attack, there was a case of stealing of unspecified number of cows belonging to some herdsmen allegedly perpetrated by the youths of the community, but the case was never reported to the police.

    “It is reasonably suspected that the attack might have been carried out by the herdsmen as reprisal for stealing their cows.

    “Unconfirmed sources indicated six other persons lost their lives after the attack, the death of these six persons still remain unconfirmed for the simple reason that the police neither recovered nor visibly saw the corpses at the time of responding to the incident.”

    Another great exploit of you madmen— at this stage, I think we should just accept there is a relationship between you guys and madmen— happened some days before your men held hostage eight Delta men. In this particular case, you were not lenient. May be it happened when you had not taken your medication and you went all out to slaughter 31 people as though they were cows.

    The people of Uwheru in Ughelli North Local Government of Delta State will never forget that day. Wao! Thirty-one people sent to the grim reaper just like that.

    Speaking at the funeral of one of your victims, the community’s President General, Chief Ogarivi Utso, said: “The genesis of the problem started in 2004 when Ohoror community, in Uwheru, was invaded by the Fulani herdsmen with the collaboration of some soldiers. Many houses were razed, including the home of a former President General, Mr. Emmanuel Enivwegha-a.”

    You guys have even become landlords in the community forcing residents to pay between N10,000 and N70,000 to enter their farms. Utso claims this has been going on for five years, despite several complaints to the police.

    Still in Delta, some days ago, you guys abducted a non-academic staff of the Delta State University, Abraka, Mr. John Ogeleke, at Kwale, Ndokwa West Local Government Area. Ogeleke was heading towards Ogume from Kwalein his Nissan Pathfinder Sports Utility Vehicle (SUV) when he was abducted at gun point.

    The police said four of you guys armed with guns and sticks emerged from a bush, forced the vehicle to a stop and seized the 54-year-old Ogeleke. There is no evidence yet that you guys have set him free. You are probably waiting for ransom before letting him go.

    How can I forget the bloody nose that you guys earlier this April gave irate youths of Okada community in Ovia North East Local Government Area of Edo State who tried to burn one of your camps. You matched them gun for gun and there was serious exchange of gun fires. The youths said they took the action against you guys because of the killing of a 64-year-old farmer identified as Alex Idemitin.

    Idemitin’s neck was sliced and he was also stabbed in the stomach with several cutlass cuts all over his body a fortnight ago.

    There is something I need to beg you about, do not disturb Comrade Governor Adams Oshiomhole. Since you guys took over, he has had to be speaking big grammar. The key words I pick from his speech at a meeting with stakeholders are: rapists, kidnappers, robbers and cattle rustlers. You guys just rock. All these names for only you and to add salt to your injury, my keypad has forced another name on you: madmen.

    In talking about rapists, may be His Excellency remembered an incident last year when a middle-aged woman was raped and subsequently killed by three Fulani herdsmen at Odighi village in Ovia North East Local Government.

    Oshiomhole also spoke about rewarding good behaviour and being hard on bad behaviour. I hope you guys can read him. I need to also point your attention to these vital points he made: “ If they kill, we will try them, and if they are guilty, under the law they will also be executed, that is the law of the land.”

    There is also another takeaway from Oshiomhole. His words: “We can’t ban farming and we can’t ban grazing. The two must co-exist.”

    My final take: No one should blame my guys, the herdsmen. They are in a country where we love easy fixes and they are only taking advantage of it. If in this nation, things are not just buried or swept under the carpet, no one, not even a madman, will take law into his own hand. There must be punishment for crimes of whatever hue because only then can human lives be valued more than cows’.

     

  • Herdsmen of death

    Herdsmen of death

    •The Federal Government should intervene in the mayhem before it gets out of hand

    It did not begin with the recent slaughter in Anambra State. Neither is it a matter that anyone in authority should raise any eyebrow about. Such eyebrow will be more than perfidious.

    Yet we know that the wave of barbarous hordes in the form of herdsmen in various parts of the country has taken on the status of an emergency. The earlier we realised this as a people and nation, the better for our peace and cohesion.

    The narratives, in their details, take on peculiar characters in different parts of the nation. In parts of the north, it smokes from long-running, atavistic ethno-religious grudges. It even takes advantage of flaming indigenous-settler tension. But in other parts, it is a story of suspicion arising from charges of cattle rustling leading to violence.

    But in most parts of the country, it is a story of bare-faced impunity, an in-your-face recklessness of rapine, murders, arson and rapes.

    In all the incidents reported, especially in the last few months, it has been a case of a band of cowmen barreling through other people’s territories and acting with a certain proprietary hubris as though the legitimate owners are impostors. This is unacceptable in the 21st century anywhere.

    A few cardinal incidents could help to put the violence in perspective. One of them took place in Agatu community in the middle belt where the Fulani herdsmen razed down the community, burnt down homes, and slaughtered everyone in sight, old, young, children and women. They also raped and brought the once vibrant, cohesive soul of the place to its knees.

    This dizzying flashpoint of sadism stirred the emotion of well-meaning persons in the country and elsewhere. Some of the elite in the region expressed horror and disappointment. It was a theatre that got even more absurd when the herdsmen justified their primitive acts in Agatu. The interim national secretary of the herdsmen’s umbrella body, Gan Allah Fulani Association, Saleh Bayeri, said the herdsmen were right in their attack on the Benue State community because they had to take vengeance on the people of that community for killing a Fulani man in 2013.

    He said the Agatu people invaded the compound of one Shehu Abdullahi, killed him and made away with about 200 cows. Saleh explained that the police treated the matter without precision or seriousness. So, the herdsmen took their own initiative and attacked the communities.

    This was an act of impunity. If the police failed in bringing justice to Abdullahi, it was wrong for them to take the law in their hands and attack persons, most of whom were not shown to have had hands in the death of the man. It is lawless. It arises from a sense that they can get away with anything. The effrontery that propelled Bayeri to express gloatingly an act of impunity ridicules us as a nation of laws.

    The other incident was in Edo State where the herdsmen killed a man without any evidence of provocation. The community was enraged and they lashed back and razed down the herdsmen’s post and led to a sense of community alert and an air of adversarial relation between the herdsmen and the local communities. Silence has replaced raw nerves of conflict since.

    The third incident occurred in a forest near Aba in Abia State, where numerous bodies were buried and the Directorate of State Services stoked ethnic umbrage when it said five Fulani persons were killed. But tens of other corpses were buried but they were invisible to the eyes of the secret service. How did they identify who was Fulani or not?

    The recent attack in Anambra State led to outrage everywhere in the country. Tens of innocent citizens were slaughtered. It was a touching scene to see the Governor of the state, Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, as his face melted in tears. Gory pictures of the slain, slaughtered bodies and blood-spattered scenes as well as razed houses tell the story of impunity and a sense of murderous entitlement by the herdsmen.

    We cannot as a people accept this sort of violence of marauders. They have given the impression that the nation state cannot do anything while they launch their campaigns of devilry. The herdsmen’s umbrella body, the Gan Allah Fulani, should be subjected to the law without prejudice. If the leadership supported the purported reprisal attacks, and was bold to ventilate it in public, the leadership ought to be investigated and the culprits prosecuted.

    The presidency ought also to intervene in this matter. Its silence may be seen as a sort of quiet indifference, or even encouragement. The gory scenes and the theatre of blood has escalated to such an extent that nerves are now frayed. In the southwest, especially in the Oke Ogun area of Oyo State, tensions have rippled between the herdsmen and locals.

    The exigency of presidential intervention cannot be played down because the tensions are soaring. If the present state of off-handed aloofness persists, we may witness the Edo State examples in larger scales. It will mean that the government has left the communities to their devices.

    The herdsmen were known to wear hats and wield sticks. Now they move about with powerful and lethal firearms. That explains the primitive swagger and confidence with which they moved into farmlands and kill indigenes as though as a matter of right.

    If this continues, without a meaningful federal intervention and presidential voice, the locals could resort to self-help. We do not envisage or desire a scenario where locals arm themselves and various parts of the country become fiery swaths of warfare between groups of the same country who should operate under the same law and constitution.

    The herdsmen’s charge of cattle rustling is believed to be genuine in a number of instances. We cannot accept a nation where persons or groups are not allowed to trade without the fingers of thieves. The thieves ought to be prosecuted and made to face the force of the law when caught. But everyone must have to be according to law. In Agatu, the killing of Ardo Makadi  or the stealing of 200 cows are no reasons for killing children or raping wives or nubile women.

    The Gan Allah Fulani Association has asserted that the activity of the herdsmen hinges on their fundamental right to freedom of movement and association. But a democracy guarantees freedom so long as it does not violate others.

    The Buhari administration should not only voice its condemnation of the killings as it did yesterday, it should also act now to mollify the tempers seething in the regions where kith and kin have lost lives and properties destroyed.

  • ‘Rampaging herdsmen were beneficiaries of Arab spring’

    The rampaging herdsmen get the sophisticated weapons they carry as a result of the proliferation of small arms in West Africa, it was learnt yesterday.

    Secretary-General of the Gan Allah Fulani Development Association, Alhaji Sale Bayari, said yesterday that the arms-growing herdsmen might have been beneficiaries of the negative effect of the Arab spring.

    He said: “Most of the herdsmen are beneficiaries of the Arab Spring which culminated in Libya where massive small arms and light weapons were obtained. These weapons are everywhere in sub-African sub region.

    “There is ECOWAS Protocol on free movement; you cannot stop these herdsmen from coming into our country. If the foreign Fulani are allowed to move freely under ECOWAS, those attacking them or stopping them from grazing their cattle and those being attacked will not know the difference between the Nigerian herdsmen and the foreign Fulani because they speak the same language and they have the same costume and culture.

    “Such herdsmen are in a position to deal with Nigerian herdsmen if they decide to fight them or expose them to Nigerian security agencies because both of them are living in the jungle where might is right.”

    The association is an umbrella body for all Fulani groups in the country and the diaspora, which he said, will intercede and ask the herdsmen to ceasefire and the farmers should do the same.

    He said although the Federal Government was yet to reach out to the association, the Fulani leaders will step into the crisis and resolve it by acting and giving governments and all well-meaning Nigerians all the necessary assistance.

    He urged Nigerians to look beyond ethnic and religious factors to support the demand for Cattle Grazing Reserves and Routes Commission.

    Bayari, who was a former Secretary-General of Miyetti Allah, said the new association does not want the crisis to escalate.

    He called on Nigerians to desist from making explosive, unguided, dangerous ethnic and religious statements.

    Bayari assured our correspondent that Fulani leaders will step into the crisis and ask these herdsmen to ceasefire.

    He added: “We will stop it now by telling everybody to ceasefire. We don’t want the crisis to escalate. We are calling for ceasefire both from the herdsmen and the farmers while the government at various levels as well as well-meaning Nigerians sort out this problem and find a lasting solution.

    “We are all ready to be of assistance and we know we can.

    “But Nigerians should begin to talk as Nigerians not as warlords of their villages as they are doing now. The immediate cause is that the Nigerian society has been polarized of recent on the basis of religion and ethnicity. There are religious and ethnic alliances in the North and in the South to the extent that the herdsmen-farmers conflict is becoming North versus South.

    Responding to a question, Bayari said: “Nobody from the government has reached out to this association but we will try as much as possible to find solution to this challenge.”

    Bayari asked Nigerians to support the Cattle Grazing Reserves and Routes Commission as a permanent solution to the Fulani herdsmen-farmers crisis.

    He said non-establishment of the commission was a contributory factor to the crisis at hand.

    He added: “As you are aware, in 2013, I was at the National Assembly when there was a public hearing on Cattle Grazing Reserves and Routes Commission in the House of Representatives. I was there after the bill had undergone second reading.

    “We supported the bill and it took Miyetti Allah leaders seven years to convince Fulani herdsmen to accept grazing reserves. About 30 per cent of them agreed to settle within the reserves if there would be social amenities such as markets, hospitals, water and veterinary clinics.

    “Before we knew it, these people calling themselves farmers’ sons and daughters in the National Assembly rose up,  in what we consider to be sectional, ethnic and religious sentiments, to oppose the passing of the bill into law.

    “So, the non-passage of the bill is a contributory factor. That is the point at which ethnicity, religion and sectional interests were brought into the matter and whatever happened in the National Assembly reverberated nationwide among their communities and they started to see the herdsmen as threats.

    “These farmers felt that they were going to be forced to live with herdsmen in their hereditary land. The solution is not to say we do not want these herdsmen in our state, village, community or ward. The solution is that we should all see ourselves first as Nigerians. These herdsmen are Nigerians and they have constitutional rights of freedom of movement and seeking of means of livelihood in anywhere in the country”

    “If we can all be on the side of the law and the constitution, we will be able to relate and tolerate the herdsmen and operate within the ambit of law which ensures nobody takes the law into his hands for aggression or reprisal”. Let us create grazing reserves and routes to cohabit peacefully.”

  • Yoruba governors and Fulani herdsmen

    There are some discernible parallels in the response of Nigerian Police and the Yoruba governors to the menace of Fulani herdsmen. The only difference is that while the former has been hypocritical, the later has been comical. For instance the Inspector General of Police, after almost seven years of mindless killing of armless men, women and children without anyone being brought to book, now says the police will “continue to monitor them, degrade them and continue to amputate them whenever they come up”. Perhaps now that the police have pledged to do the job for which they are paid, it will not be out of place to remind IG Arase that if the report of the judicial inquiry instituted under Jonah Jang of Plateau in which a former IG was indicted cannot be revisited by the police, he has the latest Agatu massacre as a lead. At least the Gan Allah Fulani, which is the umbrella body, for Fulani herdsmen, has taken responsibility for the Agatu killings.

    For the South-west governors, their response has been as absurd as it has been comical.  While the battle rages, Fayose who seems incapable of appreciating the challenge facing the Yoruba people is amusing himself sharing “ponmo” (cow skin) with his grassroot supporters in local markets. Mimiko has been holding clandestine meeting with aggrieved farmers and elders who are preaching secession.  Aregbesola is said to be targeting production of 10,000 cows per annum while his counterpart in Ibadan has been dissipating energy on the biggest abattoir built in Ibadan by his political rival. The feelings one gets from the discordant notes is an absence of a coordinated effort at responding to the challenges of meeting the demand of those, who like the Epicureans, consume 10,000 heads of cows daily in case forces of demand and supply force the principals of the embattled Fulani herdsmen, driven only by profit motive, to seek a more profitable market.

    But first an ode to our South-west politicians. Being a politician itself is a major nightmare. It is often a call for rejection of candour, honesty and acquisition of special skill for the exploitation of our common infirmities. It also calls for brinkmanship to balance the interest of those impoverished by their class members without endangering the health of group members or posing a threat to their ill-acquired fortunes if they are to avoid  ‘the Saraki treatment’ after becoming the whistle-blower in the N1.6trillion fuel subsidy scam. To be a successful politician is to be faithful to Adedibu’s precepts which include engaging in public brawl or swearing falsely by the Holy Koran.

    How many of us who pontificate on the pages of newspaper are like Bode George, prepared to go to jail for helping party members? How many can, with the help of thugs attack a judge in his court premises, chase out elected law makers of town, take over the House of Assembly to pass an unread budget ? How many critics have the guts to collect $34m of taxpayer’s money from a president who says ‘stealing is not corruption,’ for the purpose of rigging an election? How many of us can, with Awo cap delicately balanced on our heads, join ‘PDP governors without character’ to publicly declare 16 greater than 19?  How many of us can, like Fayemi, Opeyemi and Oni, men whose dressing is incomplete without Awo’s cap delicately balanced on their heads, engage in a brutal war of attrition over the governorship seat  and after losing it by default  move to Abuja, seat of power as champions of Ekiti cause? How many can like ex-Governor Daniel of Ogun lock up the state House of Assembly and rule like a sole administrator?

    Our new political leaders are no doubt versatile, daring, courageous, adventurous and very ambitious.  It is just that their best is not good enough for the Yoruba. In this regard, they have the records of their predecessors who regarded public service as sacrifice to contend with. They are being challenged by the standards set by Awo, Bode Thomas, Rotimi Wlliams, Adekunle Ajasin, Osuntokun, Adesanya, Enahoro etc, all honourable men who cooperated to form a formidable class with faith in a common destiny and a single purpose of creating a more egalitarian society in the Yoruba country. They served selflessly. When Oba Adesoji, the then Ooni of Ife was rejected by the colonial masters as representative of Yoruba, no other Yoruba was ready to step into his shoes until the colonial government was forced to swallow its pride. When Akintola, who Awo said could debate the same topic from both sides and win, became a thorn in the flesh of the colonial masters and those he then regarded as northern feudal lords, was asked to be replaced, Awo said he had searched without finding any more competent man to represent the Yoruba. Akintola retained his seat. This is precisely why many believe the struggle for power and influence by many of our today Yoruba politicians are not motivated by service and altruism.

    And one way of validating this thesis is the ongoing menace of Fulani herdsmen and the challenge of 10,000 cows a day. Rewind back to 60 years ago. Awo and his group encouraged their compatriots who wanted to eat cow to domesticate one. They imported cow adaptable to the Yoruba environment from Argentina. In the Second Republic, Ajasin a leading member of that set of visionary Yoruba leaders established the Otun Cattle ranch. Ex-Governor Segun Oni was the only person who had the presence of mind to have revisited the project. But half of the cows he imported from South Africa died while the project collapsed under Fayemi.   Our new leaders seem to prefer the philosopher’s cap to his philosophy.

    The current Fulani herdsmen incursion to the South-west is an economic war by the elite and the response can only be economics. We run a capitalist system which is about the survival of the fittest. A group of privileged northern elites and others from the rest of the country invested heavily on cattle farming with the aim of harvesting huge dividends. Instead of establishing ranches, they opted to maximize profit by hiring and arming underprivileged children who must graze the cattle until they get to their designated market in the South-west. Within the capitalist system we operate, the Fulani’s herdsmen share a common fate with underpaid factory workers or underpaid journalist.

    When there is a demand that cannot be met locally, there must be supply usually in the form of imported labour of other people. The answer to the menace of Fulani herdsmen is therefore local production to meet demand and not secession. What the Yoruba want is a more organized federation without the tyranny of a centre trying to decree the education of our children, the water they drink and the air they breathe. Yoruba is receptive to other Nigerians who live by the rules and equally thrive among strangers in far away Sokoto, Kano, Jos and Minna.

    Our governors are not doing enough. We must be able to feed ourselves. As suggested on these pages not too long ago, Tinubu must return to Lagos to coordinate the activities of governors who unfortunately have been made Leviathans by the Nigerian constitution. His first responsibility is to the Yoruba. Awo who was a mere regional premier and Ahmadu Bello who rejected the option of becoming the Prime Minister in order to serve his people today live in the hearts of their people.

  • Anger spreads over killings by herdsmen

    Anger spreads over killings by herdsmen

    Governor in tears

    Reps, Emir of Ilorin, Bishop, others outraged

    There is anger across the country over killings by suspected Fulani herdsmen.

    The latest is the Monday night attack on an Enugu community where no fewer than 48 people are believed to have been killed.

    The House of Representatives has summoned the Director General of the Directorate of State Services (DSS) to appear before it over the herdsmen’s activities.

    Speaker of the Anambra State House of Assembly Rita Maduagwu wept during a session on the herdsmen’s killings yesterday.

    Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu urged President Muhammadu Buhari to take action.

    Minister of Agriculture Audu Ogbeh said unless a drastic action is taken, the activities of the herdsmen could destroy the nation.

    The Igbo Assembly in the North called for a check of the violence. The Movement for the Actualization of Biafra (MASSOB) issued an ultimatum to the Federal Government.

    The Emir of Ilorin, Alhaji Sulu Gambari, told visiting Vice President Yemi Osinbajo that a halt must be put to the activities of the herdsmen.

    The Archbishop of Anglican Communion (Enugu Archdiocese) Dr. Emmanuel Chukwuma, warned that if nothing was done to check the Fulani herdsmen, he would personally ask the pro-Biafra groups to declare  a war against them.

    The fiery cleric, who was visibly angry over Monday’s attack on an Enugu community, said it was now clear that the Federal Government controlled security agencies deliberately engaged in selective negligence.

    He called on the Federal Government to declare a state of emergency in Igboland.

    The Archbishop was surprised that many hours after the attack, no arrest had been made.

    The cleric insisted that Fulani herdsmen were more violent than the pro-Biafra agitators and called on Southeast governors to rise up to the security challenge.

    “I feel bitter, I feel aggrieved. I feel sad that the APC government at the centre cannot protect us. We call on the Federal Government to declare a state of emergency in Igbo land over the Fulani herdsmen’s threat to security in the zone or else we will declare war against the Fulani herdsmen.

    “I feel sad that APC government at the centre cannot protect us. Failure to curb the activities of Fulani herdsmen will make us to ban the Fulani herdsmen from rearing their cattle in the zone. Any attempt to harass any Igbo youth, any community will not be taken lightly. We

    will not tolerate it in Igbo land. We are declaring war against the Fulani herdsmen. We are calling on Northern elders to caution their people.

    “With the failure of the Southeast governors to rise to the security challenge, we will pass a vote of no confidence in them. Where did the Fulani herdsmen get the AK 47 rifles? We will bring our own Ogbunigwe out to defend our rights. We will match force with force.

    “Fulani herdsmen come to Igbo land, ravage our farm land, rape our women. That we were defeated in the last civil war does not mean we will remain slaves forever even in our land. We will defend our land with our blood and anything, including Ogbunigwe. Why was there security lapse? The DSS and other security operatives alerted the government yet they went ahead with their threat by unleashing mayhem

    on the villagers. The Fulani herdsmen are more violent than the Biafra agitator” he said.

    The Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) said it will now apply force in the defence of “our people from these sacred cow Fulani herdsmen”.

    The pro-Biafran group put the number of the dead at 130 and accused the police of playing down the number.

    A statement signed by the MASSOB Director of Information Samuel Edeson said Monday’s attack was an ethnic cleansing planned years back in 2003.

    The MASSOB statement said: “We condemn the attack on by Fulani herdsmen at Uzo-uwani L.G.A Enugu State. We wish to remind Ndigbo that this killing and destruction of property of our people by Fulani herdsmen is getting out of hands. The fact that MASSOB believes in non- violence does not mean that we cannot defend ourselves. There is a limit to human endurance.”

    MASSOB’s National Director of Information Sunny Okereafor  said the organisation has given a  30-day ultimatum to the Federal Government to stop the attacks by herdsmen or face its consequences.

    He said: “MASSOB is worried that Fulani herdsmen have become very daring in their attacks since President Buhari came to power. We are not saying Buhari is their sponsor, but his silence over the attacks is suspect. MASSOB is giving the government 30 days to stop the attacks or face our wrath.

     

  • ‘Herdsmen kill our men, rape our women’

    ‘Herdsmen kill our men, rape our women’

    Enugu State Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi wept yesterday during his visit to Ukpabi Nimbo in Uzouwani Local Government Area where suspected herdsmen on Monday killed no fewer than 48 people and destroyed property worth millions of naira. The police said six people died.

    The governor could not hold back tears when he saw a freshly discovered body of a victim of the killings.

    The community painted a gory picture of the activities of the herdsmen. Its leader said: “We alerted that they were coming. They came, killed our people and raped our women.”

    Ugwuanyi, who also visited the injured in the hospitals, declared a two-day fast and prayers for God’s intervention to end the herdsmen’s menace.

    The body was that of Ugwu Ogbu, believed to be a teacher from Enugu Ezike in Igboeze North council. He was posted to the Nimbo community. It was recovered in the morning by the villagers.

    Ugwuanyi donated N5 million as immediate relief to the area where economic activities were totally shut down.

    Members of the community have deserted the area. Pupils have abandoned the ongoing West Africa Senior School Certificate Examination (WASCE).

    Most of those who sustained life-threatening injuries are receiving treatments at various hospitals, including the Royal Cross Hospital, Bishop Shanahan and Nsukka District hospitals.

    One of the injured, a young man who passed out of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) programme this month, has been referred to the National Orthopaedic Hospital, Enugu. Two others were referred to Park Lane hospital Enugu.

    The governor was at the Ukpabi Nibo community and the three hospitals. With him were Senator Chuka Utazi( Enugu North), the GOC, 82 Division, Major General Ibrahim Attahiru, Police Commissioner Nwodibo Ekechukwu  and other security chiefs.  He promised to pick the hospital bills of the injured.

    “We are going to seek for God’s intervention in this matter. It is my belief that this too will pass away. The entire people of Enugu State are with you in this moment of grief,” Ugwuanyi told the people.

    The governor explained that upon receipt of the report that there were plans to attack the community by the herders said to be from Nasarawa State, an emergency Security Council meeting was summoned on Sunday and “far reaching decisions” were taken to ensure that lives and property were protected.

    “A combined team of police, soldiers, Civil Defence operatives was despatched to the community, but on Monday, we heard that they still carried out the threat, resulting in the situation we are facing. No matter what, we are hopeful that God will save us from the present situation; that’s why I’ve declared fasting and prayers in the state for the next two days,” he told the people.

    Ugwuanyi who also visited the traditional ruler of Nimbo community, Igwe John Akor, lamented the loss of lives and destruction of property including the Christ Holy Church, Onueke Nimbo, which was burnt by the attackers.

    He sued for peace and assured the people that efforts were being made to find a lasting solution to the problem. He urged the people, especially the youth, not to take laws into their hands by engaging in any form of reprisal.

    A community leader, Dr Ajokwu George, appealed to the government to come to their aid as their community has become a hunting ground for herders.

    “We are not happy because our community is under threat; we have been burying our loved ones. We are more worried because in this case, we even alerted the security that these people were planning to attack us but nothing was done. As we speak, we’ve recovered over 20 bodies and we are still recovering more. Many others are in the morgue and in the hospitals. What did we do to deserve this? We are really pleading that something should be done. Our women have been raped and killed and nothing has happened.

    “What has happened is just a tip of the iceberg because we know they will come again. The way they invade our community and rape women before their husbands is worrisome. We need security here, not just for a day or week but for months to protect us. We thank you for coming to empathise with us and we want you to deliver our people from this problem,” George said.

     

  • Suspected herdsmen kill 5 in Enugu

    No fewer than five people in Nimbo, Uzo-Uwani Local Government Area of Enugu State were on Monday killed by suspected Fulani herdsmen.

    The spokesman of the police in Enugu State, Mr Ebere Amaraizu, confirmed the incident to newsmen in Nsukka.

    Amaraizu said the Commissioner of Police, Mr Nwodibo Ekechukwu, had already moved to the local government to ensure that normalcy returned.

    “The police are aware of the attack in Uzo-Uwani and the state commissioner of police is already there to ensure that the situation is brought under control.

    “Th police are also collaborating with sister security agencies like the army, civil defence and the Department of State Services to handle the situation,” he said.

    The Chairman of Uzo-Uwani local government, Mr Cornell Onwubuya, who also confirmed the incident, regretted that in spite of efforts to stop the crisis through dialogue, the suspected Fulani herdsmen had continued to attack the people.

    “Yes, there is serious problem in the local government as suspected Fulani herdsmen today attacked Nimbo community.

    “Information reaching us said many people were killed but I do not know the actual number now,” he said.

    An eyewitness who pleaded anonymity told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Nsukka that the suspected herdsmen numbering up to 300 invaded the community with guns and machetes, shooting sporadically and killing people.

    “As they were killing the people, they were also setting houses and vehicles ablaze. Many people have been killed; I do not have the actual number.

    “The residents of Nimbo and motorists have fled the community for safety,” the witness said.

    NAN reports that residents of Nsukka wept uncontrollably when the five bodies from Nimbo were being deposited at the Bishop Shanahan Hospital, Nsukka.

    A resident, Mr Dennis Ezema, urged the Federal Government to urgently intervene in the activities of the herdsmen before it escalated to a full blown war.

    “It is unfortunate that people can be mercilessly killed without human feeling.

    “You can see how these people were killed and sliced like bread; people should respect the sanctity of human life,” he said.

    NAN reports that scores of the people who fled from Nimbo are now taking refuge in some primary schools in Nsukka.

  • Cowboys and herdsmen

    Cowboys and herdsmen

    As a boy, I was a fan of the western, or what we know here as the cowboy drama or movie. I did not only watch their heroics, I played them. I was Michael Landon who played Little Joe in the Family Cartwright show called Bonanza. Dan Blocker was too fat and impetuous for me. Lorne Greene was too old and hoary. When I didn’t play Little Joe, I eased into the equine razzle-dazzle of Buffalo Bill, Jr, starring Dick Jones.

    I also gathered their picture cards attached to every chewing gum item I bought. I did not only admire the dynamics on screen, I also loved their names, including those I never saw on screen, like Bob Big Boy Williams. They spun tales of the west, of the good guys versus the bad, of horse ride fights, bull fights, gunfights on plains and craggy highlands, of bar brawls and chivalry. They had guns, rode horses and, lasso in hand, controlled a herd of cattle. Their fashion fascinated me. Their hats with the wide, floppy rims; their bandana, the boots, their tops that came across as a cross between a soldier and civilian attire. The good guys were often winsome like Little Joe.

    I loved their confidence. The cowboy was debonair before he felled his foe. So, you saw him as a noble figure.  The Indians were for the most part the bad guys, hooting, tactless, ungainly, their faces tarred, dark and ugly and inevitably doomed.

    The image lingered in me for years even after I stopped watching the westerns. It was at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife when I studied American history under Professor Richard Olaniyan that I came to understand that I was fed a myth by Hollywood. The story of the cowboy as hero and vanguard of high values was part of the American tendency to romanticise the past. I began to repaint the Indian in my consciousness and asked their forgiveness. I learned of President Andrew Jackson, who drew a trail of tears with the slaughter of Indians. His face is being replaced by Harriet Tubman, a black abolitionist, as part of the American quest to restore truth to history.  From my studies, I knew that the cowboy was only a little different from the Fulani herdsman.

    The herdsman wields a long stick and hides his head in a low-crowned wide-rimmed hat. His dressing is sparse. The American counterpart mounts a horse with stirrups and bridle and lariat. Both graze and move in sprawling expanse of plains and grasslands and travel miles under a benevolent sky and surly cloudbursts or dry heat.

    But the challenges coincide. You don’t have the cowboy today in nearly the profile and dynamic of the 19th century, except as symbol or romantic culture.  They had problems of cow thieves, as the Fulani have. They fought to preserve and protect their animals. They had to fight locals along the way.

    They provided meat for people and communities faraway. In the late 19th century in the aftermath of the Civil War, they travelled north where beef was scarce and expensive. It was big business. In Nigeria, the herdsmen travel south.

    But the contrast begins here. Because the American cowboy confronted locals, they did not persist in fights of proprietary claims to grazing routes. They understood that the lands did not belong to them. So as communities sprouted, they adapted by charting new routes. Eventually, modernity caught up with them, and the open-range culture of grazing over wide swaths of territories became an anachronism. First they took their cows to railheads. Later they had grazing reserves with stockyards and parking plants.

    Two intertwined things happened in the American case. One, a respect for the rule of law. Two, there was no resort to impunity by insisting that a century-old path ought to be sustained in spite of modernity.

    The American cowboy bowed to the rule of law. Another man’s farmland is not my territory. They also understood that the law would catch up with them if they insisted. Those who stole cattle also had to face the consequences of the law. No one, not the cowboy, or the land owner, had a right to take the law into their hands.

    Today, Americans consume more meat than Nigerians, and if you travel through the country you won’t see men on horsebacks herding cows over long distances. In 1997, an American family, John and Denise Enssling, took me to the state of Wyoming to see The Cheyenne Frontiers Day, a show to dramatise the western, the sort I saw on television as a little boy. It was a great experience and I saw where myth met reality. I bought myself a cowboy hat.

    Our herdsmen ought to come to the 21st century. They still walk about in the expired glory of a lost era. They are enchanted with the big sky and other people’s farmlands. To live in the past and kill to retain that past is no more than barbarism. That is what the herdsman represents today. Modernity has come. It is time for the state to stanch the blood flow and lust for the flesh of innocent women. Like Boko Haram, they now have access to sophisticated weapons. Here is the irony. They clack modern guns but act like old goons, plundering, maiming, raping, killing.

    We cannot excuse the stealing of their cattle. They provide meat for everyone. But if one steals your cow, it is not an excuse to rape his wife or wipe out whole communities. The story of Agatu is important. The herdsmen say the Agatu people killed their herdsmen and the police did not do anything about it. Why did they not go to the court?  The Gan Allah Fulani, which is the herdsmen umbrella body, justified the Agatu killings because it still does not understand that this is a country of laws. That society ought to be held to account by the Buhari administration. The promise to build reserves for them was only philosophical, only a sop for us. Buhari ought to come out and condemn the herdsmen in clear and unambiguous terms. It is moral cowardice not to do so. People are dying, daughters are being defiled, families displaced. If Buhari could condemn El-Zakzaky and his Shi’ite men on television, we expect no less from him, especially since he is widely recognised as their patron. A policy statement can be anaemic if it lacks a moral tone.

    It is a moral challenge to his administration. The promise of a grazing reserve is fine, but it cannot work if we don’t provide for meat packing plants. It was perhaps that example that spurred Obafemi Awolowo to propose transporting meat across long distances. The herdsmen are illiterate. They need to be saved from themselves and we need to be saved from them. The IPOB incident in killing seven herdsmen in Igboland cannot also be justified. You don’t kill criminals to make a point. It makes you a criminal too.

    The absence of Buhari’s intervention and personal voice is interpreted as a tacit encouragement. If a patron keeps silence, the tyranny goes on. He needs to urgently counter this impression. I know he can. The world is waiting.

  • ‘How Fulani herdsmen killed 31 in Delta’

    U WHERU community in Ughelli North Local Government of Delta State has said suspected Fulani herdsmen have killed 31 residents.

    The community’s President General, Chief Ogarivi Utso, addressed reporters yesterday at Agadama during the funeral of a 30-year-old man, Mr. Ajaita Iwana, killed by suspected Fulani herdsmen in 2012.

    Utso said the herdsmen wrecked havoc on the Uwheru community, including assault, rape and killings.

    He said: “The genesis of the problem started in 2004 when Ohoror community, in Uwheru, was invaded by the Fulani herdsmen with the collaboration of some soldiers. Many houses were razed, including the home of a former President General, Mr. Emmanuel Enivwegha-a.”

    Utso said governments condemned the killings and invasion of the Uwheru community.

    According to him, many residents were forced into exile while 10 youths and men, including the younger brother to the former president general, Edjerigho, were killed by the suspected Fulani herdsmen.

    Urging Governor Ifeanyi Okowa to take action, Utso said the initial siege on Ohoror opened the way for other invasions of the Uwheru communities.

    The community leader said Uwheru residents were reputed for groundnut farming while majority of them were hunters, farmers and fishermen and women.

    He said the community comprised several towns, villages and farm settlements, adding that the indigenes could no longer go to their farms.

    Utso said the situation had become so bad that the herdsmen forced residents to pay between N10,000 and N70,000 to enter their farms.

    According to him, the payment had been going on for five years, despite several complaints to the police.