When crises break, the lunatic fringe attempt to gobble up the reasoned majority. If they succeed, catastrophe dawns. If they fail, you step off the brink.
That dovetails, rather nicely, into the Ooni of Ife, Oba Enitan Adeyeye Ogunwusi’s July 18 visit to the president. It would appear the triumph of the reasoned mainstream over the lunatic fringe.
The Ooni had told the president the Yoruba wanted no war. Neither do they disparage the Fulani as a whole. But, seeking federal help, they demanded an immediate checkmate of Fulani criminals, wreaking havoc in Yoruba forests.
The Ooni committed the Yoruba traditional institution to that salvage mission.
Prior however, a Yoruba lunatic fringe, which gyre widens by the second, threatening to swallow the rest, had been beating drums of war. In that mission too, wholesale Fulani-tarring was fair game.
But war over what exactly? Banditry, kidnapping and allied criminality not even exclusive to the Yoruba country, which nevertheless have latterly spiked, thus smashing the bliss of that hitherto safe haven?
But even if “Fulani” bandits have invaded Yoruba forests and sent their Yoruba cousins-in-crime on a sabbatical — if that gung-ho shriek is to be believed — then the solution would be war, to deepen the anguish all round?
Well, thank God the Ooni has put the crisis in its proper perspective, far away from the free-wheeling lunacy, of political opportunism — for which again, baying for war is fair game.
While some Fulani criminals have been fingered in the present crisis (no matter their motives), the solution is nabbing the other guilty ones; not tarring every Fulani a robber, kidnapper or bandit; or ascribing every single crime, in the Yoruba country, to the Fulani.
That was Ripples’ opening — and subsisting — stand on the crisis; and it’s good the Ooni has given it a royal seal.
Why, even Gani Adams, 19th century Oyo Empire Kakanfo mascot in 21st century Nigeria, appears receiving new wisdom, away from his earlier bellicosity.
A video interview quoted him as saying the Yoruba must pass intelligence on toxic aliens to the security agencies. Any attempt at crude retaliation, he warned, could even be enemies’ ploy to snare him, as the new Kakanfo.
Another quote adduced to Adams, which has gone viral on the social media, goes thus: “How can ordinary Fulani herdsmen be holding AK 47? In our findings, AK 47 rifle goes for about N1 million and with many bullets. So, we are looking beyond ordinary Fulani herdsmen.”
The Yoruba component of serious national insecurity is certainly beyond making or wrecking a Kakanfo. Still, it is good Adams has snapped out of his initial fantasy of awaiting royal orders to unleash his anti-Fulani warriors!
The tragedy for the Yoruba — sophisticated, cosmopolitan, sensitive and introspective — is they appeared happy and merry war baits; by the basest among their ranks: educated or illiterate; accomplished or stark. Awo would be scandalized in his grave!
But the truth is that no ethnic group — sophistication be damned! — ever soars above rage manipulation, framed as ethnic slur. This particular one was framed as dire ethnic survival.
The same goading sent the Rwanda Hutu on a genocidal binge.
It sent the Yoruba — at least their rogue elements, the truly bewildered and the excitable — baying for war.
The same goading, for that matter, sent the Northern Elders Forum (NEF), unvarnished northern irredentists, to call on Fulani herders to, pronto, relocate from the South and jaunt up North, with their herd in tow.
The cold, hardly veiled sinister threat was unmistakable: let everyone relocate to his space and, thereafter, may the devil take all!
Extremists, North and South, just tried each other for size! But before you go blaming the northern side, just because you have greater media control, admit southern loonies started it all, with their unceasing Fulani hate.
But it’s refreshing both federal and regional voices — at least from the Yoruba end — promptly slammed these extremist voices. The president has told the herders to ignore the NEF call. So have the South West governors.
It’s a combined timely voice of reason, at a near-fatal juncture.
The Nigerian media loves to growl against “failure of government”. But the present crisis is excellent failure of media watch.
To be sure, the media has kept faith with its surveillance – or news – function. If there is grave insecurity, caused by non-native criminals, the media would be irresponsible not to dutifully report.
Yet, they have woefully failed in their (news) correlation — interpretive and editorial functions; and cultural transmission — shaping societal mores, over generations.
Jaundiced headlines and hare-brained interviews with extremists, North and South, have made crime less important.
The criminal’s nativity is the new real deal. To sell copies, increase viewership and expand audience, the media merrily trades bigotry for profit. The social media? Sheer pestilence!
In such a news melee, the real criminals go uncaught: the state chases the wind; and the traumatized victims go after the equally traumatized masses on the other side — who their hate-spewing elite just branded the new enemy!
With the media baying for blood like some enraged market folks ensemble, institutional memory recedes even more tragically.
That’s why you will see an Olusegun Obasanjo posture and grandstand over insecurity. As president, his daughter was almost killed by robbers — or assassins? Nobody knew!
The late Bola Ige, ultimate symbol of law and order, as federal Attorney-General, was killed in his ultimate sanctuary — his bedroom. Yet, Obasanjo hee-hawed with absolutely no clue; nor did he have any, about the Niger Delta militancy, that crippled his presidency.
Why, even the effete Goodluck Jonathan came to the blame party! His tenure was one week, one Boko Haram blast — and the closest ever, to a presidential anarchy, in Nigerian history.
Indeed, the Global Terrorism Index and US Council of Foreign Relations records say 2014 was the worst year in violent deaths in Nigeria; and that violent deaths, which peaked from 2010 to 2014, reduced from 2015 to 2018. The blighted years were Jonathan’s presidential years.
The BBC also cited a report which suggested that under Obasanjo, between 1999 and 2004, farmers-herders crisis claimed 50, 000 lives in Plateau State alone. Perhaps Obasanjo too was Fulani, goading his kinsmen to slaughter Plateau farmers for a right of way!
The tragedy is that the media acted exactly under Obasanjo and Jonathan, as they are acting now; and will probably act in the future – cynical, hysterical, excitable, reckless and sensational; only sans the Fulani scapegoating, because a Fulani is president.
Now, if the Fourth Estate cannot keep its head and clinically track in periods of crises, how is it different from the first three realms, which it loves to lampoon in holy rage, because it can?
The lunatic fringe cannot gobble up the reasoned majority, if it didn’t first gobble up the media. Aside from the dire security question, an excitable media appears Nigeria’s clear and present danger.
