ON Tuesday, Presidential spokesman, Garba Shehu, needlessly courted controversy when he likened the Yoruba socio-cultural group, Afenifere, and the Igbo socio-cultural group, Ohanaeze N’digbo, to the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN). Mallam Shehu was a guest on a Channels Television programme, Sunrise Daily, where he made the controversial comparison. He had tried to justify the group’s legitimacy, suggesting that their raison d’être was neither criminal nor unusual. According to him, “It is a mistake to say the Nigerian government is talking to bandits. The Miyetti Allah group is like Ohanaeze and Afenifere. It is a socio-cultural group. There are criminals within the Yoruba race and you cannot say because of that, Afenifere is a group of criminals. The Nigerian government is speaking with the leadership of the Fulani herders association, Miyetti Allah.”
But instantly, both Afenifere and Ohanaeze spokesmen deplored the comparison and insisted that, unlike Miyetti Allah which harbours and defends killer herdsmen, the southern organisations were dedicated to the promotion of regional and cultural unity of their people. In their opinion, the only socio-cultural group in the North that bears resemblance to the two southern cultural associations was the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF). On the TV show, Mallam Shehu had been taken to task over the meeting held between the Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Mohammed Adamu, and Miyetti Allah. Observers had wondered why the police should be holding what seemed to be a placatory meeting with a group whose members were rated to be among the world’s leading terrorist organisations. It was in response to this puzzle that Mallam Shehu made the comparison with other socio-cultural groups, and also insisted that it was wrong to criminalise Miyetti Allah.
The presidential spokesman was defensive, so too were the police who characterised their meeting with Miyetti Allah as exploratory of peace and disarmament. Mallam Shehu did not say why neither Afenifere nor Ohanaeze had ever been accused of bearing arms, and di not point at any time when they prevailed upon them to help disarm anybody, militants or otherwise. As the two southern groups argued, they harboured no militants, nor excused violence on the grounds of propagating social, economic or cultural agenda. The mere thought of some herdsmen carrying weapons around the country, and sometimes using them boldly, should have reworked the logic of the presidential spokesman to become wary of defending them, let alone comparing them with other socio-cultural groupings that do not condone the use of arms or excuse violence.
Mallam Shehu may never successfully defend the police meeting with Miyetti Allah leaders, and is even more unlikely to win the argument of whether it makes sense to compare the cattle breeders’ association with other socio-cultural groups. Both Afenifere and Ohanaeze, not to say a significant number of Nigerians, suspect that the entire security organisation of the country as well as the presidency itself seem defensive of Miyetti Allah. They have not openly endorsed the violence the herdsmen inflict on the country, but they have not, in the view of many, treated the consequent bloodletting with the severity their crimes deserve. They recall how in the past few years top government officials waffled over the violence perpetrated by herdsmen, and how at some incredible and unguarded moments they even blamed the victims who are mostly farming communities. They also recall that nothing has been said or done to reclaim farming communities sacked and occupied by herdsmen, particularly in the Middle Belt.
It is in those contexts that critics assailed the decision of the law enforcement agencies to hold placatory meetings with leaders of Miyetti Allah, ostensibly to enjoin them to prevail on their members to surrender their arms and allow peace reign. Few Nigerians are fooled. They recognise that the underlying problems engendering herdsmen-farmers conflict are yet to be resolved. In what context, therefore, would armed herdsmen surrender their weapons? By meeting leaders of Miyetti Allah, the police logically acknowledge that armed herdsmen are members of the group. More, the police also seem to acknowledge their impotence in the face of a group described as vicious and terroristic. Yet, neither the police nor Mallam Shehu, nor anyone in government, has come out to explain why the law enforcement agency was conducting exploratory and placatory meetings with leaders of Miyetti Allah. The government has also so far refused to endorse the global categorisation of the group as terroristic, but contradistinctively hastily categorised the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) as terroristic.
Critics were not just flailing at the police and Mallam Shehu for merely seeming to be defensive of Miyetti Allah; they were in fact quarrelling with what they suspected to be a discriminatory approach to law enforcement in Nigeria, a discrimination they consider ethnically, rather than issues, inspired. They are shocked that the federal government hastily labelled IPOB as a terrorist organisation, though the group carried no arms and murdered no one, while resisting the world labelling Nigerian herdsmen as the fourth most vicious terrorist organisation. Nigerians also recall that years ago, Kaduna State governor, Nasir el-Rufai, acknowledged that some herdsmen, whom he had located and interviewed, were involved in killings in Nigeria. But rather than seek their prosecution, he confessed that he used taxpayers’ funds to compensate and placate them. Why is Mallam Shehu therefore surprised that he is being pilloried for his unsavoury comparisons, and the police for their timidity, effrontery and tactlessness?
Mallam Shehu’s defence of Miyetti Allah and the police is futile. Of course, he had no choice but to respond to interviewers’ questions the best and safest way he could. But though his answers lacked logic and believability, they were sadly consistent with the federal governments’ dithering over the issue of violent herdsmen. It is now very unlikely any reporter can get any member of the current government to resolve the herdsmen puzzle in a way that inspires justice and fairness. The officials will all waffle considerably and stubbornly continue to defend the indefensible. More of the kind of embarrassing questions posed to Mallam Shehu will be posed to many more government officials and spokesmen in the foreseeable future, especially as the controversy over armed herdsmen and sacking of farming communities continue. Government officials will expect such hard questions, but the public will hardly be able to make sense of the answers they will get because those answers will remain, for reasons not to hard to understand, fundamentally flawed and skewed.
For the umpteenth time, it is necessary to draw the attention of the government and its spokesmen to the point that it has become more urgent than ever to find a lasting and just solution to the herdsmen-farmers conflict. Gradually, the country is being sucked into the vortex of bloody skirmishes that spare no one. If the flow of blood is not halted, if sacked communities are not restored to their rightful owners, if a few prominent government officials unwisely continue to take sides, then they will be naive to expect the restoration of peace and development. There are many factors — social, economic, political or climatic — predisposing many groups to violence. Whatever the factors are, it is the responsibility of a thinking government to find permanent solutions rather than justifying violence and raking up exculpatory reasons that favour only one side.
For as long as the crisis of confidence between farmers and herdsmen persists, and the schism between Nigeria’s main ethnic and religious groups ossifies, it will be impossible to free the government of poor judgement and bias or lessen the foul rumours of monetary compensation associated with the meeting between the police and leaders of Miyetti Allah.