The abduction of Prof. Olayinka Adegbeingbe, a lecturer at Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile Ife, by suspected herdsmen on Ibadan-Ife Road in Osun State early in May this year, naturally drew the world’s attention to the activities of the criminal elements among the herdsmen in the state.
The OAU lecturer was believed to have coughed out a whopping N5.045 million before he was released by his abductors. “The people who abducted me were Fulani herdsmen and they had four guns and multiple rounds of ammunition as well as other weapons,” he told reporters in an interview.
Indeed, in a space of two days in the month of May, no fewer than four people, including two officials of the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) were kidnapped in the state. While the security agents were battling to rescue the two officials of the FRSC abducted on Ilesha/Akure Expressway, another set of victims travelling between Esa Odo and Ilare, both in Obokun Local Government Area were also abducted by gunmen, allegedly by herdsmen also.
The victims, Amusa Olaleye Dunsin, said to be the chief hunter for Obokun town, and a lady named Tayo and three others were said to be heading towards Ilare from Esa Odo, when their vehicle was intercepted by the abductors.
In all the kidnap cases in the state, accusing fingers have pointed to the Fulani herders living in different communities in Osun State. But the spate of killings and kidnappings in the state is not only worrisome to the indigenes but also to the Fulani who many suspect to be the brains behind the incidents.
While some people would want to believe that the state of insecurity in the state is exaggerated, the presence of regular and riot policemen on Ibadan-Osogbo and Ibadan-Ilesha roads points to the fact that all is not well in the state.
Our correspondent visited some of the Fulani communities in Osun State and found majority of the Fulani herdsmen resident in the state expressing worries over the incidents of kidnapping over which accusing fingers have pointed to them from different directions. The development, some of them said, had put them in a difficult situation, considering that they have lived all their lives in that part of the country and may not even belong among their kindred in the northern part of the country if they have to leave their current domains for any reason.
For instance, 50-year-old Yesuf Sulaimona, a Fulani herder, said he was born and bred in Oogi, a community in Osun State as a member of the third generation of Fulani herdsmen who migrated to the town more than a century ago. “I am fully integrated into the Yoruba culture,” he said.
Absolving the Fulani population in the state of any involvement in the kidnapping and other criminal activities that have bedeviled the state and indeed the South-West region lately, Sulaimona said: “Our own Fulani do not belong to the ones involved in criminal activities. The Yoruba people here can bear us witness.”
Sulaimona, his wives and children live in a secluded settlement, a stone’s throw from the residences of the members of their host community. Although he admitted that there had been pockets of attacks by robbers, he said there had not been reported cases of kidnapping in Oogi, adding that the presence of herdsmen in the community had helped in checking the activities of robbers who were initially terrorising the community and the commuters plying the road.
He told The Nation that the activities of armed robbers had forced him and his family members to vacate their initial abode, saying “since we came here, that has stopped. If we had been stealing or involved in criminal activities, the truth would have been revealed. The so called Fulani people that accused of engaging in criminal activities, we have not seen them.”
Sulaimono said neither the vigilance groups nor the hunters in the area had arrested any of his family members committing crime, arguing that the stereotyping of the Fulani could be due to the nomadic lifestyle of Fulani people. “Some people tag us as criminals simply because we live in the bush,” he said.
Asked if he was afraid of possible reprisals over the recent incidents of kidnapping in Osun and other parts of the South-West region by people suspected to be herdsmen, he said he was confident that their Yoruba hosts would defend them if matters came to that.
He said: “We hear that Fulani people are being accused of various crimes. We are not afraid of any reprisal attack. We are more concerned about our jobs. Our Yoruba hosts will surely defend us if there is any threat or something that could jeopardise our interests.”
Why farmers, herdsmen don’t clash
According to Sulaimono, the configuration of the community makes it difficult for the Fulani and their Yoruba hosts to engage in any serious clash. “Since kidnapping by herdsmen became an issue, the paramount traditional rulers in the area have called us for meetings and asked us to be watchful and report any suspicious moves,” he said.
He also said that any conflict that could arise from cattle destroying farms is always nipped in the bud because the herdsmen involved would immediately go to the farmer, report himself and pay the necessary compensation. He said there were no cattle rustlers around the community, though he admitted that there could be occasions where one or two cows or rams are stolen in the night.
He said: “If you wake up in the morning and the cattle are complete, fine. If not, good. As long as nobody is caught stealing the cow, we believe it is an act of God. Cattle rustlers are not here, but we often hear stories that rustlers disturb them a lot in the north.”
The 50-year-old says he does not speak any other language than Yoruba. “I was born and bred here. How would I speak Fulani? The people of my age who speak Fulani go out to learn it.”
He also disclosed that many of the cows in their stable belong to Yoruba people. “Anybody can give us cows to keep. What we do is agree on a contract terms and the two parties adhere to the agreement,” he said.
Another herder, Alfa Mumuni Adam, has lived on one of the farms in Ede for the 30 years. Unlike Sulaimona, he speaks Fulani. Our correspondent encountered him and his three other family members while they grazed their cattle early in the morning. Our correspondent noticed that the herders made conscious efforts to see that the cows did not stray into the farms around the grazing field.
Mumuni’s attention was more on the cows even as he spoke with the reporter, intermittently shouting at them in a strange language. With the stick he held across the back of his neck, he whipped any straying cow into line to prevent them from going beyond a certain part of the field.
Confronted with the allegation that herdsmen in the state had been kidnapping and robbing people, he said he only heard that that was happening in the north.
He said: “We hear that such things happen in the north but we have not heard about it here. When I heard that, what came to my mind was to secure where we stay. We are for the security of the town we live in. We cooperate with our hosts to prevent any form of insecurity.”
Mumuni said it would be difficult for the farmers and the Fulani herders in the community to clash because no herder would deliberately allow his cows to stray into another person’s farm. He said that if that happens by accident, the herder would go to the farmer and resolve the issue amicably.
He noted that intermarriage between Fulani herders and their Yoruba hosts had helped a lot in fostering peaceful coexistence in the community.
‘We don’t carry AK47’
Our correspondent sought to know if Mumuni protects his cows with AK47, but he went into a prolonged laughter.
“We don’t have AK47. What do you see with me? A stick and apere tungbo (a small woven basket).
“There is nothing like that here in Osun. We work together with the governor. We don’t want such here, and if we hear anything like that, we will quickly report.”
Corroborating what Sulaimono and Adam, a Yoruba farmer in the area, Akeem Adeoye, said the farmers and herders in the area had reached an understanding on how to avoid conflicts.
He said: “There are rules and regulations laid down by the elders of the community in the sense that any Fulani that mistakenly enters any farm must pay damages except the farmer decides to overlook the damages done to his farm.”
The Nation also gathered that anytime a Fulani herder is taking his cattle for grazing, the farmers are notified, probably for joint supervision of the cows.
Adeoye also believes that the brains behind the kidnapping incidents in the state are not the Fulani people resident in different parts of the state but the nomadic Fulani herders who live outside the communities.
He said: “There is a set of Fulani herdsmen known as Bororo. They don’t speak any of the Nigerian languages. They don’t have a base. They sleep where the day closes and move on the next day.
“Some of them don’t even sleep. You would see them with all their loads. They don’t even care about anything. They enter any farm they come across, graze their cattle and move on. They are the ones killing, according to the information.”
In defence of Fulani
A clergyman who identified himself simply as Rev Akintunde said he had been living with Fulani people in Ede, a popular town in Osun State, since he was a teenager. He believes that there is more to the criminal activities of herdsmen in Osun than many people think. He sees the issue as more of politics than crime.
“Why singling out the Fulani as criminals? He asked. “Of those that have been arrested, how many of them are Fulani?
“I knew from day one that those people committing crime were not Fulani. We have been together for long. There is no tribe that does not have criminal elements in Nigeria, but I know that this menace or attacks are politically motivated.
“I live with them. I speak their language. If I want to marry a Fulani tomorrow, I can, because our relationship is so deep. When I was travelling, I left the keys of my house with them. I’ve never seen any of the Fulani people I live with commit crime.”
He believes that the crisis is being orchestrated by politicians. “All of them have forerunners that work for them politically. Little by little, we are going to find out the truth. God is going to expose those who are responsible for this,” he said.
He said that Yoruba people own majority of the cows in his community, adding that the Fulani people have just a little percentage of them.
He said: “You see, the Fulani are a tribe that do not keep money; they just want their comfort, they want just want to get satisfied, unlike those herders that commit crime.
“You can imagine Yoruba people giving them cows to breed. What they gain from those cows is the milk that they use for their cheese. Majority of our House of Assembly members own cows. That is to tell you that everything was a blackmail.”
He advised government to look beyond the Fulani people if it wants to find a permanent solution to the upsurge of crime rate in the state.
Omotosho Abiodun, one of the elders in Ooogi, shares Akintude’s views.
He said: “We have been living here with the Fulani for over 50 years. Since we have been living with them, we have not had any problem with them.
“But I understand that the Fulani are of two types. The Bororo Fulani are the ones people complain about, but we don’t have them here. We and the Fulani here coordinate the activities of the town, including the religious activities. We don’t have problem with them.”
Osun government’s intervention
Mudashiru Toogun is the committee chairman for the co-existence between the Bororo Fulani and farmers in Osun State. Contrary to what was being reported, he said there was no insecurity in the state.
He said: “There is no insecurity in Osun so far. There are no pockets of kidnapping in the state again. There used to be, even though it was not as bad as people tried to portray it. But right now, Osun is completely peaceful.”
Explaining the genesis of the upsurge in criminal activities by herdsemen, he said the displaced people from Zamfara got attracted to the mining site in Osun, and the migration brought with it criminal elements.
He said with the two security conferences, one each in Ilesha and Osogbo, the governor, Isiaka Gboyega Oyetola, was able to nip the security challenge in the bud.
“Now the governor has repaired all APC vehicles; 19 of them. He has also assisted security agencies in the state to repair their patrol vehicles and we are getting fullest cooperation from vigilante groups and the local hunters.
“Currently, Osun has gotten a security number code that citizens can call if there is security infraction in their own area. The number is 293. You don’t need to have credit on your phone. These are efforts we have made and have resulted in permanent peace in the state.”