Apart from its iniquity and brutality, very little was known of Nigerian Fulani herdsmen, rated by Global Terrorism Index as the fourth deadliest terrorist group in the world, coming after Boko Haram, ISIS and Al-Shabab. They reportedly killed about 1,229 Nigerians between 2013 and 2014. And since our traditional Fulani herdsmen don’t carry sophisticated arms, many had thought only infiltrators from neighbouring countries could have inflicted so much sorrow on innocent women and children across the Middle Belt of Nigeria. Armed with sophisticated weapons, these men whose identity, state of origin or nationality are unknown, killed, maimed and disappeared, leaving many in pain. Government even with its control of awesome apparatus of state power has yet to apprehend or prosecute any of their members.
The narrative however changed with last week intervention by Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi II and Alhaji Sale Bayeri, the Secretary-General of Gan-Allah Fulani Development Association and member of Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association’s (MACBAN) Board of Trustees. The former admitted he is a patron of Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria, the body that gives protection to Fulani herdsmen. Other patrons according to him include the Sultan of Sokoto, Lamido of Adamawa and emirs of Zazzau and Katsina.” The objective of the Fulani herdsmen umbrella body according to him is the “protection of the fundamental rights of herdsmen as Nigerians including constitutional right to freedom of movement and the ownership of private wealth and peaceful conduct of their business.”
He traces the cause of the crisis to “demographic implosion in the North, desertification, reduction in water reserves and competition for resources, crop production, animal husbandry and fishing” but blames the prolonged crisis and the attendant terrorism to “failure of political authority, the cynical manipulation of ethnic identity by failed governments and the impotence of our security machinery.”
He however vigorously defended the action of the herdsmen citing the alleged murder of “800 Fulani women, infants and the elderly.” whose personal dossier he claimed he “ personally handed over to the Federal Government with the names and pictures’ as well as names and addresses of persons known to have participated in these acts of ethnic cleansing”.
The latter, Alhaji Sale Bayeri, chose to warn us about the “grave consequences if 18 million Fulanis continue to perceive deliberate injustice”, threatening that “the Boko Haram insurgency would be a child’s play if herdsmen and farmers’ conflicts are not resolved in a way that is acceptable to all sides.” And what would appease the rampaging herdsmen, he said was contained in a 70-page letter he had sent to President Buhari before his inauguration. In it was a demand for an un-hindered grazing access in areas he identified as ‘trouble spots’ spread across 75 local government areas across 21 states including “ Oye Local Government in the northern part of Ekiti, Shaki in Oyo State, Akwa-Ibom, Cross River, Rivers, Delta, Edo, Bauchi, Gombe, Yola”.
And with foreboding finality, both Fulani leaders insist “Benue anti-grazing law cannot work”, while Bayeri seems to demand as of right that “there should be open grazing for those people who think it is traditional and cultural to do it because that is their only form of exercise, leisure and pleasure.” The ‘leisure and pleasure’ of herdsmen he seems to say, take precedence over ownership of cultivated farms or uncultivated land belonging to private individuals.
With such robust defence and backing of Fulani herdsmen by their principals, we need not ask the source of their sophisticated weapons, what embolden them to act with impunity and why no one has been brought to book to date.
The contempt and the arrogance exhibited by the aggressors while the bodies of their victims were about to be laid to rest once again raise the issue of restructuring as the only answer to our crisis of nationhood. It is apparent that some of our compatriots don’t believe we are running a federal system of government. This can only be the explanation why the Emir of Kano believes he can from his Kano fiefdom dictate to Benue State governor how to run the affairs of his state. Under a federal constitution, especially in an age when the federal arrangement has become market driven, the only option available to Emir Sanusi of Kano is to encourage settlers who are dissatisfied with Benue laws to migrate to Kano, if his fiefdom holds better prospects.
Within a federal set up, desert encroachment, population implosion or competition for resources may attract federal support but cannot be sufficient reasons to demand by force, free grazing zones in the farmlands of federating states or threat to invite fellow Fulani across the borders to unleash further terror if the federal government fails to prevail on recalcitrant states.
Beyond capturing territories, which His Royal Highness , Emir of Kano says is ‘daft argument’, it is not lost on many Nigerians that it is only those with mindset of feudal lords that will demand as of right to embark on open grazing across the farm lands of other federating states.
I sympathise with Governor Samuel Ortom and the people of Benue State who have just buried another set of 73 victims in the vicious cycle of terror that started in Tiv land long before independence. Unfortunately, until Governor Ortom, successive Tiv leaders betrayed the spirit of Joseph Tarka who along with Awo paid dearly for their attempt to create an identity for the Tiv people. Successive Tiv leaders including the David Mark, eight years Senate President and his group who are now threatening to set up an army have betrayed the Benue people by choosing to pick crumps from the table of those who have openly declared Tiv land as spoil of war following their great grandfather’s conquest of Tiv land.
And finally, I sympathise with President Buhari whose failure to seize an historic opportunity to become a statesman, with all his imperfections, alleged nepotism, cronyism and soft spot for Fulani herdsmen, he is the only Nigerian leader that has truly put Nigeria first not necessarily because of what he stands to gain politically or financially. He is unlike Obasanjo whose claim of being ‘Mr. Nigeria’ secured for him a military head of state and a two-term president when he would have not risen beyond a local council chairman due to the nature of politics of his Yoruba people.
I recently asked, unfortunately without getting an answer, someone I believe is sufficiently close enough to know the way the mind of the president works. It is curious that President Buhari would ignore the wise counsel of Nigerian patriots like Wole Soyinka, Emeka Anyaoku and others on restructuring and then move on to squander away the goodwill of millions of Nigerians who had wanted to make an Abraham Lincoln out of him, choosing to swim along with those with mindset of feudal lords and their public face like David Mark who has asked those who identified restructuring as answer to our crisis of nationality to “first restructure their minds”.
