Borno State governor, Kashim Shettima must have shocked many when he sought to absolve Fulani herdsmen from the series of criminal activities associated with them around the country. The governor who addressed the press on behalf of the Northern Governors Forum (NGF) faulted what he saw as the increasing profiling of all criminals as Fulani.
Hear him: “We want to unequivocally condemn the recent killings in Enugu and other parts of the country. But we equally condemn the politicization or permit me, the ethnicization of the whole crisis. It goes beyond Fulani. If anything happens, they say Fulani herdsmen. To me, it is an insult”.
He drew a parallel with kidnapping to illustrate his point, arguing “kidnapping in the country originated in the South-east, were they called Igbo kidnappers?
Not unexpectedly, his statement has been interpreted as a veiled attempt to absolve Fulani herdsmen from the murderous activities and sundry criminality that have come to be associated with their activities. The uproar generated by Shettima’s rationalization was such that the deputy governor of Benue State was put under pressure to deny that the NGF absolved Fulani herdsmen from the killings that have left that state a former ghost of itself.
It would have been suicidal had he been associated with the interpretation which Shettima’s views on behalf of his colleagues seemingly conveyed. Shettima and his colleagues may not have deliberately set out to absolve Fulani herdsmen from the killings in Enugu, Benue and other parts of the country. It would have been absurd and insensitive for them to have done so. They seem concerned on the way and manner Fulani herdsmen are being linked to all manner of criminal activities in parts of the country.
They fear that some of the criminal activities attributed to Fulani herdsmen may not have been actually committed by them. That could be possible. There is also the suggestion that it is not just the Fulani race that is in the herdsmen business as some other groups are also into it and could be part of those involved in the killings and criminal activities. This point was further openly canvassed by northern senators when they addressed the press on the festering crisis. Senator Abdullahi Adamu who spoke on behalf of his colleagues, had said that he had seen some herdsmen who are of the Igbo and Yoruba stock. That appears in tandem with the analogy of Shettima when he claimed that kidnapping originated from the South-east yet nobody has termed all kidnappers as Igbo.
But that is where Both Shettima and Abdullahi run into troubled waters. The first problem with their analogy is that they twisted the facts about the origin of kidnapping in the country. Kidnapping never originated in the south-east as has been erroneously bandied. The first reports on kidnapping in this country involved militants who took expatriates of oil companies for ransom.
It was a protest against the despoliation of the oil producing communities by oil companies without regard to their sufferings. Definitely, this did not take place in the south-east as the theatre was always in the high seas and the creeks. The south-east does not have the advantage of such seas and therefore the Igbo could not have been the initiators of kidnapping as Shettima would want us to believe.
It is true that the devious technology was later copied by sundry criminals in Igbo land and elsewhere and executed in the most embarrassing manner. It is no less correct that the kidnapping bug later infested all ethnic groups and spread like wild fire. Today, Fulani herdsmen are fully into it. So it is not possible to profile all kidnappers as Igbo as other ethnic groups are fully into it.
But unlike in the case of the herdsmen, we are yet to know of any other ethnic group that is largely in that business. The association of the Fulani with the business of herding is legendary. It is a cultural thing. They control cow rearing almost 100 per cent. If you find any other person outside the Fulani race in that business, they are doing it at the behest of their Fulani masters.
So when crimes are committed by herdsmen in parts of the country, they are easily traced to the Fulani cattle tenders. It has nothing to do with wrong profiling, politicization or ethnicisation. It is the reality on the ground. By that, no attempt is made to categorize the Fulani race as criminals. Nobody in his right senses would venture that. For when we talk of criminals in the society, either of the Igbo, Fulani or Yoruba stock, they are deviants consisting of an infinitesimal percentage of these populations. So it is not possible to label the Fulani race as criminals because of the activities of the few criminals from that race. That is a trite point Shettima should have taken for granted.
Beyond this however, it is a different ball game altogether whether this is the right time for such trite arguments. At a time many lives have been lost and property of inestimable value destroyed by the herdsmen in parts of the country; at a time tempers are very high and the nation drifting to the precipice on account of the failure of the state to rein in the herdsmen, raising such arguments amounts to insensitivity to the pains of those who have lost loved ones and properties to the senseless invasion of their communities.
It is crass insensitivity to the current mood of the nation for the governors to have condemned the killings with the right hand and the alleged labelling of the Fulani as criminals with the other. Such, is least expected of that distinguished meeting of governors. It is not for nothing that that statement has been interpreted as tacit support for the activities of the herdsmen.
Given the current challenges posed by the activities of the herdsmen, the governors should have come out with concrete suggestions and measures to at least, temporarily halt the smouldering inferno. Sadly, rather than do that, their position has further given vent to suspicions that there may be more to the activities of the herdsmen than ordinarily meets the eyes. That the people of Benue State felt so concerned with the position of the northern governors that they had to confront their deputy governor on the matter shows how intemperate that statement was considered.
The position of the governors is a sad reminder to the ambivalence of the northern elite at the budding stages of the Boko Haram insurgency. At a time they ought to have spoken out and condemned in very strong terms, the activities of that fundamentalist religious group, many were found equivocating and rationalizing until the scourge got out of hands. One is afraid both the northern governors and their senators are treading this devious and very familiar path again. Then, we were even treated to such arguments as the Boko Haram serial killers were not Moslems. Yet, they professed that faith, abducted the Chibok girls and converted them to the faith. We were also told by no less a body than the Northern Elders Forum that most of the crises in the north were being instigated by people from outside the region. No less a person than the former governor of Adamawa State, Muritala Nyako even alleged that Boko Haram was a contrivance to depopulate the north. Today, we now know better.
Today, we are again being told that there are Igbo and Yoruba elements into cattle rearing. Even if it is possible to get some other tribes in that business, to what extent does that detract substantially from the fact that it is an age-long business of the Fulani? Does that safely exculpate the Fulani herdsmen or their armed militia from the attacks they are known to have been associated with? It does not.
Instead of wasting valuable time on issues of this nature, both the northern governors and their senators should come out with measures to end these senseless killings by the herdsmen. Disarming them should be the starting point. Then, the profiling associated with their activities which is being complained of, will fizzle out unilaterally.
