By Anthony Chuka Konwea, P.E.
“I belong to nobody yet I belong to everybody.”
- President Muhammadu Buhari at his inaugural speech.
Nothing more aptly demonstrates the dysfunctionality of the State and implicates the political leadership in Nigeria than the perennial clashes between herdsmen and natives. But I am jumping the gun. First of all let me make a rather embarrassing observation.
Nigeria must surely be one of the few remaining countries or perhaps the very last country on earth where nomadic pastoralists still wander around unrestrained and rather randomly with their cattle in search of green pasture.
The pastoralists mainly of the Fulani ethnic stock from the far north of the country traverse well beyond their native domains into distant tribal territories further down south particularly during the harsh dry season and return home whenever it suits them particularly in the rainy season.
Where in the past the nomadic Fulanis were accepted as quaint itinerant persons full of oddities, they are not viewed with such tolerance and magnanimity nowadays outside their native lands. So what went wrong?
Well it transpires that the once nomadic Fulani are no more as nomadic as they used to be. They now ominously set up quasi-permanent camps and settlements outside their homeland with an expansionist mindset.
It is one thing to welcome a stranger who without invitation sets up camp and embeds himself in your neighborhood or tribal territory for a couple of days or weeks at the most before voluntarily moving on. It is something else to harbor a stranger who arrives in your tribal territory, again without invitation but with the express albeit unstated intention of setting up a permanent outpost manned all year round by him and by his likes in relay shifts.
To rub salt into fresh wound, the nomadic Fulani who in the long distant past used to carefully avoid cultivated farmlands while foraging for pasture, are now armed with AK 47 rifles, and traverse farm cultivations with reckless impunity. By so doing, their cattle eat up every green blade in sight and trample budding crop stalks with their hooves.
No moving objects in cultivated farmlands are spared from their orgy of destruction. Hapless peasant women farmers are raped, protesting males are shot or stabbed to death. When the relatives of the victims unwisely attempt to revenge the violence meted out with impunity on their loved ones in their own ethnic homelands, entire villages are razed to the ground, with hundreds of fatalities including babies, children, women and the aged.
When such orgies of destruction occur in remote areas, it takes days or weeks for the news to filter out. It takes even longer for the hapless Nigerian police and other state law enforcement agents to react. And the in-built dysfunctionalities of the Nigerian State kick in.
A typical dysfunctionality is the official minimization of the level of casualties. Nigeria is perhaps one of the few countries on earth officially allergic to the unblemished truth. Another dysfunctionality is the official mandate of the law enforcement agents themselves.
Slow to react, the police and law enforcement agents drafted to the scene of carnage are not really there to prevent reoccurrence or to carry out a thorough investigation. They are there to simply adopt a holding position. Their holding position is to prevent neutral observers from gaining access to the site and to prevent them from independently verifying the scale of destruction. They do this while awaiting further instructions and orders from the Office of the President, who is also the nominal Chief Security Officer of the Federation.
The police (or army) hierarchy only becomes proactive when they establish the political and directional slant the Office of the President wants to give to the carnage. The Inspector-General of police must follow this unprofessional protocol if he wants to retain his job. Meanwhile this political or directional slant might take any one of at least different three forms.
If the herdsmen’s war-party which enjoys official favor was the original aggressor and the majority of the victims are from the opposing party (i.e. the natives), the Police (or occasionally the army too) is instructed to (a) permit the systematic sanitization of the site, (b) minimize the reported number of casualties, (c) obfuscate the true cause of the conflict and (d) provide bodyguard services to the aggressor to prevent reprisal attacks from the opponents. Let us call this the Type 1 Police (or army) reaction.
If the herdsmen’s war-party which enjoys official favor was the original aggressor yet the majority of the victims are from this same herdsmen’s war-party, the Police is instructed to (a) maximize the reported number of casualties consistent with the wish of government not to admit to a total breakdown of law and order, (b) arrest as many of the able-bodied natives as they can lay their hands upon, (c) obfuscate the actual cause of the conflict. In addition (d) the police (occasionally the army too) is mandated to temporarily withdraw from the scene and turn a blind eye in order to allow for reprisal attacks from the herdsmen party which enjoys official favor. Let us call this the Type 2 Police (or army) reaction.
In the rare case where the Office of the President is truly neutral to the conflict between both parties, which scenario only occurs when the incumbent President has no ancestral roots or strong religious ties to either party, the Police (or army) is instructed to (a) carefully sanitize the scene in order to control outside escalatory interference, (b) understate the number of casualties, and (c) provide active deterrence to further reprisal attacks from either party. In such rare circumstances the Office of the President is usually very sensitive to the political fallouts from an inability to maintain law and order. Let us call this the Type 3 Police (or army) reaction.
Observe that in no case is a thorough investigation conducted. In all three types of Police (or army) reactions none of which is truly professional, it is noteworthy that the first casualty is an accurate count of the exact number of fatalities and of injuries. The second casualty is an unbiased determination of the remote and immediate causes of the conflict even though the Government pretends to be doing something by setting up panels of enquiry. The results of such enquiries are never ever published nor do they ever see the light of day.
The number of clashes between herdsmen and natives has grown exponentially in recent times. Sometime in April 2015, after the last general elections which was won by the incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari on the premise of “Change,” this writer published the final piece in the ‘A Nation in Heat’ series of opinion pieces in which “action-points” were presented to then President-elect Buhari.
Because of its relevance and pertinence to recent happenings, I crave your indulgence to quote extensively from this opinion piece titled ‘A Nation in Heat – Fait Accompli’ as follows:
(- Beginning of extract -)
“Some peculiarities of a few ethnic groups which cause ethnic tensions in their relationship with people of other ethnicities have been listed out in the preceding paragraphs. It is hoped that conscious efforts would be made by everyone to adjust accordingly for the sake of our country Nigeria.”
“However there is one particular ethnic misdemeanor which the President-elect must address forthwith as soon as he assumes power not only because it involves his own ethnic group of origin but also because human lives are involved. The wanton killing of innocent Nigerians in their places of origin by itinerant Fulani herdsmen has gotten out of hand, is a grave threat to national stability and cohesion and should end.”
“The time has indeed come for the nomadic lifestyle of the cattle Fulani to be modified to suit modern realities. It is evident from the constant battles between nomadic Fulani and their host communities across the length and breadth of Nigeria that the days of nomadic cattle herding are over. The world’s largest producers of beef are the United States, Brazil and the European Union.”
“This writer has never been to Brazil but cattle-breeders in the United States and the Europe do not adopt a nomadic lifestyle. Civil engineers would tell you as well that cattle movement along well defined tracks is one of the prime incipient causes of gully erosion.”
“The time has come for Governments and wealthy farmers in Nigeria to establish ranches where cattle may be reared. Under this arrangement, grass cut from surrounding areas with the co-operation and involvement of local land owners and farmers can be transported to the ranches and sold at a nominal fee to the cattle breeders for their cattle.”
”It might mean that cattle meat costs a little more for everybody but it would create a new industry of cutting specific types of grass for feeding cattle. More importantly the lives of innocent Nigerians as well as the itinerant Fulani themselves would be saved.”
“The nation is waiting and watching the President-elect’s action in this issue, a successful resolution of which will convey his seriousness of purpose to all Nigerians.”
(- End of extract -)
It is with a very heavy heart that I observe that almost one year on after this free public advice was presented, President Buhari has done nothing tangible to address the root cause of the incessant herdsmen versus natives’ conflict in Nigeria. The cost of the President’s failure to provide the requisite leadership means that perhaps over a thousand innocent Nigerian lives have been lost in needless clashes between herdsmen and farmers over the past one year alone.
In the recent past, the Obi (King) of Ubulu-Uku town in Delta State was kidnapped and murdered by suspected Fulani herdsmen. A former presidential candidate in Nigeria, Chief Olu Falae was also kidnapped and traumatized by suspected Fulani herdsmen late last year. And there are many other similar incidences.
The latest episode in the murderous odyssey of the nomadic herdsmen is the recent brazen attack on the Agatu people of Benue State by the nomadic Fulani in which between 300 – 1000 Agatu lives (note that verifiable statistics are unavailable) may have been wasted by the nomadic Fulani. The Fulani in their defense claimed that they undertook their murderous rampage in order to avenge the slaughter of about 300 heads of cattle by suspected Agatu cattle rustlers.
Not being on the scene it is difficult to ascertain the correct version of events. The Nigerian Police have reported that they have arrested several cattle rustlers. But to the best of my knowledge, not one of the Fulani murderers including the spokesman who made the self-incriminating counter-tale quoted above has been arrested by the police.
As at this moment there is hardly a soul in Nigeria apart from President Buhari’s diehard partisans, who routinely see no wrong, hear no wrong and speak no wrong about the President in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, that remains unconvinced that President Buhari’s tardiness in addressing this conflict is tied to the fact that his ethnic kinsmen are involved and that he is also a cattle owner.
Notice that what we have witnessed so far is a typical Nigerian Police Type 1 Reaction after a violent inter-ethnic conflict. It would seem therefore that under the watch of President Muhammadu Buhari, whether by cattle herds or by tall tales, the Fulani herdsmen always win.
Contrast this state supported aggression of the nomadic Fulani with the heavy handedness with which the Buhari Administration reacted to the unarmed protest marches by peaceful neo-Biafran separatists exercising their lawful rights to peaceful agitation for self-determination in which perhaps up to a hundred neo-Biafran separatists (the exact statistics are unavailable) may have been murdered in cold-blood by Nigerian state actors.
Also contrast this state supported aggression of the Fulani with the over-reaction of the Nigerian military to the supposedly violent demonstration of the Nigerian Shiites in Kaduna armed by their own self-admission with cudgels, axes and sticks. Note that the Shiites leader has been sequestered in State custody without trial since last year.
How does the state supported aggression of the Fulani outside their areas of tribal origin as well as the state sponsored murder of neo-Biafran separatists and Shiites square with President Buhari’s post inaugural declaration quoted above as the prelude to this piece?
This is what we shall consider more closely in the second part.
- TO BE CONCLUDED –