BY SIMON REEF MUSA
There is a video clip that has gone viral over an attack on herdsmen somewhere in an area located in one of the Igbo-speaking states. In the video, a female voice is heard warning herdsmen to vacate the area or face death. Pictures of cows being burnt are vividly shown, while the background voice is heard loud and clear that the Fulani would not be welcomed to the area again.
Insiders privy to the time the video was released are worried over the fright that may follow. Just recently, the Northern Elders’ Forum (NEF) announced that any attack on Fulani in the southern part of Nigeria will attract a reprisal in the North. If that happens, then the road to Kigali may just have begun.
It is true that the incapacity of the present administration has emboldened criminal herdsmen who have carried out unprovoked attacks on defenceless Nigerians and communities. The increasing demonisation of the herdsmen ethnic group has the tendency of alienating them for future attacks from other groups, including setting them apart for national odium. For those who love the unity of the country, allowing the present sordid event to continue unabated will definitely assist in the systematic estrangement of Fulani.
Last week, the Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Muhammadu Sa’ad Abubakar III, lamented that out of 10 people engaged in criminal abductions and kidnappings, no fewer than eight or seven are Fulani. The leader of Nigerian Muslims was speaking against the backdrop of the continued demonisation of Fulani over crimes perpetrated by brigands who have found occupations in crimes and portrayed the Fulani ethnic group in a bad light. Warning against the endless disapprobation of the Fulani, the monarch called on Nigerians to avoid blaming Fulani for crimes perpetrated by few members of the ethnic group.
There’s no doubt that though most members of criminal gangs engaged in criminal kidnappings speak Fulfulde, this number constitutes a mere fraction of the herdsmen tribe. To blame an ethnic group over the crimes perpetrated by a few of their members amounts to a grave injustice.
In a nation that is reputed for a culture of negative profiling, this is not the first time such is happening. At the peak of Nigerian girls trooping to Italy and other European countries in search of greener pastures, it was normal to refer to those girls as coming from Edo. But this assumption falls flat on the face, as many girls from the southern and northern part also engage in using what they have to get what they want.
In the business of criminal kidnappings and other crimes perpetrated by herdsmen, the Fulani ethnic group has come under serious bashing. The refusal of the good Fulani amongst them to call and shame them the bad criminal in their midst has given credence to insinuations in some quarters that both the lawless and peace-loving Fulani are on the same page. Light and darkness cannot co-exist; one must give way. The criminal Fulani herdsmen are escaping from the long arm of the law because the peace-loving Fulani are not determined to provide shield to the bad eggs. The criminals get emboldened when a majority of peaceful citizens are not willing to expose them. Much as we desire an end to terrorism, criminal abductions and other crimes, we cannot obliterate crimes from our midst without collaboration with others.
Permit a personal experience on the menace of herdsmen hovering over our nation’s skies. The Ladugga grazing reserve, comprising over 73,000 hectares, nearly the size of two local government areas is located in Zangon Kataf Local Government Area of Kaduna State. The reserve is now home to all kinds of herdsmen from Chad, Niger, Cameroon, among others.
Before now, the area has been an attraction to herdsmen for grazing. Following the Zangon Kataf crisis that rocked the local government areas in 1992, most of the herdsmen in Southern Kaduna found their way to Ladugga. With the expansion of the grazing reserve to its initial 73,000 hectares from 33,000 hectares, herdsmen from many countries have now found a safe haven in the area.
As I pen this piece, these foreign herders have continued to unleash terror on surrounding communities and kidnapping local herdsmen for ransom. That does not mean an absence or infarction from both the herdsmen and farming communities that should find amicable settlement. The pathetic situation is that both local communities and sometimes indigenous Fulani people are no longer safe. Of course, there are efforts embarked by the government to bring peace, but the road to peace is far flung.
As long as we do not take deliberate action to stop the influx of herdsmen into communities, the dream of ridding our country of violence and bloodshed will remain nothing less than a dream. Before 2015, the dread of Fulani herdsmen was the least of worry. Now, the fear of herdsmen has assumed a frightening dread that only communities that have come under their attacks can testify. From Kebbi to Kogi; and from Kaduna to Niger, among others, herdsmen have become a present danger to Nigerians. In Sokoto and Katsina, these herdsmen, now called bandits, have turned women into widows and hundreds of thousands of children into the class of the fatherless.
Instead of witnessing a decline in the dangers posed by these terror gangs, the state has become powerless in controlling their fire power. They kill and rape women at will, just as they attack communities and turned them into unimaginable devastations. Alarmed by their determination to entrench bloodshed and violence in the areas they hold sway, they occupied the 4th position as the most dreaded terrorist organisation in the world.
A former presidential aspirant under the All Progressives Congress (APC), Alhaji Adamu Garba, says it is unacceptable for Fulani to rear their cows in open fields in 2021. He advocates for ranching and leasing of lands from communities and state government. Anything short of that, the politician contends, is courting for trouble in the future.
There is the urgent need to rein in the garrulous disposition of the leadership of Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN) on issues relating to insecurity in Nigeria. Those who call attention of the government to intervene on the insecurity caused by Fulani are not enemies of herdsmen, but are patriots who have damned their fear for the nation’s unity.
A nation is not about the supremacy of a group but a platform where all groups find justice and fulfilments as citizens. From the rumbles that have trailed our lives as Nigerians since 2015 to date, we must return to the trenches and save our land from the smokes of ethnic conflagration that may soon snowball into an inferno in the near future.
