Herdsmen of mayhem: A threat to national unity -By Comrade Ahamefula Israel

NOMADIC Fulani herdsmen have become a much-resented group across the country. The resentment has intensified as they have clashed with farming communities across the country. In the Middle Belt and South East, it is no longer accurate to call the attitude resentment, just as it is no longer accurate to describe what is happening as a clash. It is a sustained massacre, and it has engendered an attitude that is approaching hatred – the kind of hatred that one reserves for someone who threatens ones very existence.

Comrade Ahamefula Israel

To think that what is happening in the North-Central and now in virtually every other part of the country is a mere conflict for grazing rights would only amount to naivety at best, because it is now without a doubt that an evil wind is blowing and no section of the country is spared.

Recently, this fulani herdsmen massacred 300 people in several Agatu villages, burned down homes, food barns, and churches, and displaced tens of thousands of Agatu people and just yesterday 25th April 2016, we also experienced the same incidence at Uzo Uwani LGA of Enugu State where over 30 persons including my colleague, a serving Corps Member who came home to visit his parents fall victim of this ugly act.

There is a pattern to these massacres; they are not random, spontaneous acts. The pattern is predictable. The Fulani never deny the killings. Instead, they are ever ready with a familiar alibi: the indigenous people stole our cows and this was payback. By this bizarre logic, the theft of cows by a member of a host community is not only a death sentence; it is a death sentence for the thief and all of his kinsmen and women. It is a strange, murderous logic that equates the lives of cattle with those of human beings, including those of women, children, and the elderly. It also advances collective retributive punishment as a form of inter-ethnic engagement. The herdsmen basically, and repeatedly, admit to and boast of razing communities and engaging in massacres of defenseless people, including women and children. Yet they have never been held accountable. And their leaders who make these admissions are coddled, dignified, and invited to press conferences with high-ranking police officers and political leaders, where they are given a platform to justify their genocidal operations. Afterwards, they are allowed to freely walk away to plot the next massacre.

By the forgoing, am forced to ask if our laws no longer forbid regular citizens to own or bear automatic weapons? And if it does, why are the Fulani nomads allowed to opening bear automatic firearms?

We may need to ask our government: Is there anything in this Fulani herdsmen misdemeanor that other non-Fulani Nigerians do not know?

Curiously, the federal government has been nonchalant towards devising appropriate and workable strategies to end these incessant deadly act in various parts of the country, where it has become regular to hear mayhem unleashed by so-called Fulani herders on farming communities.

The murderous invasion of communities by herdsmen, like it happened in Agatu, parts of Enugu and Ebonyi States, is mainly a security issue. Those in charge of security in areas where these things happen should be held to account for the lapses that allow hundreds of people to be slaughtered in cold blood.

It is true that the Fulani nomads are essential members of the Nigerian fabric as they play a role in providing animal proteins to Nigerians, enriching our dietary repertoire. But they have to realize that their current method is unsustainable, and has already strained the fragile unity of the country. They should therefore cooperate with the government to transform their craft into sedentary ranches and grazing reserves as it is now the only viable solution. On the other hand, the mercenaries (foreign and local) who perpetrate the massacres have to be dealt with, disarmed, and prosecuted as terrorists.
The Nigerian government at all levels, must be alive to its primary responsibility of protecting its citizens against attacks and danger, as failure to this might result to a THREAT ON NATIONAL UNITY else Nigeria will suffer another Civil War.
This is my Case.

Ahamefula Israel, a former Students’ Union President, Abia State University,Uturu writes from Enugu. e-mail:anyameleisrael@gmail.com.