Rampaging Herdsmen: The Bloody Nerve of The Threat of Northern Politicians! -By Ken Tadaferua

Following a recent meeting, the Northern Senators Forum issued a communique threatening that there would be no country called Nigeria, if other parts of the country asked Fulani herdsmen to leave their communities and states. The communities had risen up in rage following vicious mass murders by suspected marauding herdsmen.

The communique released by the Forum’s chairman, Senator Abdullahi Adamu (APC, Nasarawa West) also warned governors, leaders and community heads in the country to desist from making inflammatory statements that could further overheat the polity. – News.

These threats by the Northern Senators Forum, the legislative arm of the other country called Republic of the 19 Northern States against citizens of Nigeria, the host country which they hold in exploitative vise grip, is not new.

It was preceded by the same threats by governors of the other country who had also ganged up to warn angry and mourning Nigerians whose relatives, fathers, mothers, children, aunties, uncles etc were cowardly and brutally slaughtered in the dark of night, against anti-Fulani herdsmen sentiments.

The nerve of the warnings and threats is best explained as the sad harvest of insensitive arrogance. It is the produce of excessive conquerors’ overlord mentality. They talk down on rather than with Nigerians. They appear concerned about the welfare of their people, the “Fulani herdsmen”, than the mass murder of citizens. They couch their message in the name of their nomadic kinsmen but it is cover for the unabashed use of ethnicity and regionalism to browbeat the nation.

But be you not fooled. The threats are not about herdsmen or murdered citizens. Nor is it about tribe, north or south or any such nonsense.

It is about easy money. To sustain the huge personal wealth from the massive cattle businesses of Northern elites who own about 20 million cattle today. (It was 13.9 million cattle in 1992, according to the Nigerian Livestock Resources Survey). Multiply the millions of cattle by N150,000, the average price of a cow. Add tens of millions of sheep and goat. What you have is a massive business with trillions of naira in annual turnover and profits. Be sure that the barefooted nomads trudging with cattle through thousands of kilometres of thick and dangerous vegetation are not the owners of the business. No man with billions will undertake the hazards of bush trekking. It is like saying the drivers of Dangote trucks are the truck owners. The herdsmen are poor employees whose age old Shepard custom are exploited by faceless fat cats.

It is a business in which little is invested but the harvest is handsome. The owners do not pay for land to keep their profit spinning resource, the cattle. They do not buy feed for the millions of cattle as the animals feed freely and lavishly on other people’s lands across the length and breadth of Nigeria. They hardly buy new cattle as inbreeding produces large number of offsprings. They pay little or no taxes or fees or royalties. If there is any cost they bear, it probably would be the bare earth, low expense life of the nomad. Yet the returns pour in like Casino machines from sale of the cattle for meat in homes, eateries, hotels, for parties, ceremonies in the land, particularly in Southern Nigeria. It is business that must be protected by means fair and foul.

Who armed the herdsmen with AK47s and other military assault weapons? Why are the gun-totting nomads not apprehended by the police or the army? My take is simple. The friendly nomads of old that used ancient grazing routes are turning into a ferocious army to protect their overlords’ businesses in an increasingly volatile environment of cattle rustlers and angry farmers furious over grazing of their crops and farms.

The cattle owner billionaires want desperately to scuttle any attempt to stop herdsmen from grazing by states, for where then would the millions of cattle be kept and fed? If it happens then the owners would have to buy large hectares of land to establish large ranches where the cattle are tended and fed at great costs

Instead of doing that as in other climes, they prefer their personal businesses to become threats to the land, livelihood and life of farmer citizens. They attempt to intimidate folks with threats and guns. They attempt to use the Senate and government to establish grazing routes and sites on other peoples land. But it will not work. It will not come to fruition.

As for the toxic warnings of the 19 Northern States’ governors and senators, I say boo. The Nigeria of the civil war years has changed. The old arrogant conqueror mentality cannot stand. No one is intimidated by your threat to make Nigeria disappear. These are the same people who said they will make Nigeria ungovernable. And they did. But not again.

They cannot continue to feed luxuriantly off the fat of the land and threaten the land. Free monthly allocation of unearned rent from the federation account fed with oil revenues and booze taxes. Free land and food for your cattle. Yet you throw up threats and warnings against the nation. How then, are you different from Nnamdi Kanu who has been arrested for being a threat to the nation state? If you ask me, the Northern governors and senators ought be corralled into the same detention cell as Kanu.

It is either we want to live as one country or we do not. You want out of the country? You are most welcome. We shall applaud your new republic and extend bounteous diplomatic support to you. But I can bet that your long suffering people whose name you invoke to exploit the nation for your selfish political needs will not leave Nigeria.

It is time to stop the silly threats. It is time to overhaul the entire sociopolitical and economic system built in your image of selfish greed. The unitary system of government, free rent structure, unearned entitlement, selfish greed and arrogance of conqueror mentality must be dismantled if this nation is to change to equity, justice and prosperity for all.

Do not turn your personal businesses into an ethnic or regional political affair. Do not make your personal business one in which all Nigerians must bear your costs while you milk the profits for yourself. And when the people cry over the destruction of their own income, when they mourn the still warm bodies of their dead, do not warn and threaten them.

So I say to you, governors and senators of the 19 Northern State, take your threats and warnings and go stuff it.

Ken Tadaferua is a media and marketing communications consultant. Twitter: @ktadaferua