By Ikechukwu Amaechi
I am always amused when some people feign surprise at the gory turn of events in this country.
Why?
It is obvious to every discerning, dispassionate observer of Nigeria’s current trajectory that it will come to a pretty pass sooner than later. Yet, some delusional political leaders act as if nothing is amiss.
Our leaders, particularly since this regime of Muhammadu Buhari from 2015, behave as if we are insulated from the law of nature which decrees that the consequences of our evil actions ultimately catch up with us. For too long, we have sown the wind, yet pretended that reaping the whirlwind won’t be a natural consequence. That is tantamount to living a lie.
For too long, we have desecrated and despoiled this country. And as Robert Southey, the 19th century English poet of the Romantic school, once wrote, “Curses are like a young chicken: they always come home to roost.”
Under Buhari’s suzerainty, some people behave as if there will be no tomorrow, as if the day of reckoning will never ever come. Those who call for restraint, justice and equity are derided and shouted down.
Now, the chickens, to borrow a cliché, have come home to roost.
It has dawned on almost everyone that Nigeria is a stage four cancer patient. The condition has become metastatic and there are serious doubts about its ability to survive. Her condition has so deteriorated that there are now serious doubts whether she will live to see 2023.
But how did we get here? Could it be true that Nigerian leaders who sat haughtily on their high horses lecturing the rest of us on the inviolability of the territorial integrity of the country really believed that there can be peace without equity and justice? Did those who boasted that Nigeria was a perfect union whose future and the relationship of its ethnic nationalities cannot even be discussed believe themselves?
Apparently they did. Which explains why those who shouted themselves hoarse that everything was going south under Buhari’s watch were labelled haters and unpatriotic.
When on January 1, 2018 suspected Fulani herdsmen murdered over 70 villagers in Logo and Guma local government areas of Benue State, which sparked nationwide outrage, Buhari summoned Benue leaders for a lecture on cohabitation.
“I ask you in the name of God to accommodate your country men,” he told a delegation of political leaders, traditional rulers and elders of the state led by Governor Samuel Ortom at the Presidential Villa, Abuja on January 15, 2018.
Buhari appealed to the grieving entourage, victims of the mindless carnage, “to try to restrain your people,” even as the murderers, Fulani herdsmen, openly threatened more violence and death through their Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN) unless Benue rescinds its anti-open grazing law passed in May 2017 and enforced from November that year.
There were no sanctions against the murderers even when they vowed that on the issue of open grazing, it will only be their way or the highway. No arrests were made, nobody was tried for the heinous crimes, and nobody was punished.
Simply put, no one paid any price.
Instead, on January 9, 2018, Buhari ordered then Inspector-General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, to relocate to the state to restore order and forestall further attacks on villagers by Fulani herdsmen.
He re-emphasised the order on January 25, 2018 in a letter to the Senate that he had “instructed the Inspector General of Police to relocate to Benue State” and “redeploy forces to the most sensitive areas.”
Idris flagrantly flouted the order by spending only three days touring the state before returning to Abuja without Buhari’s knowledge.
When Buhari’s attention was drawn to the apparent affront to his authority by Idris, who described the killings as “communal clashes,” the president did nothing, implying that the order was not meant to be obeyed.
Of course, the attacks and killings continued not only in Benue but also in Plateau, Nasarawa, Taraba, Adamawa and Kaduna States with Benue as the epicentre of the deadly violence.
As if that was not bad enough, six months later the presidency admonished Nigerians, particularly indigenes of Plateau, not to cling to their ancestral lands if they wanted to remain alive.
Speaking on national television – African Independent Television (AIT) morning programme – on July 4, 2018, Presidential Adviser on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, in response to a question on people’s attachment to their ancestral lands, said: “Ancestral attachment? You can only have ancestral attachment when you are alive. If you are talking about ancestral attachment, if you are dead, how does the attachment matter?”
To have peace in their fatherland, Adesina said natives must give up their ancestral lands to people who his principal, the president, once admitted are not even Nigerians.
“If your state genuinely does not have land for ranching, it is understandable …. But where you have land and you can do something, please do for peace. What will the land be used for if those who own it are dead at the end of the day?” he asked.
Interestingly, that admonition was made the same day the then Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, warned that history would be harsh on the Buhari administration if it failed to stop the mass killing of Nigerians.
Welcoming his colleagues back from Eid-el-Fitr holiday on July 4, 2018, Dogara warned: “History will have a harsh verdict for us as a government if we fail to live up to this responsibility and it will not matter if we succeed in other areas.” His warning was not heeded.
The federal government continued to bury its head in the sand. The weighty issue of insecurity was reduced to mere rhetoric. Every new wave of killings was followed with bombast from Abuja – mere words, no action.
Instead of taking action against the criminals, the regime resorted to what the late Afrobeat maestro, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, called “government magic,” making villains out of victims.
For instance, while failing to arrest and prosecute AK-47 wielding-herdsmen who had brutally murdered dozens in Adamawa State, the government instead arrested, prosecuted and secured a death sentence against five natives for allegedly killing one of the murderers.
The situation was the same in Kaduna State where Governor Nasir el-Rufai accused Southern Kaduna leaders – whom he called “criminals” in August 2020 – of making trouble with his administration because of his refusal to grease their palms with filthy lucre.
“I have no time for nonsense. I will not appease criminals. I will not appease idle people who have nothing to do but to raise a spectre of genocide. They do that to get money into their bank accounts and get donations from abroad instead of standing up,” he said during an interview on Channels Television.
El-Rufai called the victims murderers, adding: “Anyone that is moderate, anyone that is promoting peaceful co-existence between various ethnic groups is considered a sellout.
“And a governor like me, who does not appease them because they are used to being appeased, they cause troubles, they organise these killings and then, their leaders are invited by the governor, they wine and dine and they are given brown envelopes. That’s what they have been doing for 20 years.”
So, like the son sent on a stealing errand by his father who does not go stealthily but rather impudently kicks the door open, the herdsmen have overreached themselves, invading the forests of the South and the people are vigorously pushing back to the extent that the corporate existence of the country is now seriously threatened.
Truth be told, the Buhari government is not being honest with Nigerians. What is going on is not herders-farmers crisis. That is a grossly misleading narrative. As long as some Nigerians are living in IDP camps, having been forced out of their ancestral homes by bandits, most of them non-citizens, peace will continue to be elusive.
Why is the Nigerian state, which according to the sociologist, Max Weber, has exclusive monopoly of violence unable to dislodge these bandits and resettle the natives? Is the government claiming ignorance of the fact that many of the people in IDP camps cannot go to their farms unless they want to return in body bags? Is Buhari claiming not to be aware that these ancestral homes are effectively occupied by people other than the aboriginals? Nigerians want peace but it must be peace hoisted on the totem pole of equity, justice and fairness. Anything short of that will spell doom for everyone.
If the government wants to, it will dislodge the bandits that have made the country a living hell for citizens. But it is obvious it does not have the appetite to do so.
Whatever is the agenda, those stoking the embers of this crisis need be reminding that when push comes to shove, this is a war the Fulani cannot win. The attack on Governor Ortom’s life is unwise.
Nigerians want peace but it must be peace hoisted on the totem pole of equity, justice and fairness. Anything short of that will spell doom for everyone. Should these vampires persist in their heinousness, sooner than later, the chickens will come home to roost.
