By Emeka Alex Duru
I read with shock and amusement, the barrage of attacks at the Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Diocese, Reverend Matthew Hassan Kukah, by a section of the media and other largely uninformed commentators, over his remarks that Nigerians should not take the patience of men of the armed forces for granted in the face of the current tension and contradictions in the land.
Obviously unfazed by mounting security challenges in the country, the Bishop had observed – and quite correctly – that Nigerians are far more divided now than they were before the 2015 general elections.
“We as Nigerians should not take the patience of the military for granted”, he therefore warned.
Incidentally, rather than address the issues raised by the cleric, attack dogs of the government, were unleashed on him, with some, going to the extent of accusing him of making statement capable of instigating the military to take over the reins of governance.
That was where my shock and amusement sprang from – the uncanny attitude of Nigerians always shying away from the truth and not wanting to hear same when someone with uncommon courage decides to say it.
That may not be the issue, for now, we may say.
But no matter the efforts at whatever quarters and for whatever reasons to downplay the current situation in the land, Nigeria is certainly under huge stress. And the mounting tension, is becoming palpable, so to say.
Aside other incidences of criminality, especially the Boko Haram insurgency that we have had to contend with in the last 16 years or thereabout, the immediate challenge facing the country now, is the menace of the Fulani Herdsmen.
By the time the marauders struck in Ondo State, on Tuesday, February 13, sacking a council secretariat and burning a farm settlement, in Osun, earlier, it was apparent that what is unfolding has gone beyond mere clash between them and farmers, as current faulty narrative in the country, claims.
If anything, it is increasingly becoming obvious that what we have is a new wave of insurgency that seems bent in encircling the country from all flanks. It is war, in another form, as Professor Wole Soyinka, has rightly observed.
But that is part of the matter. The real question is how prepared are we, as a people or nation to ward off or take on the emerging war. From realities on the ground and the so-called body language of the Nigerian authorities, there is so far, no serious agenda at confronting the menace.
Aside the regular release of the prepared template of the government in expressing tepid condemnation of the attack by the herders and the empty vow of arresting and dealing with those behind them, nothing really, has been done to contain the merchants of death.
This, to some extent informs the volume of violence the herdsmen are unleashing on other Nigerians. It is also this culture of official inaction that has made the government of President Muhammadu Buhari, turn its eyes the other way, while the marauders convert the entire country to their killing field.
The impression is that because the President is a Fulani, he is finding it hard to rein in his kinsmen. Though this may not be readily established, what cannot be disputed is that his Fulani kinsmen are becoming more dastardly under his administration.
Perhaps, and just perhaps, they intend to act – but poorly – the way kinsmen of Buhari’s two predecessors, Olusegun Obasanjo and Goodluck Jonathan behaved while they were in office.
In the case of Obasanjo, even when he could hardly be counted in the mainstream Yoruba politics, a militant group from his region of birth – Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC), had literally turned itself into his attack dog. On occasions when the members of the organisation woke from the wrong side of the bed, they simply took over any section of the South West, particularly Lagos, in some instances, claiming stumbling on attempts at truncating Obasanjo presidency. While they engaged in their stunts, road users and other Nigerians paid dearly.
Jonathan’s Ijaw brothers, copied the sheepish trait of announcing to other citizens that with their “Son” in Aso Rock, they were also in control of the remaining parts of the federation.
At a time, they even took over Abuja – Lokoja expressway, demanding to be attended to before vacating the highway.
Obasanjo, to be fair, at a time, began to see the action of his kinsmen as a huge embarrassment to the administration and moved against them. Jonathan, did not muster the courage to do so.
But bad as the situations were then, none of odious demonstrations by Obasanjo and Jonathan’s relations, came close to the current murderous dimensions of Buhari’s Fulani kinsmen. For these nomads, other Nigerians have, overnight, become wet rags to be marched on.
Though the herdsmen were known to have been carrying on with this diabolical agenda before now, the audacity with which they rob, rape, maim and sack communities in the present dispensation, has placed them among leading terrorist groups in the World.
The unflattering result of this, is that the volume of death recorded from the atrocious activities of the herders in the almost three years of the Buhari presidency, has surpassed the number of Nigerians wasted within the same period by the Boko Haram insurgents.
No matter how this is looked at and interpreted, the situation is quite frightening. It is also more discomforting that the government has not really come up with any concrete plans at checking the menace.
There are, thus, more dangers ahead. In the circumstance, the critical questions, remain; at what point did pastoralists begin to wield and flaunt sophisticated arms? Who licenced them with such lethal weapons? Are the security agents not aware of this brazen outlawry?
It will remain a huge surprise if the President – a retired Army General had not addressed his mind to these weighty questions, given the vehemence with which he had descended on the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) self-determination agenda or how he had thundered on the Niger Delta militancy, in respective occasions.
Whether the loud silence or inaction on the activities of the herders is deliberate or not, it has, clearly, not helped the reputation of the President and his government, among fair-minded Nigerians.
It may also be sending, perhaps, an unintended message of every section of the country contriving a separate template on self defence.
If this eventually becomes the case, as it is increasingly appearing to be, nobody can reasonably predict where it will lead to. But Nigeria as a corporate entity, will certainly, be the ultimate loser.