#Northisbleeding protest triggered by neglect of the poor
By Jide Oluwajuyitan
With a whirlwind protests which first started in Kano before spreading to other northern cities dovetailing into #Northisbleeding Abuja protests that called for a declaration of a state of emergency in the frontline states of Niger, Sokoto, Zamfara, Katsina and Kaduna and replacement of their governors with military administrators, the chicken has finally come home to roost.
The northern leaders, including former heads of state, politicians, traditional rulers and religion leaders have for long played the ostrich.
Commenting on the new re-awakening, Sulaiman Abudulazeez, speaking for the Coalition of Northern Groups (CNG), admitted that “most of the informants and beneficiaries of the profits of kidnappings live in our midst and in most cases, are people known to the communities.
“For instance, in some states, traditional leaders and politicians and even top state actors have been severally fingered in connection with most crimes being committed around them”.
It is also on record that Northern leaders, including state governors, are known to have said, tongue in cheek, that bandits constituted lesser evil when compared with secessionist agitations in the Southwest and Southeast.
While many prominent northern leaders live in denial, it has been southern self-determination groups such as the Afenifere, Ohaneze and the Ijaw National Congress that regularly paid solidarity visits to victims of mindless killings in the middle belt states that have become professional wailers that cry louder than the bereaved.
For instance, in October 2020, why the south was up in arms against government over general insecurity in the country, northern elders passed a vote of confidence on President [Muhammadu] Buhari despite five years siege of Boko Haram insurgents, herdsmen and bandits on north-central, northeast and northwest.
While an overwhelmed Buhari government was trying to tackle those who have made the country ungovernable, it was apparent those in government who should be pathfinders for their people seem to be more interested in exporting northern problems to the south.
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From Emirs who lionize herdsmen by asking them to disobey the laws of their host states, to those who mischievously justified the bearing of AK-47 rifles by herdsmen, those who conferred citizenship of Nigeria on immigrant herdsmen and to elective office holders – the poor masses of the north are only instruments for winning election or for bargaining over sharing of revenue allocation.
The traditional rulers on their part having been settled with 5% of LGA allocation initiated by the military, now only lead their subjects for communal prayers jettisoning their other important traditional roles which include ‘mediating between the people and the state, enhancing national identity, resolving minor conflicts’ and of course the most important function of the emir in the Hausa-Fulani traditional political system -leading their armies to wars.
With the exception of a few Emirs including the Sultan of Sokoto, [Sa’ad Abubakar], and the Emir of Muri in Taraba State, Abbas Tafida, who issued a fatwa to Fulani herdsmen declaring “Because of this unending menace, every Fulani herdsman in this state have been given 30 days ultimatum to vacate the forests. We are tired of having sleepless nights and the hunger alone in the land is enormous and we will not allow it to continue”, others lead from behind.
In fact, in some states, traditional leaders just like politicians have been accused of collaborating with bandits.
For instance, troubled by the report of Mohammed Abubakar, chairman of the committee set up by Governor Bello Matawalle to find solutions to banditry in Zamfara State, from June 2011 to May 29, 2019, which claimed that over N3 billion was collected by bandits from 3,672 victims whose relatives as ransom from relations of abducted victims in the state, the governor actually asked political leaders and emirs to swear by the Quran to prove they are not conspirators.
Despite Niger State being the home state of two former head of state- Ibrahim Babangida and Abdulsalami Abubakar, the state has been under bandits’ siege for the past seven years. Bandits operate unchallenged in 18 out of the 25 local government areas of the state.
In 2016, 36 bloody attacks were carried out in about 70 communities across the three local government areas of the state. Over 50 people were reportedly killed with 12 others kidnapped and N5 million paid by victim’s relations as ransom while 2,600 cattle were rustled.
Ibrahim Babangida [former military President], the source of the nation’s current political and economic problem, is holed up in his hilltop palace far away from the maddening crowd.
Turning a blind eye to the tragedy unfolding in Niger State, a leader who annulled the most credible election in our nation’s history won by MKO Abiola, his friend, after eight years of ‘transition without end’, seems more interested in empty pontification about the colour of our 2023 presidential candidate.
Abdulsalami Abubakar [former Head of State] who probably hops to his farm in helicopter has neither spoken about the Niger tragedy.
The last time he spoke during a one-day forum organised by a group known as the ‘Search for Common Ground’, it was not about Niger but about what he described as “clashes between Fulani herdsmen and peasant farmers in four states – Plateau, Nasarawa, Kaduna and Benue in 2016, the cost of which he put at 2,500 deaths, 62,000 people displaced; and the loss of N13.7 billion in addition to 47 per cent of the internally-generated revenue”.
Abubakar spoke of clashes pretending not to know what was going on in those states were summary executions of harmless and helpless subsistence farmers sometimes while sleeping in their huts at night.
Showing little predisposition towards ending the mindless killings by Boko Haram, herdsmen and bandits, some northern political leaders seem determined to export the northern self-inflicted crisis to the south.
One clear evidence of this was the coordinated attack on Governor Rotimi Akeredolu of Ondo State following his ultimatum to criminal herdsmen illegally occupying his state’s reserved forest.
Garba Shehu, the Senior Special Assistant to Buhari on media matters, issued a warning admonishing him to opt for dialogue since the constitution of the republic guarantees the right of every Nigerian to live in any place of his choice.
Shehu conveniently ignored the futility of dialogue with bandits who, according Governors Aminu Masari (Katsina), Bala Mohammed (Bauchi), Bello Matawalle (Zamfara) and Nasir el-Rufai (Kaduna), often renege on undertakings with El Rufai literarily canvassing for execution of indicted bandits.
And for Mohammed, herdsmen are free to bear AK-47 riffles which he said they need for self-defence against cattle rustlers.
These warring northern politicians however kept their peace when Abbas Tafida, the Emir of Muri in Taraba, issued a 30-day ultimatum to herders terrorizing residents of his state declaring in anguish “Our Fulani herdsmen in the forests, you came into this state and we accepted you, why then will you be coming to towns and villages to kidnap residents, even up to the extent of raping our women?”
Similarly, when 17 southern governors met in Asaba and resolved to ban open grazing and movement of cattle by foot, long after some northern governors had done same, Abubakar Malami, the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF), unable to rise above ethnic sentiments, declared that open grazing ban is the same thing as Northern governors banning spare parts trading in their own region.
#NORTHISBLEEDING: reawakening has finally exposed the hypocrisy of leaders who instead of protecting those on whose name they fraudulently rode to power would rather export their social problems to others precisely because they are incapable of loving their neigbours as themselves.
- Culled from The Nation.