Special Correspondent, OKEY MADUFORO, writes on last week’s attack on Ukpabi-Nimbo, Enugu State community, by Fulani herdsmen, and the danger ahead.
Traditional ruler of Ifite Ogwari Community in Ayamelum Local Government Area of Anambra State, Igwe Ofuebe (Ogidigada) was apprehensive last week when he received information that Fulani herdsmen were heading towards his town through Nsukka-Adani communities in Enugu State.
Speaking on the incident, the monarch explained that what lent credence to his fear was that the ravenous herdsmen had already infiltrated the border community without their cattle, but with AK-47 assault rifles which, according to him, was an indication of danger.
“They have taken over Adani Town. Very soon, they may likely come into Ayamelum Local Government Area. We are doing our best and working with the state government and vigilance groups. But given the manner these people operate, we need more security assistance,” he remarked.
Before the lamentation by Igwe Ofuebe, the suspected Fulani marauders had kidnapped a government functionary along with a young man from Ayamelum council area.
According to the lawmaker representing Ayamelum Constituency in Anambra House of Assembly, Uche Okafor, “At Ifite Ogwari, they abducted one of my constituents on his way from Ayamelum to Nsukka and he paid N400,000 as ransom while the other Enugu man paid N700,000 before they were released. These people recently killed two elders in Umumbo town when they were working in the farm. Today, people are scared of going to the farm for fear of being attacked by the herdsmen.”
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Former Chief Judge of Enugu State and former President General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Eze Ozobu, shortly after a meeting of Ezeagu Local Government Area which his community, Imezi Owa, is part of, spoke with reporters on the menace of the herdsmen.
“I do not know what government has done or any action taken by security operatives to checkmate the insurgence of the Fulani herdsmen. These people who we thought carry only sticks and machetes now carry AK-47 rifles openly and we wonder where they got those guns from. People no longer go to farm. Every one now lives in fear of these people. They come in and settle down as if it is their home. Nobody is doing anything to stop them.
“In my place, my brother who retired as a police officer came out in the night and asked them what they were doing with guns they were carrying. At some point, he had to confront them,” he recounted.
He, however, expressed fears that with the incident, the town has been apprehensive of an attack by the herdsmen.
Ozobu, traditional ruler of his Imezi-Owa community, observed that if the state government fails to take action over what is happening, the already heightened tension may deteriorate into breakdown of law and order in the affected communities.
Also speaking shortly after a meeting of the Ezeagu General Assembly in Enugu, the President-General, Obiora Ozobu, said they had a resolution to lodge an official complaint to the Enugu State government after speaking with the local government chairman and the House of Assembly member representing the area.
He said: “This is a very serious issue in Ezeagu. We shall make official entry with the police and also speak with the council chairman and elected political office-holders. We shall also find out the position of the House of Assembly on the issue, in order to figure out how to go about it.
“At a neighbouring town, a farmer was shot dead by these Fulani people and we have had three reported cases of rape on village women that went to their farms.”
The most frightening aspect of the problem, Obiora stressed, is how and where the herdsmen acquired the rifles they brandish openly, which means there is more to the cattle-rearing than meets the ordinary eye. He added that the community was not incapable of self-defence, but that they do not want to take the law into their hands.
His words: “It is not that we cannot defend ourselves or that we do not have what it takes to defend ourselves, but we are only trying to do this within the ambit of the law, so that our actions do not worsen the situation as it is now.
“In Ezeagu, we do not sleep at night because they can come at any time and begin to slaughter people and you may not be ready for them when they come.”
Even before the current turn of events, constitutional lawyer and leader of Igbo Elders Forum, Prof. Ben. Nwabueze, had spoken on the deadly activities of the herdsmen, noting, curiously, that most police commissioners in the South East were Northerners.
He noted that due to the ethnic stance of the police commissioners over the security issues in Igboland, they were incapacitated in guaranteeing security of lives of the people in the area.
Nwabueze added that the Security Committee of the group had articulated a security awareness programme which the South East Governors’ Forum (SEGF) was to work on, to secure Igboland from the insurgents.
It was not known whether the awareness programme was acted upon before the herdsmen struck in Ukpabi-Nimbo community in Uzo-Uwani council area of Enugu State, last Monday, leaving in their trail scores of people killed and injured.
Road to anarchy
Apprehensions on the likely attack of the Fulani marauders on Igboland began to grow when, late last month, the Department of State Service (DSS) authored a breezy statement in which it claimed to have discovered shallow graves in Umuahia, Abia State, containing 55 bodies, alleging that five of the victims were Fulani. The Service further accused the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) of being responsible for the act. Given its abhorrence to violence, IPOB promptly put a lie to the statement. The group, through a statement, exonerated any of its members from the alleged act.
Other Nigerians did. In fact, Abia State governor, Okezie Ikpeazu, spoke forcefully on the matter, stressing that none of his engagements with any arm of the security agencies in the state, including the DSS, gave indications of any assault on any individual or particular group.
In similar manner, a professional and advocacy group, Igbo Intelligentsia Forum, called on the federal government to investigate the veracity of the claims by the DSS.
The Forum, through its coordinator, Joseph Ikunna, faulted the DSS statement which it described as hasty, sensational, ill-motivated and out of pattern.
“The DSS statement failed to show evidence of the alleged killing/massacre and the exact picture and location of the alleged grave, just like there was no mention of any forensics conducted on the said bodies to determine the cause and time of death or the identities of the victims. There were also no mention of a Coroner’s inquest on the killings, no mention of any investigation by the police who are constitutionally obliged to investigate and prosecute as appropriate and no mention of arrest of any suspect, including the said elements affiliated to IPOB,” Ikunna remarked.
The fear by many who condemned the DSS statement was that it was capable of inflaming passion, leading to attack on the Igbo in any part of the country.
The grazing zone debate
The concern engineered into the system by the DSS statement almost came about when the debate on the viability or otherwise of grazing routes for the herdsmen in different parts of the country became a major issue among analysts.
Initial insinuation was that a bill in support of the move was on the floor of the Senate and had already gone through second reading. The upper chamber however distanced itself from the matter, stating emphatically that it had no such bill before it.
The bill was later said to be with the House of Representatives. Ordinarily, grazing route is an animal/livestock way which is clearly marked for cows, goats, sheep and their shepherds to pass through without injury to themselves or the natives of such regions.
Even with this, the agitation against the bill did not subside. Those who spoke against it had their reasons.
Former Enugu State commissioner for Information and erstwhile newspaper editor, Igbonekwu Ogazimorah, who wrote on the dangers of the bill, noted that creating the grazing route entails seizing lands from entrenched natives and other interest groups in order to create the passage.
He added that from Nigeria’s recent history, experiences had shown that this had heightened the confusion, leading to tensions and had even eroded some of the remaining fabrics of national cohesion and unity.
“This is quite an outmoded system of farming. It is no longer in vogue for many reasons. These include questions of safety of those cattle and the herders; dangers of herders and their cattle straying from these routes into other areas where they cause hardship or scare to otherwise well-settled communities.
“It is, indeed, quite primitive and does not give room for proper animal stock, attendant revenue to state and indeed good breeding of healthy cattle.
“To worsen matters, those cattle and their herders become easy targets of rustlers, simple thieves and wild animals,” he stated.
A former Vice Chancellor of Nnamdi Azikiwe University (NAU), Awka, Prof. Boniface Egboka, added his voice to the debate, stressing that the grazing route agenda is not only a subjugation of people’s constitutional rights but would amount to depletion of the ecosystem.
“When we are talking about afforestation, the federal government is talking about deforestation. When you look at Lake Chad basin, you will discover that it was not the same 15 to 20 years ago. It was a large lake, but now it has lost 90 per cent of its water and will soon dry out.
“They should have cattle in ranches. Government should build ranches and not to come down to the South to facilitate encroachment,” he said.
Herdsmen invade Enugu community
Debates on the grazing routes were yet to take proper shape when the herdsmen attacked Ukpabi-Nimbo, a community in Enugu.
By Thursday last week, there were still conflicting figures on the number of people lost in the attack. It was however estimated that not less than 40 indigenes were killed in the exercise.
Sources described the encounter as an early morning invasion that caught the natives unawares. It was gathered that as the guns boomed and sounds of grenades rained, many who did not understand what was amiss ran to different directions apparently for safety.
However, while they ran, many were caught in the crossfire. Some gave up the ghost before help could come, many others sustained injuries and were rushed to hospitals in Nsukka.
The attack was described as the heaviest to be launched by suspected Fulani herdsmen in the area in recent times.
Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), Enugu State Police Command, Mr. Ebere Amaraizu, who confirmed that the Commissioner of Police, Nwodibo Ekechukwu, led other officers and men to the area, refused to put a figure to the victims, adding however that the situation in the community had been brought under control.
Nigerians react
Egboka described the attack as the beginning of a pogrom, likening it to what led to the 1967 to 1970 Civil War.
“That was how it all started and our brothers and sisters were killed in the North. Pregnant women had their wombs ripped and the foetus mutilated, while children were slaughtered,” he said.
Joe Achuzia, a Biafran war veteran, agreed that the Ukpabi-Nimbo invasion amounted to pogrom.
“The killings by Fulani people is reprehensible. Before, we knew them as nomads that carried cattle from place to place. Now they have started killing people. I make bold to say that this is a similar way our people were killed in the North. What is happening now is pogrom,” he remarked.
Leader, Movement for the Actualisation of Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), Uchenna Madu, is not taking the situation lightly. He told TheNiche that “this is no longer the time for so much talking. All we need now is action. I mean real action. Does it mean that we do not have men in Igboland? Does it mean that our young men and women are cowards? Enough of this nonsense.”
MASSOB has, however, issued President Buhari 30-day ultimatum to end the Fulani herdsmen attack or be ready for action.
Presidency’s reaction
Like it is the practice in the United States (U.S.), from where Nigeria copied its democracy, President Muhammadu Buhari was expected to speak on the Enugu killings immediately it became public knowledge. But he kept mute.
Many interpreted his sitting-on-the-fence stance as covert support for the herdsmen, as he is also a cattle-owner. It took several verbal bashes from citizens for him to open his mouth, albeit belatedly.
President Buhari on Wednesday, April 27, condemned the attacks by the Fulani herdsmen, and directed crackdown on killers. The President also asked the security chiefs to secure areas where the suspected killer-herders are functioning. He directed the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), Major General Abayomi Olonishakin, and the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Solomon Arase, to go after the herdsmen that were terrorising people in some parts of Nigeria.
Speaking through the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, at the public presentation of a book authored by the Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu, Buhari strongly condemned the attacks.
The address read in part: “Let me use this platform to condemn, in the strongest possible terms, the attack perpetrated on the Ukpabu Nimbo community in Uzo-Uwani area of Enugu State on Monday. I deeply sympathise with all those who lost dear ones, as well as those who lost their properties, in the attack.
“I have directed the Chief of Defence Staff and the Inspector-General of Police to secure all communities under attack by herdsmen, and to go after all the groups terrorising innocent people all over the country. This government will not allow these attacks to continue.
“Ending the recent upsurge of attacks on communities by herdsmen reportedly armed with sophisticated weapons is now a priority on the Buhari administration’s agenda for enhanced national security, and the armed forces and police have clear instructions to take all necessary action to stop the carnage.”
Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media, Garba Shehu, added that Buhari was scheduled to meet with Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi of Enugu to receive further briefing on the attack on Ukpabi Nimbo and discuss additional measures to forestall similar attacks and restore public confidence.
According to Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, Fulani herdsmen have killed more Nigerians than the Boko Haram insurgents in 2016.
