It is very disappointing to hear what
the former President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo is saying. He is quoted as saying
that President Buhari should not be blamed for Fulani herdsmen’s attacks on the
farmers in their farms and the senseless killings of the innocent women and
children in those attacks in recent months in the country. Media report is quoting the former president
as saying that President Buhari should not be blamed for the herdsmen’s
killings saying that Buhari is not responsible for resolving the Fulani herdsmen’s
and farmers’ clashes. The Former President is further quoted as emphasizing
that it should not be President Buhari’s responsibility just because he is a
Fulani and the herdsmen are Fulani, and added that it is the local governments
that should solve Fulani crisis. The former president is further reported as
saying that it is the states that are better suited to take the responsibility
to solving the unwarranted and senseless problems of the killings of citizens
in the country over the years.
In all honesty, Chief Obasanjo is
wrong. In the first place, the former president whom I respect very highly missed
the point of annoyance of the Nigerian populace in this matter. The Chief has never fumbled as a known statesman
that he is. As an elderly statesman and an innovative politician, one wondered
how he came about that Buhari is blameless when he, President Buhari, is behaving
as if he is not available in the country.
I can excuse the former President having shown in his recent candid
verdict on President Buhari whom he rightly advised as a statesman to opt out
of the next year’s election.
Nevertheless, honest and intelligent
Nigerians who love this country for what Nigeria is for Africa and the world are
unsettled with Buhari now. They are not
saying that President Buhari was responsible for the killings by the Fulani herdsmen
nor are they holding him responsible for solving the problems even though he is. And, Nigerians are not saying that because Buhari
is a Fulani, therefore, he should bear the burden posed by the Fulani cattle rearer.
Rather, what the entire Nigerian public
and friends of Nigeria and Africa are holding against Buhari is his no
statesman’s behaviour and criminal silence over a national crisis that has
created an unholy tension and fear all over the country. People are afraid to go anywhere; people are
fearful for their lives and are scared of what may happen to their lives and
property; the killer herdsmen who are Fulani are seen going about, from North
to South; East and West, with guns, AK47 unrestricted. Their victims are all
Nigerians, Hausas and Southerners, No Fulani extraction has been found to be
amongst their slaughtered victims.
The number of people, women and
their children and men, who have been slaughtered by the Fulani herdsmen, since
the onslaught began many years ago; and the gruesome and alarming nature including the dimension the killings have
taken makes this matter of national interest and a crisis that no sane Nigeria
should be quiet about it. Furthermore,
some of the politically poisonous archival materials coming out from the North
of the country and these seemingly calculated killings of Nigerians as being
described in this article make this matter an urgent national issue. Here is an
example and a sample of the type and nature of the archival documents, the
types being referred to in this write up.
“The new nation called Nigeria should be an estate
of our great grandfather Uthman Dan Fodio.
We must
ruthlessly prevent a change of power. We use the minorities in the North as
willing tools and the South
over us and allow them to have control over their
future”.
Sir Ahmadu Bello,
Parrot Newspaper,
Oct 12, 1960”
As a result of Buhari’s
vote, Nigeria loss the position of Secretary General of the Organization of
African Unity, OAU to Niger Republic when he was the Head of State of Nigeria
in 1985. It has just become public
knowledge that he had once voted against Nigeria when he was the Head of State
in an inter-continental election contest. The man he voted for was a Fulani from Niger
Republic while the man he voted against a Nigerian. It is against this background Nigerians need
to question this unholy silence of our president. Why has the President refused
to say a word about the killings and the willful destruction of lives and
property including crops and farms?
Muhammadu Buhari is the President
and Commander-In-Chief of the Arm-Forces and head of the Federal Government
of Nigeria in whose hands the security, care and protection of every Nigerian
live is placed. The first priority of
any responsible government is the protection of the lives of its citizens. The lives of Nigerians are what the Fulani herdsmen
have been wasting away senselessly for a long time now without anyone doing or
saying a thing to deter the murderers and to allay their fears. No one has done anything nor has anybody in
the security arms of government or in the armed forces; the police has not done
or been seen to have said something to prevent a reoccurrence of the killings. And Buhari, the President has not shown any
concern that something worthy of note is or has gone wrong? The country is tensed up.
It is the responsibility of
government to protect the lives of its citizens because the protection of lives
is a supreme duty governments owe its citizens.
When a citizen’s life is taken illegally, a government and the citizens are
concerned and they show it by ensuring that justice is served. Especially that
the victims of the Fulani herdsmen are indispensible and valuable members of
our society, women and children; these are the most valuable members of any
society because they hold the key to the continuous existence of a
society. Something is seriously wrong
for a president to remain silent when there is a threat confronting such a
segment of the society as Buhari appears to be doing.
I have equally come across in the
Media where the Emir of Kano, Sanusi criticized the federal government’s
handling of an alleged attack on some Fulani herdsmen in Taraba state. The Emir
is an honorable member of our society. I respect him because he does not speak
like a religious fanatic who has no respect for members of other religious or
ethnic groups in Nigeria; and also, he is an educated Nigerian who believes in
one Nigeria. His criticism was that the Federal Government did not take any
action in spite of the evidence of killings he presented. That is the pains one is having because our
President does not seems to care for the lives of our people; what the
ethnicity or religions of the people are does not matter as long as they are
Nigerian citizens should be everyone’s concerns.
For a long time, the dastard
killings have not stopped and Buhari has said nothing. Only very recently, the Senate gave a 14 day
ultimatum to the IG to produce the herdsmen who were involved in the killings
at Benue State. There have been many killings all over Nigeria by Fulani
herdsmen and no action of any kind has been taken; to at least, assure the
people that someone was in control. Some legislators are seen complaining that
it is as if no one is in control in the country. There were killings in Etsako in Edo State
some time ago upon which women went on protest as a result and they on and blocked
the major highway leading from Auchi to Abuja. It was hectic day for motorists.
Their grievance was that they have no
farms to go to any more. The Fulani herdsmen have driven them away from their
farms and they are afraid to go anywhere for fear that the herdsmen will come
to rape and kill them while on their farms.
It is a known fact that Fulani herdsmen have been raping and killing
women all around Nigeria and no one has cared to question. On this recent particular occasion in Etsako,
a young mother who was returning from the farm with her husband and two
children was gunned down in the presence of her husband and her children.
In other countries, the lives of
their citizens are very valuable to them as it should; they can go to any
length to defend and protect one citizen’s life; they make sure no life is lost
illegally, and they go to any length to preserve a citizen’s life. It is not
the duty of local governments to fight to defend and protect citizens’. We know
that it is the duty of local governments to bring activities of federal
governments closer to the people at the grass roots levels. The security
apparatus of government are under the prerogative of Federal Government. A limited degree of that authority is left
with the state in the case of the Nigeria’s form of federalism which is why the
state will do better at resolving the herdsmen’s problems in Nigeria according
to Chief Obasanjo. But as to who is charged with the authoritative power to
cater for the security of lives and property, it is the Federal Government of the
security.
The people in the country are not
at peace with what they are witnessing, a criminal silence from their president,
in the face of tumultuous and lopsided killings with AK47 totting herdsmen in a
country where citizens are not allowed to bear arms; every position of
authority, all the ministers, all directors of parastatals and Heads of
commissions in the country are all in the hands of the people who are of the
same ethnic group of the president; the same ethnic group that the Fulani
herdsmen belong. The President must allay the fears of the people of Nigeria
that pogroms are not in the making because the news is out today that of the
list of Army Officers who were compulsorily retired this last Friday, January
19, 2018, 90% of them all is from the South of Nigeria, in other words, only
10% of the group is from the North of Nigeria while 90% of the retired Army
Officers are non-Northerners and probably non-Moslems.
In the light of all that is
happening in Nigeria at this time in the history of our country, we will appeal
to our former President Obasanjo and those like him to bring President Buhari to
the understanding that as a father of the nation, in a Presidential democracy,
he cannot afford to keep sealed lips when all is not well in our country. The
people have the rights to know. All is
not well in the country when all the few rich and powerful in the North are
planning to take over people’s landed property through creation of grazing
colonies in every state in Nigeria. Nigerians need to speak up that it is
immoral to make laws to protect only the
few rich ones among the lots, and it is the height of man’s inhumanity to man
to make laws that discriminate against the have not, and it is not done in a
democracy.
