BEROM: “WHEN 1,000 IS COMPLETE”

“In dubu ta cika…” is a famous Hausa saying implying that one can do 999 evil things with impunity and get away with them, but when the proverbial 1000th is perpetrated, the rule of nemesis catches up – the cup fills to the brim and starts to overflow; the scale reaches the tipping point, and […]

“In dubu ta cika…” is a famous Hausa saying implying that one can do 999 evil things with impunity and get away with them, but when the proverbial 1000th is perpetrated, the rule of nemesis catches up – the cup fills to the brim and starts to overflow; the scale reaches the tipping point, and the container cannot hold. That is the situation of the Christian Berom of Plateau State today.

Over many decades, the Berom have come out to be the leading haters of Muslims, meaning all Hausa-speaking Northern Nigerian Muslims including, interestingly, ethnic Berom Muslims who are seen as traitors for becoming ‘Hausas’). The Berom have taken this hate beyond anything the Kataf, the Sayawa, the Bachama, and their likes have ever done.

The Berom not only murder Muslims with impunity in Jos and on all roads leading through their territory, they are even said to cannibalise their victims – what happened after they massacred Muslims at a Jos Eid Prayer Ground a few years ago was a case in point; worshippers were reportedly killed, roasted and eaten, according to video evidence that was widely circulated. And the praying ground, interestingly, was not too far from a large military barracks. And the soldiers did next to nothing.

Today, the military are the victims of the Berom. They just buried three soldiers who were killed in Barkin Ladi Local Government, a bastion of the Berom. The murdered men were collateral damage for trying to do their job of halting the murderous rampage of the Berom.

But the 1000th, the tipping point, is the disappearance of retired Major General Idris Alkali, past Army Director of Administration, whose car has now been fished out of a Berom pond called Dura-Du. More vehicles and other incriminating evidence are being fished out of that pond, meaning finally nemesis has caught up with the Berom – DUBU TA CIKA in sha Allah.

Apparently, like thousands of innocent Muslims before him travelling through Berom territory from Abuja and other points South to destinations mainly in the North East, General Alkali may have been accosted by Berom youths who have formed murderous gangs along the route. As soon as he was identified as a Muslim, he was ‘meat’, literally.

He may have been killed, perhaps roasted and eaten so no evidence could ever be found. And his car was pushed, as several others before it, into the deep, silent and treacherous pond, apparently never to be seen again. Now we know why those 500 women were protesting against the draining of the pond.

And don’t you wonder there is no 24-hour live coverage on the matter by Channels, AIT and the like? Even the boisterous Premium Times and Sahara Reporters are not giving the story the attention it deserves. Why? Simple answer – the people they always cast and name as the aggressors are actually the victims here – Muslims.

Indeed, now the Berom may have killed one too many. 1000 is complete. General Alkali, like many before him, was waylaid and probably killed by their youths. And if Du pond has yielded his car and many other vehicles but no bodies, we have to recast our minds to those gory pictures of cannibalism of Eid Ground all those years ago.

Let Berom and others of their ilk know this – their fight with the nomadic Fulani (if this is their main reason today, added to their ancestral envy of successful Hausa-Fulani people in Jos) does not in any way make Muslim travellers guilty. In fact, we Northern Muslims are as much victims of these marauding nomadic ECOWAS Fulanis as on occasion we fight them, and they us. It is a purely economic matter, never ethnic or religious.

These nomadic ECOWAS Fulani have only one rule in their game: You rustle their cows, they rustle your life. Wa kazalika yaf’alun!

If the farmer-herder clashes were ethnic or religious, why would there be so much bloodletting in 100% Muslim states such as Sokoto, Zamfara, Katsina and Jigawa? Zamfara has been in the news lately but a recent incident of farmer-herder clash in Jigawa State went unreported by the mainstream anti-Hausa-Fulani and anti-Muslim media, based mainly in the South. After all, for them it is Muslim killing Muslim.

So, the Berom cannot take out their anger upon innocent Muslim travellers just because they have an axe to grind with their once-upon-a-time peaceful nomadic neighbours. This farmer-herder crisis is an ancestral trouble which is just a failure of governance and security in Nigeria, in ECOWAS, in the African Union, in the world.

Let me further illustrate these farmer-herder clashes to re-enlighten the jaundiced mind of especially the Muslim-hating Southern media, media practitioners and commentators.

I had occasion to recently visit a Southern university for an academic accreditation. While there, a not-so-well-informed senior academic, a professor, no less, asked me asked me whether I was Fulani (perhaps betrayed by my height and fair complexion, but not helped by my characteristically un-Fulani girth). I replied in the affirmative but added, as caveat, that I am not nomadic, but a settled Fulani, raised as Hausa, which translates to Hausa-Fulani.

He apparently ignored that distinction, as his next question was – why are you killing us? I said I had the answer but wanted him to assemble as many of his colleagues as he could so they could benefit from my response. And he did, and they came. I said to them, do you agree that President Buhari is Fulani (actually Hausa-Fulani, i.e. ethnic Fulani raised as Hausa)? They affirmed.

And the next thing I told them left them speechless: I said if Buhari, who looks every inch a Fulani (gaunt, tall, fair, etc), were as a normal settled Fulani to stand on the way of nomadic ECOWAS Fulani and their cows, they would attack him, rustle him, or worse.

This is because the nomadic ECOWAS Fulani are sometimes lawless while we, the settled farmers, are also sometimes usurpers of ancestral cattle routes, and it is the fault of government. There is lack of communication, lack of coordination, and lack of basic planning between West African countries. But, I laid it out clearly to them, most importantly, that the matter is neither ethnic nor religious, but purely economic.

So, Berom, you can’t take out your rustling-inspired-attack-reprisal out on us, poor, unarmed, Muslim travellers. You used to kill the docile settled Muslims with impunity, then you touched the Fulani and rustled their cows. And they rustled you in return.

So, go and resolve your grouse against these nomadic ECOWAS Fulanis who are not under our control, who don’t listen to us and who also attack us sometimes; don’t they kidnap all of us on Kaduna-Abuja road because you’ve rustled all their cattle? At least those kidnappers, may Allah perish them, don’t discriminate between Muslim and Christians. To them we are all economic assets. But Berom choose and kill ONLY Muslims. And they have reached their 1000th.

May Allah forgive all the murdered innocent travellers.