Nigerian bloodletting: The oracles begin to speak

President Muhammadu Buhari is in a fix. He is between the hammer and the anvil, the Fulani and other tribes of Nigeria. It is not an enviable position if you imagine how any object on the anvil is pummeled but unbreakable contending forces. Yet those who rightly love Nigeria more than they love his person; […]

President Muhammadu Buhari is in a fix. He is between the hammer and the anvil, the Fulani and other tribes of Nigeria. It is not an enviable position if you imagine how any object on the anvil is pummeled but unbreakable contending forces. Yet those who rightly love Nigeria more than they love his person; will not shirk their responsibility to speak truth from their perspective, to him and all the power that he wields as the leader of Africa’s most populous and ethnically diverse nation. 

Nigeria today, stands perilously on the edge of the precipice of violent conflict and because there is no satisfaction that his government has the appropriate grasp of the handle, drums of war are playing that threaten the peace and stability of country. Circulating messages in the all-powerful social media speak of a declaration of war by groups which hitherto threatened mass killings and delivered on their word. For weeks now, Nigeria has seen so much bloodletting attributed to armed marauders who attack communities, such that across the whole of the country, life is on edge. Killings and reprisal mass murders have become common place. The use of military type weapons should be of concern to any government, but owing to inaction, communities are resorting to defending themselves. Of course there is a consequent proliferation of arms in the hands of the civilian population. Hence the bloodletting can only escalate and not subside. 

Only a few days ago, former Military President Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida found the need to voice his concerns about the prevailing unfortunate situations in the country. President, Ibrahim Babangida on Sunday was widely reported to urge Nigerians to desist from communal clashes and further bloodshed, noting that Nigeria as a country has witnessed enough spilling of innocent blood. Said President Babangida, “We have witnessed so much bloodshed through communal clashes and conflicts that need urgent actions to stop them now”, urging that Nigerians and governments at all levels must “serve as national vanguards in resolving some recent disturbing incidents affecting national security”.

In Nigeria, Babangida belongs to a group of oracles who when they speak, it behoves us to look beyond the horizon and see or imagine gathering storms that may have informed their breaking of silence. Others in this class include former President Olusegun Obasanjo, and the General of few words, TY Danjuma, all three on the same pedestal with current President Muhammadu Buhari, having fought in the war to save Nigeria from disintegrating earlier than now, and have a sacred commitment to doing so even today.  Indeed whenever they express concerns publicly on any issue, it behoves us to look beyond the horizon and see or imagine gathering storms that may have informed their breaking of silence. 

We are bound to ask questions. Is it that the official Nigerian security community has no narrative of whoever primes the armed marauders to wage war? Even when the army police, DSS and others sustain casualties as if in a war? Is it deliberate that there are no immediate response nationwide to initial altercations where livestock graze on crops, leading to one or more killings and a measured reprisal thereafter, then war? In the Numan case, there had welled up frustration following the failure of the law to deal with earlier killings in Koh, Labondo, Goron, in Girei Local Government, then Kodomun in Demsa local Government, all Bachama settlements that were razed and the people massacred. Then one killing of two farmers in Kikon village in Numan triggered the massacre of over 50 Fulani, mostly women and children, followed by the massive reprisals in Lawaru, Dong, Shaforon and Kikon itself. The death toll is unacceptably akin to a nation at war. Sadly in the public sphere, every one narrates the cause of the ongoing bloodletting by tracing the spark only from when they became victims. This way we have got the different ethnic and religious groups in inflamed exchanges to no national good except heightened anxieties over the national state of anomie.

My brother and colleague in this medium Dr. Aliyu Tilde was privileged to have been included in the group of influential Fulani in company of the Lamido of Adamawa Dr. Muhammad Barkindo Aliyu Mustapha, Emir of Kano Muhammadu Sanusi II, and sage Alhaji Ahmadu Joda to meet with Vice President Osinbajo who had visited the Bachama towns of Numan Lawaru, and Dong. According to Dr. Tilde, the Vice President himself lamented the persistent disobedience of the law in the country, noting this to be the cause of the problems. On his social media page, Dr. Tilde bemoaned and criticized the President’s seeming leaning towards Benue State and its people without a balanced tilt towards the Fulani and their grievances with the open grazing law. In Dr. Tilde’s strongly held view, President Buhari needs to strike a balance between his concerns for lives of Benue citizens and that of the Fulani and their livestock. Tilde and I have brainstormed on our national predicament in several fora and are agreed that it is necessary for the President to more amply demonstrate concern for the worsening security situation in Nigeria today, if we are to prevent a catastrophe that could easily overwhelm our military might and take us back to days reminiscent of the final days of Goodluck Jonathan’s regime. 

In this column, I had this to say about the Numan situation:

“For the sake of our communities of herders, traders, and farmers, already at the mercy of the ravaging economy, it is pertinent to plead with our traditional rulers, specifically the Lamido of Adamawa, Alhaji Muhammad Barkindo Aliyu Mustapha and Hama Bachama Honest Irmiya Stephen, to graciously … engage in reconciliation and dialogue that can restore public confidence. It is more to the advantage of a bigger and more promising future, that peace is promoted even for the sake of the common poor folks. … socio-cultural groups that speak for the communities, Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders’ Association and Pene Da Bwatiye should immediately and promptly engage one another under a respectable arbiter, in the interest of a peaceful future and restored normalcy for the good of all.

We must add the Tor Tiv and all other Emirs and traditional rulers to a dialogue and mutual agreement to peaceful and harmonious existence. President Muhammadu Buhari must be the arbiter for the nation and should bring all WARRING parties to a reconciliation table. There was a life of peace and harmony before the present days of lawlessness and the law enforcement that the nation must be steered back on to. Disobedience of the law is the first step to anarchy and should not be tolerated by the government. Without equity, fairness and justice, there can be no peace and harmony, let alone obedience of the law.