Solving the Fulani herdsmen’s riddle

I could’ve sworn that the era when people needed the express approval of the president to impregnate their wives was over. How wrong I’ve been. For those saddled with the responsibility of keeping us safe, there would be no performance until they find a prophet to correctly decipher the president’s body language on security. So […]

I could’ve sworn that the era when people needed the express approval of the president to impregnate their wives was over. How wrong I’ve been. For those saddled with the responsibility of keeping us safe, there would be no performance until they find a prophet to correctly decipher the president’s body language on security. So let’s shout a big hallelujah that President Buhari has finally ordered those in charge of security to protect us from alleged Fulani bandits. If we had known that this was a requirement, we would all have ranted and wailed so loud for the president to notice that his citizens are dying horrific deaths and for him to give the order to stop it. 
We have been accused of partiality when it comes to dealing with this particular issue. They say we are complicit in the Agatu massacres and that our double standard on this issue reeked to high heavens. Truth is, we are not partial. There were questions that begged for answers, one of which was the true identity of those responsible for the atrocities attributed to Fulani herdsmen. Was there a third force doing the dirty job for the Fulani and they saw no reason to denounce them.   Perhaps we are naïve in believing that herdsmen, who need their cattle routes to survive every year, would so blatantly burn their own bridges. If, as some would want us to believe these guys are gung-ho because their kinsman occupies Camp Buhari, are they so naïve as not to know that no government lasts for ever? So, what happens when Sai Baba leaves the camp? Would cattle no longer require southern fodder?
The massacres arrogated to herdsmen go beyond this regime. It shot into limelight while the Plateau burnt and the Zamfara massacres were attributed to them. Maybe Zamfarians are not Fulani enough, but they bore these vicious attacks notably during the locust years. Perhaps there’s no more affinity between the Hausa and the Fulani that this pogrom went unabated even while a Zamfarian, Aliyu Gusau was national security adviser. We did not cry foul?  Perhaps its because the life of a Zamfara almajirai is worth less than the potato of a Birom, the hoe of an Agatu or the container of an Igbo trader. After all, is it not an open secret that the northern almajirai proliferate faster than the rabbit? Perhaps this is why a few hundreds dying up north is usually treated as Gambari pa Fulani ko l’ejo, or kindred genocides.  
At the risk of being labelled ethnically morbid and inconsiderate, let us congratulate ourselves that, having decimated the north with reckless abandon with the active insouciance of relevant authorities, the Fulani marauder is emboldened to make inroads into southern corners of the border. At least, they have roused us from bigoted lethargy. Last Wednesday, an order came from Camp Buhari to stop the pogrom and bring the perpetrators to justice. Let us hope that the police high command and those in charge of internal security are not reading Sai Baba’s press statement to mean latitude to help curb population explosion like they did with Mohammed Yusuf. Let’s hope that this order does not send Sai Baba to Fatou Bensouda’s human rights court at The Hague.
Sometimes it looks hopeless praying that people who are granted the enviable title of hawks within society would live the part and not end up like domesticated Arabian hunting falcons. Legend had it that while Muhammadu Buhari was GOC in Borno, some Chadian marauders invaded Naija territory. Without waiting for a directive from his then commander-in-chief, Shehu Shagari, Buhari led his troops to rout them even invading Chadian territory. When the then Chadian leader phoned Shagari to complain, Buhari was allegedly queried and his response was that as a soldier, he was sworn to defend the territorial integrity of the nation and that he was merely living up to that oath.
It was legends like this that convinced some of us that Sai Baba would be a better leader than the unconscionable locusts he overwhelmed at the polls and that he would be best to handle our peculiar security challenges. Apparently, the security that Sai Baba inherited has lost its zeal to perform. They issue statements saying they had located the Chibok girls in Sambisa Forest and were going after them. They make tactical withdrawals and technically win imaginary wars. They massacre innocent civilians and cover up the atrocity. We need security officials who could favourably compete with Badin Powell’s boy scouts.
If the army is this tactical, what shall we say of the police whose leadership allegedly waited for the orders of a first class emir to free a teenager who eloped with his lover to hide within the emir’s territory? Body language is good, but it only works on people who have lost their balls. It’s a shame that order is needed from the Oga at the Top before we could do what is needful!