The nomadic scourge

Away from the usual stereotyping and name-calling, it is time we sat down together as thinking people to halt the frequent blood-letting between nomadic herdsmen and agrarian communities all over the federation. For decades we have played the ostrich with a problem that becomes more complex, even more emotive, with the passage of each year. […]

Away from the usual stereotyping and name-calling, it is time we sat down together as thinking people to halt the frequent blood-letting between nomadic herdsmen and agrarian communities all over the federation.
For decades we have played the ostrich with a problem that becomes more complex, even more emotive, with the passage of each year. We only wake up to cry blue murder when a fresh massacre occurs. But there is nothing so complex or befuddling about the herdsmen/farmers’ clashes as to render the problem intractable. We have simply refused to deal with the issue, with the hope that it will either solve itself or somehow vaporise.
The recent massacre of Agatu villagers jolted the nation to the seriousness of the problem. A band of well-armed herdsmen massacred 300 people, burned down homes, food barns, and churches, and displaced tens of thousands of Agatu people. If anyone was in doubt as to ‘whodunit’, some leaders of the
Fulani herdsmen in Makurdi brazenly claimed the devastation, describing it as payback for about 10,000 of their cattle stolen or killed.
A certain writer by the name of Moses Ochonu faults that reasoning: He describes this kind of logic as bizarre: “The theft of cows by a member of a host community is … a death sentence for the thief and all of his kinsmen and women. It is a strange, murderous logic that equates the lives of cattle with those of human beings, including those of women, children, and the elderly. It also advances collective retributive punishment as a form of interethnic engagement.
“The herdsmen basically, and repeatedly, admit to and boast of razing down communities and engaging in massacres of defenceless people, including women and children. Yet they have never been held accountable. And their leaders who make these admissions are coddled, dignified, and invited to press conferences with high-ranking police officers and political leaders, where they are given a platform to justify their genocidal operations.
Afterwards, they are allowed to freely walk away to plot the next massacre.”
One of the more alarming revelations that came out of the recent attacks was the involvement of foreigners with no historical or mutual existential ties to the targeted villages. Mercenaries have been fingered in the unspeakably grisly killing of infants, pregnant women, and the elderly hacked or burned to death. The militias are alleged to have been commissioned by the Fulani herdsmen and are notorious for having no regard for Nigeria’s security agencies.
President Buhari has expressed “deep shock” at the latest incident and called on Nigerians to live together in harmony. “We will conduct an investigation to know exactly what happened… There should not be any reason why Nigerians of any group or tongue cannot now reside with one another.”
Many people who heard the president’s statement said they had heard such sentiments before. As can be seen with a click of the mouse on social media, they do not doubt the sincerity of the president but they think that the herdsmen are taking undue advantage of belonging to the same ethnic nationality as the president. Perceptive Nigerians have faulted this linkage which is like accusing Olusegun Obasanjo of being the sponsor of the Oodua People’s Congress (OPC – which used to be the ‘enfant terrible’ of Southwest Nigeria), just because he shared the same ethnic nationality with its leaders.
There are social scientists trained in matters like this. We have refused to commission them to proffer a lasting solution to the problem. Nomadic cattle-rearing is a practice that is being overtaken by time and modernity.
Instead of designing novel strategies to help our herdsmen seamlessly transmute from nomadism to ranching, we are busy flinging insults at each other as usual.
The federal government should decisively rise up to the occasion, and urgently too. This is not a problem that you fix through bureaucratic palliatives. We are confronted by a situation where age-old practices are in conflict with modern realities. It will take serious political will and some deft diplomacy coupled with sincere social engineering to navigate this treacherous problem and consign this periodic killing orgy to history.
For the sake of national cohesion and to neutralise the poison being generously spread by tribal warlords, President Buhari must decisively step up to the plate without further delay. The periodic massacre of villagers by herdsmen and their allies is our own equivalent of violent gun crimes rattling America. We can’t wish the problem away; neither can we continue the various self-serving rationalisations making the rounds on the various sides of the divide.
The blood of the innocent cries out to high heavens for justice and restitution. We can’t continue passing on these solvable problems from generation to generation. The time to act is now!

Emir Sanusi’s suggestion

Emir Sanusi’s recent suggestion that our bureaucracy should be cut down so as to release more funds for development instead of using about 80 percent of the budget to service the bureaucracy needs to be seriously considered if we are to make progress. The presidential system we are currently running is too expensive and unwieldy. The Emir was absolutely right to draw our attention to the need to rethink how we run our affairs.
In one of my earlier pieces, I did suggest that President Buhari call for the papers of the Abacha constitutional conference and the Jonathan conference and set up a body to distil the various points of convergence.
The government can then proceed to restructure the country. Many people have suggested a reversion to the six geo-political zones as regional governments instead of 36 states.
Emir Sanusi has done well to refocus our attention to the problem. For how long is the ruling class going to continue playing the ostrich?