In recent times, there has not been a moment when it is so glaring that the contraption called Nigeria is sharply divided on the fault lines of religion and especially ethnicity than now. In this, all sorts of people are sadly involved; the educated, semi-educated, illiterate, informed, ill-informed, misinformed and the uninformed. A simple survey of opinions on the electronic or the print media and the social media can confirm this. For instance, the Daily Trust Newspaper recently published an opinion by one Eugene Enahoro, captioned: “Governor Mohammed must tender an apology.”
In the discourse, Mr. Enahoro underscored the importance of exercising restraint by public commentators as according to him, “more than anything Nigerians want peace and prosperity and nothing should be said or done which stands in the way of this.” This, he insisted, is especially so “if they hold high political office,” adding, “Its often been asserted that Nigeria is blessed with every natural resource necessary for peace and prosperity except good leadership! The truism of this statement is becoming more apparent every day as the nation drifts towards being a failed state.”
Enahoro lamented how bad governance and wealth accumulation have continuously caused the breakdown of law and order in the polity culminating in citizens “taking matters into their own hands.” And to arrive home, he brought up the issue concerning the Fulani herdsmen that has caused lots of debates amidst tension in the public space as one of such instances when citizens took matters into their own hands.
Enahoro went on to say that the “recent public spat between governors Ortom of Benue and Mohammed of Bauchi State over the issue of herders bearing arms only served to highlight the lack of a workable national policy to address the issues surrounding the nature of the nation’s inappropriately structured cattle rearing business.” Now, all the while the writer appeared to be objective and therefore out to pursue a just cause. Alas! He derailed and appeared in a different color when he eventually became selective in narrating how the “public spat between governors Ortom and Mohammed of Bauchi” transpired.
More so, in spite of refusing to tell Ortom that his actions were in contravention of the provisions of Nigeria’s 1999 Constitution as amended, the writer deliberately refused to report the full speech of Governor Mohammed. He trimmed it to suit his intention to paint the presidency black and present the Bauchi State governor as ethnocentric.
According to Enahoro, the governor of Benue State has “complained severally that whenever his citizens are slaughtered in their homes not a whimper is heard from the federal government, but as soon as he takes action to reduce the death toll by giving the herders quit notice, then the Presidency itself springs to their defence.” He then concluded that this assertion was confirmed by Bala Mohammed when he publicly backed the Fulanis for carrying “AK47 assault weapons.”
But Bala Mohammed didn’t back anyone carrying AK47 or any other arms for that matter. Rather, he told the world how, as leaders, governors of Ondo and that of Benue have failed to manage the farmers/herdsmen crisis in their respective states. He faulted their profiling of the entire Fulani ethnic group as criminals, because as he observed, “in every tribe, there are criminals.” By way of citing an example the governor also said that “If Cybercrime is practised by one tribe, you don’t criminalise all the tribe that they are criminals.” In effect therefore, criminals are supposed to be identified as criminals and not by their ethnic identities.
More so, Bala Mohammed who spoke at the closing ceremony of the 2021 Press Week of the Correspondents’ Chapel of the Nigeria Union of Journalists, Bauchi State Council at the Command Guest House in Bauchi, was unambiguous on the issue of the herdsman carrying AK47, which Mr. Enahoro had so much interest in. The governor first painted a picture of the situation the herdsmen are in today. He observed that they are being attacked by cattle rustlers who kill them and walk away with their cattle. And because government has failed to protect them, the herdsmen resort to self-help.
But they all forgot that Bala Mohammed also cautioned that we “should be very sensitive, and you as journalists, you must exercise restraint; you must decipher wrongs from rights, something that is so bad, that can divide us, that can threaten our unity, you don’t do it.” Thus, it baffles that for saying this, Mr. Enahoro demanded that Mohammed should tender an apology even though it is not known yet where one has to apologize for merely saying the truth and appealing for caution.
Mukhtar Jarmajo, Bauchi
