Ethnic Character of Nigerian Insecurity

Sola Ebiseni

Nigerians are so divided under the Buhari administration that several strange things are happening. Significantly, it has succeeded in shattering and scattering the myth of one north which Sir Ahmadu Bello and the founding members of his school of thought, both in politics and the academia, have managed with such dexterity that the average southerner would pass off all northerners with a generic name of Hausa. The pandering to Fulani supremacy by the Buhari Government have lifted the veil from the artificial tribe called Hausa/Fulani created to give the Hausa elite a false equal sense of belonging only in the governance of Nigeria

In an article titled “The Truth about Katsina, Zamfara Killings published in This Day of 22nd February 2020, the author Yemi Adebowale did an in depth analysis of the ethnic character of the insecurity in northern Nigeria, which provides well informed insights into the situation which has engulfed the whole country today. According to the author, “the unending killings in Katsina and Zamfara states by so-called bandits will persist for a very long time if political leaders and security agents continue to act in support of the warring factions. This is the crux of the matter.”

He went on: “What is happening in Katsina, Zamfara and to some extent, Sokoto, (now engulfing Kaduna, Kebbi, Niger states) is war between Fulani herders and Hausa farmers, over grazing land. The bandits are Fulani militias. They fight for the herders that want unfettered access to farm lands. Herders often call the militias when they suffer casualties. The Hausa farmers also have their militias called Yan Sakai. They retaliate for Hausa farmers when their farm lands are destroyed and farmers killed. It is one big mess compounded by politicians and security agents that have refused to act dispassionately. This is why hundreds of lives have been consumed by this disaster in these states, in the last five years or thereabout.”

Shedding more lights on what now is responsible for the escalation of the crisis, the writer said. “The states mentioned hitherto experienced very tiny crisis between the herders and farmers, prior to Muhammadu Buhari’s emergence as President. But immediately he became President, the Fulani herders were emboldened, because ‘our brother is now in charge,’ and the drive for unencumbered access to farm lands assumed a frightening dimension. Of course, security agents also became lackadaisical when called upon to respond to attacks by Fulani militias”
The writer cited several instances where the powers that be have justified massacres by the Fulani militias on the grounds of retaliation or reprisals by farmers who reacted to the destruction of their farms by the herders. The farmers made up of several ethnic groups are advised by the federal government to accept the reality by seeking peace with the attacking and untouchable herders and make their lands available in ransom for their lives.

For instance, Nassir El-Rufai, former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory and now Governor of Kaduna State is so Fulacentric that, in an unsolicited tweet in 2012, he warned that “anyone, soldier or not, that kills the Fulani, takes a loan repayable one day no matter how long it takes”. This notion that a Fulani is untouchable, even by a soldier, was given official imprimatur when, barely a year of his becoming Governor of Kaduna State. Nasir shocked the nation when he disclosed barefacedly, in a press Conference, widely reported on December 3rd, 2016, that he paid Fulani herdsmen, who came from several countries, to stop them from such permissive vengeful killings of people of southern Kaduna.

El-Rufai claimed: “So many of these people were killed, cattle lost and they organised themselves and came back to revenge. We took certain steps. We got a group of people that were going round trying to trace some of these people in Cameroon, Niger republic and so on to tell them that there is a new governor who is Fulani like them and has no problem paying compensations for lives lost and he is begging them to stop killing. In most of the communities, once that appeal was made to them, they said they have forgiven. There is one or two that asked for monetary compensation. They said they have forgiven the death of human beings, but want compensation for cattle. We said no problem, and we paid some. As recently as two weeks ago, the team went to Niger republic to attend one Fulani gathering that they hold every year with a message from me.”

However, rather than being placated, the militiamen were emboldened by such assured official ethnic protection unleashing terror not only on the people of Kaduna but now rendered the whole of the North West in particular and Nigeria ungovernable. The Federal Government, in words and body language, have not helped matters in the impression that the Fulani enjoys a soft spot in the heart of government no matter the severity of his conduct while members of other ethnic nationalities are made to face the horrors of arrest, being declared terrorist, or killed by agents of the federal government for the slightest conceivable misdemeanour.

Commending the DSS for the unwarranted attacks and killings at the residence of Sunday Igboho, Garba Shehu, the unrepentant champion of Fulani ethnic interest and spokesperson for President Buhari, said Igboho was “ a militant ethnic secessionist, who has also been conducting acts of terror and disturbing the peace under the guise of protecting fellow kinsmen” and whose seditious utterances and antics, which he is known to have publicly expressed, have overtime morphed into very hateful and vile laden speeches”.

It is thus clear that Igboho was targeted to be eliminated and now declared wanted for not making himself available to be killed on account of his speeches in support of his kinsmen which speeches are only declared by Garba as seditious and hateful for being against the heinous crimes of Shehu’s cousins – local and foreign – who, for all intents and purposes, are the only persons permitted by the federal government, to carry sophisticated weapons, and kill without questioning.

To protect the sacred cows, they must have statutory right of occupancy of land larger than owned by the ancestral inhabitants and fully developed with schools, water supply, health centres, housing estates and such infrastructural facilities to the envy of the less privileged indigenes.

Nigerians are blackmailed to stop mentioning the ethnic identity of the killer herdsmen. In the remotest crannies of the country, the farmers, kidnapped travellers, abducted students and their parents mince no words about the ethnic identities of the armed criminal gangs. The negotiator and cleric do not hide the tribe of the boys on behalf of whom he negotiates for ransom and for whom he cajoles government for rehabilitation. The scores of defenceless peasant farmers massacred in Maradun Local Government Area of Zamfara last Thursday in reprisal for the alleged killing of two members of a bandit group are not of the same tribe with their assailants. In all cases of massacres by the armed herdsmen and their military wing, Nigerian security forces have been helpless, not because the bandits are invincible but they are deterred by official complicity or body language.

The way forward

The first step forward is for Nigeria to accept the fact that animal husbandry and nomadism are only occupational matters and not a culture peculiar to any tribe. It has been there before Abraham, the progenitor of shepherds and our two dominant Christian and Islamic religions. Most of those tribes have jettisoned the primitive and ultra-hazardous mode of breeding animals. It is cruel for the federal government and of states of origin of those herders to consign those citizens to such horrendous state of living on the excuse of cultural preference.
We must discard the idea that our nation is borderless and thus open to foreigners who also have no respect for the sanctity of life of our citizens. I belong to the Ilaje Yoruba tribe, whose occupation is fishing and for which we proudly say “ubo eri pa to, Ilaje gwa to, literally translated to mean the sojourning of Ilaje ends only where the rivers and the sea do not exist. Yet in Cameroon, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Republic of Benin where we are found in large numbers and over a century, we live within the laws of the land. In fact, in those Francophone countries, the fear of the gendarmerie is the beginning of wisdom.

Those herdsmen have states of origin. It is time they lived settled lives. The RUGA, Cattle Colony or Settlement being proposed and being opposed by other nationalities in the fear of loss of ancestral lands should be developed for the cattle boys and make them live respectable life. Reduced to their individual states of origin, the herders become few and more manageable. This is without prejudice to the right of those among them who have the means acquiring land in other states for modern animal husbandry occupation.

Of course, it is evident that a single police command is antithetical to a federal structure and in the Nigerian peculiar situation in terms of size and diversity, State Police is sine qua non to effective security. It is unfair to subject out gallant military to excessive internal security challenges which have exposed them unduly. If it is true that Boko Haram and ISWAP have truly declared a Republic in Borno with their Governor sworn in, it is time we largely free our armed forces to face such threat while the Federal and State Police deal with little cases of banditry. Nigeria, we hail thee.

• Sola Ebiseni is Secretary General, Afenifere.