The Fulani Herdsmen have been on the front burner of the issues worrying Nigerians. It is an issue that has been on national discourse for the major life of the Buhari administration. From creating grazing reserves, grazing routes, cattle colony, Rural Grazing Areas (RUGA), and an attempt to launch a federal commission; an agency to oversee the issues around cattle rearing, cattle rustling and clashes between the herders and the farmers, these attempts have met stiff resistance from the Nigerian people.
The Fulani herdsmen had been classified as the “fourth deadliest known terrorist group”. The intensity for which they have attacked many communities, rendering many inhabitants of those communities refugees would at least elicit a commensurate response from the government of the day but none of such response has been seen.
In his interview recently with Arise News, Col. Tony Nyiam said that President Buhari is a “life patron of Fulani worldwide”. This means that Fulani from Nigeria and other countries have President Buhari as their patron.
This brings us to the indifference attitude of the president towards the mayhem caused across the nation by the herdsmen. Nyiam stated that the president lacks “sincerity of purpose and political will” to deal with the militia.
President Buhari has not been the only Fulani president Nigeria has ever got.
Nathaniel Ikyur, the principal special assistant on media to Benue State Governor, noted; “Looking back, we have had former Nigerian Presidents of Fulani extraction like the late Alhaji Shehu Shagari and Umaru Musa Yar’Adua. Yet, we didn’t see this impunity. We didn’t come in contact with a murderous gang of cattle rearers who invaded communities, killed people in their sleep and destroyed farmlands as we are currently experiencing under President Buhari. We didn’t see where a Fulani organisaistion dared a community, issued and carried out their threats, with no one questioning them. Could Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore be emboldened because of the body language of Mr. President?”
Several people have argued that for several decades, the Fulanis have herded their cattle without causing the host communities any harm but today the same herders are engaged in violence especially towards farmers and host communities. The Federal Government had argued that these militias are not the Fulani herdsmen that have lived among people for so many years.
The governor of Kano state Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, once asked the president to “ban herdsmen from the West African countries and others from coming into the country”. He alleged that these men carry arms and ammunition. He went as far as to call on the review of the ECOWAS protocols “so that the herdsmen are not being allowed into Nigeria so that we reduce the level of conflicts”. But the calls fell on deaf ear.
Sen. Enyinnaya Abaribe had said that, “the police said that those killing us are criminals from other countries. I want to make this case of eviction very clear, every criminal element occupying our bushes from anywhere must be flushed out”
With the visa on arrival to Nigeria promised to Africans by the president, some of the Nigerian people have felt that the policy may have become an open invitation to the Fulani herdsmen and with the arms, they have targeted the communities which has led to the rising of the various constituents of the country to begin to resist the co-habitation of the Fulani herdsmen.
The strife caused by the inability of the federal government and option to adopt “strategic silence” on the issues with the militias, Nigerians have begun to ask; where lies the loyalty of the president. Is his loyalty to the Nigerian people who he is their president or to the Fulani people that he is their life patron?
Should we cross our legs and pick our teeth as these foreigners invade the country to kill, maim and sack communities, rendering them refugees in their own country or deploy the full weight of the military to combat the invaders?
Where the loyalty of the president lies determines whether the country is marching towards breakdown or not.
It’s only fair to share!… Subscribe on Telegram