Some days back, we woke up to yet another horrendous news of killer Fulani herdsmen cutting short the lives of villagers in their sleeps – This time, the lives of father and son, in Suku Kiri-Bunu, Kabba/Bunu Local Government Area Kogi State!
Let that sink in.
Earlier in January 2018, Governor Yahaya Bello announced the readiness of Kogi State to take the lead providing land for the cattle colony programme initiated by the National Patron of Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN), President Mohammadu Buhari.
The governor, in a statement issued by his then Chief Press Secretary who is now estranged, Petra Akinti Onyegbule, publicly gave the matching order to the State Ministry of Agriculture headed by Bunu born Commissioner, Hon. Kehinde Oloruntoba, saying, “to ensure that everyone is carried along, Kogi State through the Ministry of Agriculture will soon be embarking on a series of stakeholders’ engagements to sensitize the people, farmers, cattle breeders and other stakeholders on the implementation of the new policy” invariably preparatory to the inevitable enforcement of their conclusion on colony establishment, which the state government had reached with finality against the prevalent outcry of the people who were the native land owners across all districts in the State.
With the pulse of Kogi East, I feel from the facts on the ground, from knowing the people fairly well and from the carnage they have also survived in the hands of killer Fulani herdsmen; With the massive mining/manufacturing/industrial ‘colony’ expected to takeover Ajaokuta – Itakpe area of Kogi Central sooner or later; with the report that a “A RUGA settlement could be as big as an LGA; and with the fact that Bunuland is about the only district that can boast of an untapped landmass that’s larger than many Local Government Areas in Kogi West, and the weeping fact that Governor Yahaya Bello is, to my knowledge, yet to address Senator Dino Melaye’s allegation that he (the governor) has made several efforts to relocate from Bunu District to Ajaokuta area the proposed Automotive Biofuel Industries which are to be funded by NNPC, African Development Bank and Cargill, there can’t be better pointer to the intention of Kogi State government to bring the cattle colony under whatever name to Bunuland.
But that wouldn’t be an unfair offer, would it? Under Governor Yahaya Bello, Bunu District has enjoyed political patronage in terms of appointments to a level unprecedented in the history of Kogi State, which is commendable. Bunuland with over 40 communities still has only a few kilometers of tarred federal roads out of state government’s neglect, 8 barely functioning secondary schools out of state government’s neglect, no potable water, no banks, patches of electricity, parches of network services, and no single police post. Courtesy: negligence of government at all levels. Under these conditions, which fallow land can be more suitable for Fulani’s cows to colonize than the Bunuland which the government has deliberately made almost uninhabitable for humans if not that the people dearly harbour deep sentimental attachment to their homes and lands?
January, 2018, following the governor’s declaration to be the first to offer lands for cattle colony despite knowing there are no free lands to give in his immediate home, Fulani began massive influx into Bunu land. “Paramount rulers” of Fulani herdsmen in our forests and northern emirs began exchanging letters of invitation and letters of transfers to Fulanis from the north to relocate into our forest. When the first terrific detachment of herdsmen without cattle’s arrived with their families in truck load.
Bunu nation, home and abroad, slept awake for three nights wondering if our lives were safe and why Fulanis now have the audacity to allocate our lands and forests to other Fulanis! Even the government appointees could not sleep, but, still, they had an official assignment that must be done. That is, “you have no rights to stop anybody from living anywhere in the country… Everywhere is safe, everywhere will be safe… we are on top of the situation… Fulanis have not committed any crime by moving into our lands without our permission”.
The Commissioner for Agric., Hon. Kehinde Oloruntoba, who had been ordered to take the lead in accommodating Fulanis in the state and ensured that people loved the idea, responded to the influx in THE RAY MAGAZINE published in 2018, saying: “The 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, as amended, guarantees freedom of movement to any Nigerian to any part of the country. Therefore, you cannot question the influx of some people into some parts of the country.”
What the Hon. Commissioner did not quite say, is if you have the constitutional right to live, work on people’s lands and even issue it to others without the host’s permission!
He also said “we have been having cases of clashes between herdsmen and farmers, which was one of the reasons we wanted colony in Bunuland… because it is a case of double standards. You say you don’t want Fulani, and you are living with them and there is nothing anybody can do about it… But our people immediately said NO (to cattle colony on our land), that we want to give Bunuland to Fulani. They even held ODA meeting in Kabba because of this issue. They didn’t invite me, but I went there because I knew they were going to discuss this colony issue and we actually had 27 minutes of very heated arguments. But you just politicize everything and said we want to give land to Fulani, and the Ebira people decided that they should bring the two colonies that would be coming to the state to their land.
The most painful thing is the simple truth that if we have a colony for instance in somewhere like Akutupa, automatically that road must be tarred because they’ll need the road to take their animals to wherever they are going. Then there will be water and police station etc. Those are the things we said we don’t have… That is the only solution to farmers and herders’ crises in Nigeria, because Nigeria developed without carrying the Fulani people along. All the places where we build houses today used to be grazing reserves… but now they don’t have places to graze their animals again so they must enter people’s farms. In fact, they can decide to bring 10 lorry loads of Fulanis and nobody can question them because the law permits them to go anywhere they want to and carry out their businesses…”
THAT IS IT!
If the audacity of these Fulanis to invade our territory has not been unsettling enough for you, now you have it – the unmistakable fragrance of uncensored audacity, clear insensitivity and unfeigned blackmail from government! I hope when the government tars the road for “their animals” to pass through, they will be magnanimous enough to create alternative foot path for humans living in that area so that they won’t compete so much with the animals who would be the primary road users.
By landmass, the first 10 largest states in Nigeria are from the northeast and northwest, except for Niger and Kwara states in the north central! Till date, most of these lands are still uninhabited and uncultivated! These lands essentially grow grasses and shrubs, hardly trees! Cows don’t normally eat from trees anyway and trees are predominant in north central and southern Nigeria!
Why is the federal government and its state collaborators bent on foisting Fulani herdsmen on states of the north central and the south? Sambisa forest alone is said to be 18 times the size of Lagos state! Why would federal government be interested in turning that size of land into tourist center while the same FG, through the states will impose on us Fulani herders who publicly told Obasanjo that they carry AK 47 to have “balance of terror”? Why? Shouldn’t both the expanse of grazing land and urge to forge “balance of terror” naturally make Sambisa forest more suitable for cattle rearing for Fulani herders? Why would our government and its appointees claim it’s the Fulanis that have been cheated by not “being carried along” and by the fact that we dare to build houses on our own land?
ODA is the umbrella sociocultural group for the entire Yorubas in Kogi State. They extensively consulted all traditional institutions as well as development associations before coming out with their position on Fulani herdsmen, but the government and its employees have a mind of their own, and that mind, rather than consider the fears and predicaments of the people, only feeds on the political expediences and personal preferences of their political benefactors who can help them keep their appointments, win or rig next elections!
If these were not so, why should government think that Bunuland be left desolate and undeserving of social amenities until we give our ancestral lands to herders whose only interest is to exclude us from their indigenous homes despite Nigerian’s Constitution, occupy our lands because of Nigerian Constitution, enthrone their kings regardless our our prevailing traditional institutions and eventually drive us out since no law binds in the presence of guns? Ask President Buhari who toppled an entire federal government in the presence of guns that were probably never shot. Ask indigenous Yorubas in Ilorin who forever lost leadership of their own land to Fulanis with guns as the only law!
The law of freedom of movement cannot be binding on everyone except northeast and northwest, and whoever cannot guarantee that freedom elsewhere should not have a justification and boldness to use such as a grand to give killers unfettered access to our homes! This is not to say that all Fulanis or herdsmen are killers. There are very nice and accommodating Fulanis and herders everywhere. Perhaps majority of Fulani people are actually peaceful. But the CEO and President of ACT! AMERICA, Lebanese-American Conservative Author, Brigitte Gabriel said:
“When you look at all the lessons of history, most Germans were peaceful. 60million people were killed, almost 14 million in concentration camps, 6 million were Jews. The peaceful majority were irrelevant. Most Russians were peaceful as well. Yet, the Russians were able to kill 20 million people. The peaceful majority were irrelevant. On September 11th (2001), we had 2.3 million Arab Muslims living in the Unites States. It took 19 hijackers (19 radicals) to bring America down to its knees, destroyed the World Trade Centre, attacked the Pentagon and almost 3,000 Americans died that day. The peaceful majority were irrelevant”.
It couldn’t have been more appropriately captured. The reason we are apprehensive of Fulani influx is the atrocious activities of the ones already within. And the peaceful population of Fulanis wouldn’t matter as long as this carnage continues in our home. Besides, we cannot lose our ancestral land just because some power hungry persons intend to hold political offices for 4 or 8 years.
I wasn’t surprised when I saw familiar efforts to call the killing of father and son in Suku just another armed robbery in an attempt to downplay the danger posed by these herdsmen. We must make it clear that it doesn’t matter if Fulani herdsmen rob or kidnap or rape or maim villagers, hunters or famers. Each of them constitutes security threat to us in the land. Eye witnesses called the killers “Hausa Fulani”. We all know that to most people, Hausa and Fulani mean one and the same, and the population of Hausas we have in that part is by far insignificant to the Fulanis and so are the criminal tendencies.
It has become customary for political appointees and ambitious, upcoming politicians under this government to engage in incessant denials of all heinous crimes of herdsmen all with the aim to please the power at the centre who is expected to in turn donate “federal might” for their rigging into elective offices, or win genuine votes of the massive northern Fulani population.
Hence, to stand a chance in this political game, you have to stand by what is fast becoming the national policy of government to pamper Fulani herdsmen regardless of criminal activities perpetrated by some elements in their midst, even to the point of disarming villagers, leaving them defenseless while hostile herders are left armed with AK 47. The National Leader of the APC, Bola Tinubu, no less a 2023 presidential hopeful supposedly went to console the family of Afenifere leader, Reuben Fasoranti over the gruesome murder of his daughter, Funke Olakunrin by Fulani herdsmen.
Even though he was probably in the comfort of his Bourdillon estate when the crime occurred, Mr. Tinubu still used the occasion of his “condolence visit” to challenge the testimonies of eye witnesses and the bereaved who claimed that the killers were Fulani herdsmen.
He asked “where are the cows?” invariably inferring that if cows didn’t accompany Fulanis to the crime scene, perpetrators couldn’t be herdsmen. If you see something as such happening around Suku killing, don’t look too far. It is a national strategy. Killers might still be called traditional dancers. The president can’t be trying to build TV stations and LGAs in the name of RUGA in every state for Fulani herdsmen and an appointee of his party will call marauding Fulani herdsmen by their name!
It is imperative that we don’t get swayed by any of these. Know instead, that investigation is like question. Different people do these things for different reasons. Hence, if they say it’s robbery and not farmers – herders clash, tell them robbery also a crime. That doesn’t change the identity of suspects. If they say witness identified attackers “Hausa” tell them they also mentioned Fulani and most people see Fulanis as Hausas anyway. There might be insiders there… But the fact that a Boko Haram “repented”, got incorporated into Nigerian army, or the fact that a soldier deserted and joined camp with insurgents does not make Boko Haram less of terrorists.
A man who will not help you lit your room or give you food except you agree to live with a cobras in that room and kitchen… That man is the current government… And that man does not have your interest at heart!
It’s our land and our home. It is our lives at stake.
– Ibiseun Aroniyo
