Fulani Herdsmen: A Strain On One Nigeria

 By Lewis Obi 

IN the last five years, Fulani herdsmen have murdered at least 8,000 Nigerians in various parts of the country often in the pretext of protecting their cows or resisting unarmed lo­cal farmers protesting the destruction of their crops. The cases involving murders, the de­struction and burning of villages and towns are the ones that occasionally make news. Numerous incidents of trampling on crops, rape of innocent women in their farms, assault and battery of men caught in their farms who express disapproval of the destruction of their crops – those provocations make no news and are never recorded.

In many parts of Nigeria today, it is taken for granted that Fulani herdsmen would tram­ple on crops and the farmer has to bear the sight without as much as demur.

If he raises an alarm, that means the end of his life. If he runs to alert the village, the village is burned to the ground. If the whole town is aroused, that is the end of the town. It would be destroyed and the townsfolk turned into refugees somewhere. Reports are made to the police, numerous reports, yet not one prosecution has been reported, to say nothing about a conviction and sentence. It is for this reason that the Fulani herdsmen have assumed the status of the imperial agent, he can do no wrong. Everyone’s life is expendable, the property of farmers is worth less or nothing and of no consideration.

That has been the situation in much of Southern Nigeria and some parts of the Middle Belt. The Ugwuneshi incident in Awgu Local Government Area of Enugu State made news last week because of a little twist which came in the form of the mili­tary’s direct intervention. The herdsmen, as usual, trampled on the crops and occupied the farms of the Ugwuneshi villagers on the 17th March. The farmers gathered to talk about what to do next and some of them had a shouting match with the herdsmen. Before the farmers could decide on the next step, if there would be any next step, a convoy of military vehicles had surrounded the villag­ers who were then bundled into army trucks like sacks of potatoes. To the acclaim of the herdsmen, the military rounded up all the men and drove them to the Umuahia Po­lice Division with the instruction that they should be locked up in the prison cells. In Nigeria, the military’s word is still practi­cally the law, and, so, the 76 men of Ugwun­eshi were incarcerated. The farmers had not attacked the herdsmen. They had been in a peaceful assembly, trying to figure out what to do about the literal seizure of their land and the destruction of their property.

The Governor of Enugu State, Mr. Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, went to Umuahia. Someone said he was almost in tears trying to secure the freedom of the 76 Ugwuneshi men. The fate of the men spread so much distress in Igbo land. The implication of the military’s in­tervention was not lost on most people. But most people were quiet for understandable reasons.

But then Igbo women spoke up, which was an ominous sign. Culturally, women do not intervene on issues like this. But when they do, it means the people have been driv­en to the end of the tether. The Igbo Women Assembly (IWA) had held an emergency meet­ing in Enugu after which they issued a state­ment expressing their outrage and threatening to re-enact the activism which led to what is historically known as the Aba Women’s Riot of 1929, which was one phenomenal bout of rebellion which the British colonial administra­tion did everything but failed to quell and had to back down.

The women noted that “the alarm, the trepi­dation, anguish and uncontrollable pain in the hearts of our people today could turn into something unpleasant” if the 76 Ugwuneshi men “abducted on the orders of the Fulani herdsmen are not immediately released.”

“This humiliating display of sheer arrogance cannot be accepted by any self-respecting people. The continuous detention of the Ug­wuneshi 78 is immoral, ungodly and a naked show of persecution. We warn that if the Fulani herdsmen and their cousins in the army who see the army as an appendage of Fulani hege­mony do not release these young men immedi­ately, then we aver that the Aba women’s riot of 1929 will be a child’s play to the reaction of the Igbo Women Assembly to this painful humili­ation of Easterners by the people who seek to intimidate and dominate our people even in our own land.”

The IWA leader, Chief Mrs. Maria Okwor, said the women are in alignment with the Igbo Youth Movement (IYM) which had decried “our so-called leaders who have quietly abdi­cated their leadership position out of fear and cowardice. The arrest of the 76 Ugwuneshi men “by the military, instead of the police” was turning into an early seed for total breakdown of law and order. “The ominous development … sends a very strong signal that some people own the Army and that they brazenly use it as an army of occupation.”

“It is instructive that the Fulani herdsmen did not invite the Nigeria Police. They had more confidence in the Army which they know they wholly own. If the Federal Government does not publicly investigate and punish, make pub­lic the officer who speedily deployed the sol­diers who came in several trucks to round up the 76 (Ugwuneshi) men and whisked them away, to the jubilation of the Fulani herdsmen, then, the Federal Government will only be instituting Mazi Nnamdi Kanu (the Radio Biafra director now in detention) a legend, because he predict­ed this attack in a Radio Biafra (broadcast) two years ago. Kanu said the Fulani herdsmen will seize the South East, South South and Middle Belt.” If nothing is done by the Federal Govern­ment over this incident, said the IYM founder, Evangelist Elliot Uko, the action of the Fulani herdsmen would have confirmed Kanu a proph­et and a hero.

It is obvious the Igbos are distraught on the activities of Fulani herdsmen. So are the Yo­rubas. Indeed when the herdsmen kidnapped former minister, presidential candidate Chief Olu Falae, some months ago there were calls that the herdsmen cease activity in all parts of Yoruba land. It is not yet three weeks that the whole country was horrified by the atrocities of the herdsmen in Agatu land in the Middle Belt in which more than 500 were killed and as many as eight local government areas were affected, towns were burnt down and all manner of depredations were inflicted on Benue State.

Which provoked Funke Egbemode’s soul-stirring column in the Sunday Sun of 3rd April: “What is the lesson in here? It is about the Aga­tu killings and others like it all over our land and the repercussion and compensation that this na­tion will pay in the future. It is the senseless kill­ings that we all think will go away if we ignore them long enough. This is about those whose jobs are to protect the weak (who) look the other way. This is dedicated to all those who arm evil men to descend on defenseless homes to kill and destroy. I know there are evil farmers and there are evil herdsmen. But I also know that equat­ing the life of a cow to that of an entire family is the greatest evil of all.”