In Nigeria, Owners Of The Killers Are Back With Impunity!

 By Chidi Odinkalu

Mbabai, the village where Tarnongo Mike Utsaha was buried on April 1, 2023, used to be part of the municipality of Makurdi, the capital of Benue State. It only became part of Guma Local Government Area in Benue North-West in 1987. Current governor of Benue State, Samuel Ortom, also comes from Guma.

The LGA derives its name from River Guma, which empties into the River Benue, part of a network of fresh water sources that have historically defined that part of Nigeria as the nation’s food basket. With arable land drained by an abundance of freshwater sources on the foothills of the rainy season, this is a neighborhood that should ordinarily bustle at this time of year.

Why Akume And Ortom Should Shut-Up!

By Comfort Obi

Former Governor of Benue state and now, the Senator representing Benue North-West Senatorial District, George Akume and, the incumbent Benue state Governor, Samuel Ortom are disgracefully tearing at each other. 

*Comfort Obi

In the face of the sufferings of Benue people – economic, physical, emotional – Akume and Ortom are dancing naked in the market square. They are telling the people why both of them should be spat on the face. The irony: Both see themselves as leaders of their people.

My sincere advice to them: Shut-up and hide your faces in shame! While Benue is burning, you are playing Rome’s Nero.

APC Spokesman, Abdullahi, Dumps Party

*Bolaji Abdullahi

Despite denying that he has left the All Progressive Congress (APC) only a few hours ago, the National Publicity Secretary of the party, Mr. Bolaji Abdullahi, has announced his resignation from the APC and the office he holds in the party.

He announced his decision today through his verified twitter handle:

“In view of recent political developments in the country and within the All Progressives Congress (APC), I have decided to resign my position as the National Publicity Secretary as well as my membership of the party with effect from today.

Nigeria: The Impending Implosion Of APC

By Reuben Abati
Just take the phrase: “impending” in the title above with a pinch of salt. I use the word because in politics as in life, things happen – as seemingly absolute situations become redeemable and what originally appears impossible could be the catalyst for fresh opportunities.

 Otherwise, the truth is that the ruling Nigerian political party, the All Progressives Congress is already imploding, it has in fact imploded; the party is in the throes of a debilitating illness. The implosion began almost as soon as the party assumed power in 2015.

The APC emerged as a special purpose vehicle – composed almost entirely from second hand, used groups from the CPC, the ACN, APGA, ANPP, and a break away faction of the PDP, known as new PDP (nPDP) – even if there was nothing new about it, with the sole objective of taking power from the then ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and the then incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan. 

Buhari, Our President In The Clouds

By Paul Onomuakpokpo

Bristling with rage at the unceasing carnage and fecklessness that have bogged down the nation since the emergence of Gen. Muhammadu Buhari as the president, Prof. Wole Soyinka recently warned us against the fate of a people whose affairs are presided over by a leader in a trance. But not a few of those who are befuddled by their devotion to Buhari sniggered at Soyinka’s position as another instance of the dramatist over-dramatising the perceived failings of his president. 

*President Buhari 

But those who did not share Soyinka’s prescience and thus did not appreciate the horrendous developments that validated his position can no longer ignore what has happened since that grim verdict.

Indeed, we have all been confronted with subsequent stark developments that have been triggered by the administration of Buhari which show that Soyinka’s position remains unimpeachable.

Nigeria: Who Will Halt The Bestiality In Benue, Etcetera?

By Dan Amor

Irrational impulses are not surprising in the stress and tension that characterize a demented society. In an atmosphere of violence, reason is sometimes abandoned and humanitarian principles forgotten. The inflamed passions of the time lead men to commit atrocities. But the concern here is not with the psychological pathology of those who commit atrocities but rather with what has turned our nation into a slaughterhouse where human beings are daily killed with intimidating alacrity. Throughout modern history, atrocity propaganda has often mesmerized readers thousands of kilometres from the scene of the crime. Often, the improbability of the actions described suggests that the stories were little more than fantasies concocted for diverse reasons from even more diverse sources.

But the reading public in Nigeria has invariably evinced a morbid absorption with the most nightmarish aspects of this national tragedy. It is indeed fashionable to observe that material which should create a moral aversion to the cruelty of our present times often produces a perverse fascination instead. There is, candidly speaking, an alarming rate of mockery killings in Nigeria, especially under the Buhari administration. There are gruesome stories of rapes, mutilations, perversities and child and mother murders.

Why President Buhari Doesn’t Mourn The Dead

By Paul Onomuakpokpo

Even without Samuel Ortom shedding tears, history is bound to credit him with a stellar role during the trying time of his people. He could have reached a pact with the devil and secured his cocoon of ease, unperturbed by the howls of his people being slaughtered by Fulani herdsmen.

*President Buhari 

 A peril of his sense of filial obligation to his people has been his humiliation at the hands of his colleagues. In their midst, he is burdened with a pariah status. One of them, Plateau State Governor Simon Lalong, might have given expression to what they were inhibited by political correctness from letting out . In a moment Lalong was overwhelmed with a sense of vindication of his prescience, he reminded Ortom that he warned him against making a law to stop Fulani herdsmen from destroying the people of Benue and their means of livelihood. Yes, Lalong attempted to recant, but this did not vitiate his stand.

Fulani Herdsmen And (Il)logic Of Self-Defence

By Paul Onomuakpokpo

It is now over two weeks since President Muhammadu Buhari ordered security operatives to arrest and prosecute illegal arm-bearers. The president first gave the order towards the end of last month during a National Security Council meeting attended by the defence minister, the service chiefs, among others. He repeated the order when he visited Nasarawa State this month.

Here, we are confronted with two possibilities. One is that the order has been fully complied with by security operatives, leading to the mass arrest and prosecution of illegal arm-bearers. The other is that the order has been completely disdained by security operatives. Sadly, the second possibility is the reality today. Nothing underscores this more than the fact that herdsmen who chiefly belong to the category of illegal arm-bearers are still on the prowl despite the presidential order. Indeed, the order has rather become a source of impetus to them to illegally bear arms and use them to inflict pain and death on their victims. 

Nigeria: Restructuring And The Herdsmen Question

By Adetokunbo Pearse

Reform in the fiscal and the security sectors can aid the effort to alleviate the growing tension between nomadic herdsmen and sedentary farmers which has captured national consciousness lately. Unfortunately these clashes are fast becoming a way of life in Nigeria. 

In 2017 alone deadly confrontation between roving herdsman and local communities were reported in every geopolitical zone except the north-west. Sometimes it is the herdsmen who get the worst of it as in the celebrated case in 2000 when then General Muhammadu Buhari led a delegation to governor Lam Adesina to protest the killing of dozens of Fulani herdsmen in Oyo State. At other times it is the local communities who suffer as in the most recent incident of January 1, 2018 with the massacre of some 70 citizens of Guma and Logo local government areas of Benue State by herdsmen or their agents.

Benue Massacres: How Gov Ortom Got His Groove Back!

By Reno Omokri

I must say that I was rather disappointed in the Benue State Governor’s initial response to the killing of 73 residents of Benue State by killer Fulani herdsmen. I felt that it was wrong of him to have accepted President Buhari’s summons to go to the Aso Rock Presidential Villa with Benue elders only to be talked down at by the President who had no harsh words for his Fulani herdsmen kinsmen and who condescendingly told Gov Samuel Ortom and his elders to “accommodate your countrymen” (never mind that he, the President, once claimed that killer Fulani herdsmen are foreigners).

*Gov Wike of River State in Benue State to Commiserate with Gov Ortom on the Killings 

My disappointment with Ortom stemmed from the fact that he allowed himself be summoned by a President who did not have the common decency to first of all pay a condolence visit to the state where killers who share affinity with him had just killed his countrymen and women. 

Nigeria: Who Are Fulani Herdsmen?

By Hope Eghagha

Bala: What is this big noise and cry over herdsmen?

Ankpa: Have you been sleeping Bala? Don’t you know the terrorists, the bloody murderers, masquerading as herdsmen?

Bala: How can cattle-rearers be killers? Their business is cattle-rearing, not killing people.

Ankpa: That’s what we thought until we found some going about with AK 47 guns!

Bala: Are you sure the Boko Haram scoundrels, those anti-Islam elements have not infiltrated the herdsmen group?
Ankpa: that is left for the State to fish out. 

President Buhari And The Herdsmen’s Endgame

By Paul Onomuakpokpo

Of the many traumatic marvels of the President Muhammadu Buhari government, its predilection for crashing deeper into the abyss when we thought that we would no longer be jolted by its blunders, is striking. If his linkage to marauding and bloodthirsty Fulani herdsmen were only a staple of blackmail sustained by his traducers, he has just stoked the suspicion of his fidelity to their ghoulish vision with his response to the killings in Benue State.

*President Buhari 

Buhari did not bother to visit Benue for a first-hand apprehension of the tragedies that the Fulani herdsmen inflicted on the people. Nor was he seen to have expressed deep regret over the killings, except the platitudes that were regurgitated by his aides after a grudging approval from him. Or is this not a true measure of his lack of humanity and a perverted sense of justice and patriotism that while the nation was gripped by grief, Buhari and the governors from his northern region were preoccupied with his re-election in 2019?

President Buhari And The Herdsmen

By Paul Onomuakpokpo

In a seeming bid to douse his increasing credibility crisis, President Muhammadu Buhari has now belatedly realised the need to absolve himself of killings by herdsmen. No longer does he find comfort in his practised silence in the face of the citizens’ outrage at the atrocities being committed by herdsmen.

*Pres Buhari and Gov El-Rufai

But Buhari’s newfangled disposition has failed to prove the fast-expanding camp of the naysayers wrong. Rather, what has become clear is that Buhari has bungled another opportunity to shore up his credibility. Thus, Buhari’s defence of himself ended up being a reinforcement of his history of incapability to meet the demands of his high office.

Buharism: A Brand Damaged By Nepotism

By Ikechukwu Amaechi

Until recently, the Muhammadu Buhari brand was, perhaps, the most potent and compelling brand in the country. In the north, he was “Mai Gaskiya” (truth avatar). Even as he never gave anyone scholarship, never built a vocational centre or any industry to employ youths or get almajiris off the streets, he continued to get millions of votes from there.

*President Muhammadu Buhari

In the south where he didn’t enjoy the same cult status, he was completely rebranded shortly before the 2015 elections so much so that the Buhari myth became so persuasive almost to the point of deification.

But time makes all the difference in the affairs of not only men but also nations. 

Grazing Reserve Is Ethnic Imperialism

By Ochereome Nnanna

 The All Progressives Congress (APC) Federal Government led by President Muhammadu Buhari appears hell-bent on imposing the establishment of grazing reserves across Nigeria in spite of the many unpalatable implications it will unleash on unsuspecting Nigerians. On Thursday, 31 March 2016, I wrote an article on this column entitled: “Ranching, Yes; Grazing Reserves, No!” The article called attention to what was then speculated as intentions of the Federal Government to launch this obnoxious policy aimed at handing over lands belonging to indigenous communities to Fulani cattle owners in the guise of establishing “grazing reserves”.

Now, the masquerade has been unmasked: the Minister of Agriculture, Mr. Audu Ogbeh, has disclosed that President Buhari has directed him to implement the programme. According to him, he will start it from the North, where he will establish 50,000 hectares of grazing reserves. Then, he will import his beloved Brazil grass to feed the cattle. When he is done with that, he will, in his own words: “move South”. With the Fulani herdsmen now settled in their newly-acquired grazing lands, perhaps without paying a kobo or even negotiating with landowners and obtaining their express permission to use their land, the herdsmen will stop invading communities, destroying the farms of poor villagers, killing, maiming, kidnapping, raping and dehumanising innocent Nigerians.

Nigeria will become self-sufficient in animal and dairy products, and everybody will live happily ever after. That is the picture Ogbeh and his paymasters are painting for us. However, we have very strong reasons to suspect that the establishment of grazing reserves is an ancient agenda of ethnic imperialism which dates back to the Fulani Jihads that Islamised the North about two hundred years ago.

I read an interesting article by one Dr. Gundu of the Department of Archaeology, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. He gave a useful insight into the grazing reserves phenomenon, which should jolt our complacently ignorant countrymen, especially those from the Southern parts of the country. Gundu’s article is entitled: History Class On Grazing Reserves: Why Fulani Herdsmen Want Your Land.