Showing posts with label Nimbo community in Uzo-Uwani Council Area of Enugu State. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nimbo community in Uzo-Uwani Council Area of Enugu State. Show all posts

Thursday, September 1, 2016

Herdsmen Menace: Action And Reaction In Ekiti

Governor Ayo Fayose of Ekiti State has taken the bull by the horns. Some three months ago, I had cause in this column to commend him for standing up to be counted among men. The governor had then charged at the Fulani herdsmen, who murdered two indigenes of Ekiti State on Ekiti soil in the name of grazing. For Fayose, that brigandage and effrontery from the herdsmen was unacceptable. In a momentary fit of anger, the governor announced that cattle grazing had been banned in Ekiti State.
*Gov Ayo Fayose
However, after the initial outburst, Fayose retreated into his shell. Three months after, he has resurfaced with something more enduring; something that carries the force of law. The state House of Assembly has passed a bill regulating cattle grazing in the state. The bill, which was signed into law a few days ago by Governor Fayose, seeks to check the excesses and criminality of Fulani herdsmen, who have become the latest monster in Nigeria.
Under the grazing law, any herdsman caught with arms while grazing will be charged with terrorism. The law has also ruled out indiscriminate and uncontrolled grazing. Government has allocated certain portions of land to the local government councils for grazing activities. The time allowed for grazing is 7am to 6pm daily. Anybody found grazing on portions of land not allocated by government for such activity will be made to face the wrath of the law. There are other provisions of the law all of which seek to ensure that grazing is devoid of any form of criminality.
I commend the Fayose example. It is practical governance in action. It mirrors Isaac Newton’s third law of motion, which teaches that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. In pure physics, it means that in every interaction, there is a pair of forces acting on the two interacting objects. If we wean this Newtonian postulation of its scientific barbs, we will be left with an interventionist policy action that interprets and defines our situation.
Today in Nigeria, we are faced with a situation where everybody is scared stiff of a lethal object called AK47. Everybody is complaining that the Fulani herdsmen are wielding this weapon indiscriminately. But nobody has stopped to ask questions about how they acquire them. Why and how does the Fulani herdsman have free and unfettered access to sophisticated weapons of war? Many suspect that the herdsman is armed by the many retired military officers of northern extraction, who own the cows that he roams about with. If this is the case, we also need to ask questions about how the retired officers acquire the guns. In a situation where the Nigeria Police does not have sufficient guns to operate with, it beats the imagination that herdsmen can boast of large cache of arms that battalions of soldiers cannot boast of. This is strange, indeed.
The fact that nobody is after the herdsman and his criminality rankles the more. Why is he such a sacred cow? Why have the camps and hideouts of the herdsmen not been invaded by security agencies with a view to making arrests and dispossessing them of the dangerous weapons they wield?  This question is reinforced by the fact that we are all living witnesses to the intolerance of our security forces. They do not tolerate the unarmed Biafran agitator. He is killed freely for stepping out in the streets to protest. What about the Niger Delta agitator? He is the implacable enemy of the state.  He must be mowed down by the security agents wherever he is found.

Sunday, May 8, 2016

Matters Arising From Herdsmen’s Attack In Enugu

By Samson Ezea  
The recent fatal herdsmen’s attacks on the Nimbo community in Uzo-Uwani Council Area of Enugu State has once more brought to the fore the urgent need for a permanent solution to the recurring menace of herdsmen/host communities clashes across the country. Obviously, the clashes have assumed a more sinister dimension in recent times. Not helping matters in forestalling, precluding or quelling these clashes are the various security agencies that have always appeared unprepared, incapacitated or compromised in dealing with the situation as appropriate.
Unlike some attacks across the country where security agencies were taken unawares, that of Nimbo calls for introspection, investigation, punitive measures, and outright overhauling of the security agencies in the State for better performance. There is no doubt that the attack has raised more questions than answers, following the events that preceded the attack, explanations of the Enugu State governor, Chief Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi and the roles of the security chiefs in the saga.
While governor Ugwuanyi’s efforts and quick intervention as the Chief Security Officer of the State to prevent the attack is quite commendable, the role of the security chiefs in the saga is questionable, conspiratorial, shocking, and disturbing. Is it not obvious that if governor Ugwuanyi had not summoned the emergency security meeting and indigenes of Nimbo got hint of the impending attack and moved out, the killings would have been more disastrous? Quite surprising is the fact that none of the state security chiefs has refuted or countered governor Ugwuanyi’s explanations since then. There is every need for them to quickly explain to Nigerians why they decided to act otherwise after the meeting with the governor prior to the attack. This is despite the fact that the governor provided them with the intelligence report and other logistics required of them to carry out their duties. The State security chiefs’ studied silence signifies their admittance of failure to carry out their constitutional responsibilities of securing lives and property.