The Murder Of The Fulani: Yugoslavia Unfolding

By Femi Fani-Kayode

The Department of State Services (DSS) have claimed that five Fulani herdsmen were abducted, killed and buried in a mass grave by members of Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), in Abia state a few days ago. They have also claimed that there were up to fifty more bodies in that mass grave, and that they are all Fulani.

*Femi Fani-Kayode 

 The implications of this announcement is obvious. It will create more tension and fear in the land and lead to reprisal killings in the North. Violence is never the way out and I have always believed that it has no place in any civilised society. Yet, what I find curious about this announcement is the fact that it is unique and historic.

I say this because thousands of Igbos, Yorubas, Niger-Deltans and Middle Belters have been killed by Fulani militants and herdsmen over the last ten months since President Buhari came to power, yet the DSS has never announced it and told the country about the details and ethnic identities of the victims.

When one thousand Shiite Muslims were slaughtered in Zaria and buried in mass graves, the DSS did not speak. When five hundred Idomas were massacred in Agatu by Fulani militants, the DSS did not speak.

When hundreds of Southern and Middle Belt farms were raided by AK-47-wielding Fulani herdsmen who murdered, raped, burnt down and took over the land of their victims, the DSS never gave us details of the victims or made any announcement.

When our leaders in the South were kidnapped and when men witnessed their wives and children being raped and butchered by the Fulani militias before their very eyes, the DSS made no announcements.

When the International Terror Index told the world that the Fulani militias in Nigeria are the “fourth most deadly terror organisation in the world”, the DSS said nothing and neither did they give us details about their activities nor their victims.

Is it so difficult to accept the fact that no government and no force from hell or on earth can compel or intimidate a man into lying down passively and silently watching his family, loved ones and kinsmen being butchered and slaughtered morning, day and night without trying to protect them and without indulging in some form of retaliation?

With the sort of things that are going on in our country today, it is time to tell ourselves some home-truths. No-one wishes to accept it let alone say it but sadly war will come to Nigeria again within the next few years. I do not want war and I consider it to be the ultimate evil but I am constrained to speak the truth and say things as I see them.

The fact that a war is coming is a testimony to the fact that we have all failed to manage the peace that God has given us since 1970 and the cessation of hostilities after our brutal civil war. We have failed so badly that the remote and immediate causes of that civil war are back with us today, even though we hate to admit or acknowledge it.

Our country is like Yugoslavia unfolding before it exploded and violently broke into five separate countries. All the signs are there. Anyone that knows about the history of Yugoslavia or that is a student of world history will agree with me and appreciate what I am saying.

Consider the dangerous mix. A crumbling economy. An inept, weak, failing and paranoid government. A hungry, angry and increasingly desperate civilian population. An ignorant, obsessive, arrogant, insensitive, corrupt and self-absorbed political class who are out of touch with reality.

The ruthless implementation of an ethnic and religious agenda by a reckless and irresponsible government that refuses to consider the implications of taking such a course of action and that have an early-1960’s mind-set. The growing unrest, ethnic killings and sectarian murders.

An ethnic and religious division within the Armed Forces and security agencies. A relentless clamp-down on and persecution of the opposition and all dissenting voices by the government and the use of fear as a tool of governance and control.

The entering into a secret and covert treaty and military alliance with a group of Arab Sunni Muslim countries that seek to Islamise our country, that have, over the years, funded the most brutal and barbaric jihadist and radical Islamist terrorist organisations all over the world and that seek to impugn our national integrity and violate the secularity of our state.

The constant and open abuse of power. The impunity and insensitivity of the Buhari administration to the plight of the masses. The hunger, hardship, poverty and suffering in the land. The failure of the government to get rid of the fuel queues and supply electrical power.

The demonisation of peaceful and law-abiding self-determination groups and the unlawful incarceration of their leaders. The breach of the constitutional rights of the citizens and the ignoring of court orders and judicial processes by the government.

The attempt to intimidate and control the judiciary and legislature by the executive, and so much more. The list goes on and on and history proves that such a mixture of circumstances is dangerous and can only lead to open conflict if not halted.

The country is badly divided today and the people are suffering as never before. The division and hatred amongst some of our ethnic groups have reached pre-civil war levels.

*Femi Fani-Kayode is former Nigerian Aviation Minister