By Lewis
Obi
As President MuhammaduBuhari was completely unperturbed by the Army’s
massacre of hundreds of Shi’ites, so was he utterly indifferent to the
slaughter of hundreds of local farmers by Fulani herdsmen. His silence was
astonishing, his inaction frightening.
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| *Buhari |
The Shi’ites are a tiny minority Muslim sect often looked upon by
the majority Sunni as a nuisance at best and fool-hardy, stubborn in their
beliefs and doctrines. They are exactly the kind of group that a president must
go the extra mile to protect. Not only are they politically weak and they tend
to have a persecution complex, they are also easily bullied or victimized. The
President was asked what he thought about their massacre. He was dismissive of
the matter, but he made the remarkable statement that he has been told the
Shi’ites constituted “a state within a state.” He did not elaborate. In classical
times ‘a state within a state’ readily attracted a charge of treason. In any
case, he said, the Kaduna State Government was already taking care of the matter.
It was heart-breaking to see a Nigerian President shirk his primary responsibility,
contracting out his responsibility to protect Nigerian citizens. It was like
the Biblical Pontius Pilate washing his hands off the case of Jesus Christ.
Now, Kaduna State Governor Nasir El- Rufai, an otherwise
deliberative man, from whom the President took his briefings on the matter, had
arraigned, tried, and sentenced the Shi’ites. He was so sure their leader,
Sheikh Ibraheem El-Zakzaky, would be tried for whatever crimes he must have
committed. He didn’t say what those crimes might be, but it was the
government’s way of warning that the Shi’ites were expendable.The most cursory
observer could see that taking a cue from El-Rufai, the Northern Governors
began venting and piling on the Shi’ites, forcing everyone to run for cover. It
was like kicking a man when he is down. So, when the commission of inquiry was
announced, it looked like an after-thought and an attempt at a cover-up.
If the President’s silence on the Shi’ites affair was
astonishing, his indifference to the slaughter of local farmers by herdsmen was
dangerously confounding. The conflict of farmers and Fulani herdsmen is not
new. But herdsmen armed with weapons of war are novel. Worse, President Buhari
himself is a cattle breeder and is expected to understand the conflict of the
interests of both sides. But it would appear that his ascent to the throne got
the herdsmen intoxicated with power which ought to have been anticipated and
squelched. Hence the impunity.
Unlike the Army’s attack on the Shi’ites which was a single orgy
of blood-letting and destruction spanning three days, the attacks on the
farmers are a repetitive provocation and savage aggression. As late as this
week, on Monday to be precise, Fulani herdsmen attacked Tse Aondo and Tse Ankou
farming communities, in Benue
State
Each Fulani attack was in the pattern of a violent Genghis
Khan-style “destroy what you can’t kill, burn everything that can be burned.”
Thousands were rendered homeless and more thousands became refugees. Hundreds
of women were raped, hundreds were killed and thousands wounded.
