Herdsmen Of Terror

By Lewis Obi  

On 2nd October 2015, I offered it as my opinion on this page that the provocative activities of Fulani herdsmen are likely to lead to war which “when it begins, will be like all wars – senseless, destructive and lamentable. No one knows when and where it will begin, but it will begin as a convulsive reprisal for a massacre by Fulani herdsmen, a phenomenon that has now assumed all but a common occur­rence in Nigeria.’

“The scale and frequency of massa­cres by Fulani herdsmen without a single prosecution is the clearest evidence of what is known as impunity, and impunity is the reason the coming war is inescap­able.”

That was before the herdsmen had kid­napped and murdered the traditional rul­er of Ubulu-Ukwu in Delta State. That was before the herdsmen conducted their full-scale terrorist invasion of Agatu land in Benue State practically paralyzing and occupying eight local governments in the state and killing at least 500 per­sons and burning scores of towns and villages. That was before the Ugwuneshi incident in Enugu State where a dis­tressed community being harassed by the herdsmen was gathering to discuss its predicament. Suddenly Nigerian Army trucks arrived and, as the herdsmen cheered, the army bun­dled 76 men into their trucks and on to the Umuahia Prison. Enugu State Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi then went to Umuahia, trying to secure the freedom of the humiliated men, and dropped a tear or two. But that was just the beginning of his anguish. In Ugwuneshi he was dealing with 76 men unjustly imprisoned. He broke down last week when he had to see recovered dead bodies of men slaugh­tered by the same Fulani herdsmen at Ukpabi Nimbo, Uzo-Uwani.

The rampaging herdsmen had at­tacked and burned seven villages – Nimbo Ngwoko, Ugwuijoro, Ekwuru, Ebor, Enugu Nimbo, Umuome, and Ugwuachara.

The most frightening part of the attack on Nimbo was the high level discipline and military precision of its execution. The Enugu State Govern­ment had been informed of the im­pending attack and the governor had promptly convened the state’s secu­rity council meeting which included every arm of the security agencies – the Enugu Garrison Command 82nd Division of the Nigerian Army, the Commissioner of Police, the Depart­ment of |State Security, and Prison officials. Each arm assured the gov­ernor that it would do everything to pre-empt the attack. The herdsmen apparently operate at a much higher level and, so, the best laid plans of the governor and the state’s security agencies were thwarted by Fulani herdsmen. That sense of impotence and helplessness necessitated the gover­nor’s recourse to and the re-mobilization of the state’s indigenous neighborhood watch. With the unanimous approval of the traditional rulers and the association of town unions, Governor Ugwuanyi had to cough out N100 million to begin the process of activating the vigilante net­work.

The scariest part of the Nimbo disaster was the reaction of the 19 governors of Northern Nigeria who flat out denied the fact known to all that Fulani herdsmen had conducted the massacre. Indeed, in a show of righteous indignation, they warned Nigerians to stop ‘insulting’ Fu­lani herdsmen.