Buhari’s Loyalty: To His Fulani Kinsmen (Herdsmen) Or To Nigeria?

By Godwin Etakibuebu
President Muhammadu Buhari's broadcast to the nation on May 29, 2016, a day dedicated to the celebration of democracy in Nigeria, once again brought to the front burner the question of where Mr President’s loyalty lies between the Nigerian Nation and the dreaded Fulani Herdsmen terrorising the whole country.

*President Buhari and Emir Sanusi of Kano

On that day, Mr President spoke to Nigerians, ditto the whole world, as he broadcast live to the whole globe through satellite about the challenges facing his one-year administration and how he was tackling them. He brought Nigerians up to date on the war against Boko Haram. He touched on the new threats to our economic survival by the renewed militancy in the Niger Delta and told us how his government would deal with the Niger Delta Avengers. But surprisingly the President was silent about the most notorious Fulani Herdsmen’s activities, in a broadcast that went for almost an hour. Yet, the criminality of these Herdsmen is most likely to wipe the name of Nigeria out of the world map in the not-too-distant future if care is not taken.

Many people around the world who listened to that broadcast would not understand why Mr. President would chose to keep silent at a time of tyranny of the Fulani Herdsmen. Questions and more questions would arise from the president’s action. Is he afraid of the Fulani Herdsmen? Is he deliberately refusing to speak against their nefarious activities because of tribal affiliation? Is his silence his own way of encouraging the domination of the Fulani oligarchy to subdue the whole country? Or is this the quickest means of taking Islamic religion across the Sahara desert of the North to the coast of the Atlantic Ocean of the South? Even above all, the most famous question is who are these Fulani Herdsmen?

Permit me to submit that these are not the Fulani Herdsmen who have been around with us in this country for the past one hundred years. I grew up in my village with good knowledge of those sweet and friendly Fulani men with their sticks over their shoulders and enjoying the hospitalities of their host communities. They never carried any dane gun, which every local hunter of those days possessed. They had with them only daggers, bow and arrows. No cutlasses and no swords.

They were at peace with every one and everyone was at peace with them. But today, the story is different as this new generation of Fulani Herdsmen are expert in both the usage and functionality of AK 47: a very sophisticated military weapon that is most deployed in every modern war because of its light flexibility, accuracy and rapidity in operation. This is what they carry about these days. Where did they get it from and who trained them to be so efficient in its usage?