Herdsmen Killings as Anti-Buhari

By Ikeogu Oke

There is a sense in which the murderous rampage of the so-called Fulani herdsmen and the other recent killings in our country – particularly of the members of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) movement and the Shiite Muslims – can be said to be anti-Buhari.

*Buhari 

I have to point this out because in a country where self-interest seems to trump everything else, especially in leadership, it may be an effective way to get President Muhammadu Buhari to use every means available to him to arrest this murderous march of anarchy being viewed by some as a devious manifestation of the 2015 post-election triumphalism of his Fulani people, and its nationwide and decidedly southward spread that threatens our very existence as a nation. For we are witnessing a pattern of seemingly well-orchestrated violence whose legacy of death and hate may likely pit the South of the country against the North, with predictable consequences for our nation’s peace, unity and stability should it be allowed to fester any longer.

In the unlikely case that President Buhari’s initial reticence about the carnage is the result of his having asked himself, “What’s in stopping it for me?” and having not seen what, drawing his attention to how stopping it might benefit him personally may prove advantageous to the effort to end the menace, with he leading the charge as Head of State and Commander-in-Chief of our armed forces and the person ultimately responsible for securing our country and the lives and property of its citizens from being destroyed by the herdsmen.

Now, as an agent of change, Buhari promised to put a stop to the reign of impunity in the land, with emphasis, it would seem, on the way some of our public office holders allegedly helped themselves to the contents of the public till, looting it without facing sanction and without consideration for our country’s future.

Enugu Killings 4th Dimension

By Benjamin Obiajulu Aduba

The killings in Enugu is a done deal but should be made to be the turning point of Boko Haram’s southward incursions. Let history understand that the point where the dead martyrs of Enugu were buried was the furthest and the last stop of the terrorists. That here was where we stood and declared that we will not take any more nonsense.

Here’s how:

1.      Burials of the dead: Let’s bury the dead one at a time and make each burial as gruesome and emotional as possible. The dead should be carried around the entire LGA with processions led by bishops, Catholic and Protestants and MASSOB and Kanu’s IPOD providing security. Let’s ask the police and security men who could not protect the dead when they were alive to stop protecting them when they are about to be buried. During the services let the bishops call for Holy Ghost fire to be returned to sender. Give MASSOB leaders a chance to make incendiary speeches if the collar on the bishop’s necks stop them from telling the truth as it is.

2.    Show of anger: Invite all the governors of all Southern States and NC State who have suffered from the terrorist’s actions and give them a chance to represent the feelings and anger of their people. This would show the leaders of Boko Haram that there is a united front before them and that the front means business. It will also awaken the sleeping president from his slumber.

3.    Talk back to the Northern Governor’s Council: Governor Ugwuanyi should summon his colleagues to a SE Governor’s council. They should repudiate the statement from the Northern Governor’s Council suggesting that the use of the word CRIMINAL in association with the killings south of Jos be banned. The events were criminal for if the killers are ever caught they would be charged with criminal offenses. What the Northern Governors said was an insult on the victims and extremely insensitive.

4.    Make Laws Controlling the movement of herds: Governor Ugwuanyi should summon his legislature and send them a bill outlawing the movement of herds by any means other than trucks and trains in the state. Each southern governor would send such a bill to their own legislators. This cooperative agenda would send signals that leaderships of the south are poised to lead and would make the sleeping Abuja leaders wake up of be woken up.

Our Northern ‘Naughty’ Governors

By Emmanuel Onwubiko

Since independence on October 1st 1960, one question that has continued to be asked without appropriate response is: why is Nigeria so cursed with poor leadership? Another corollary to this interrogatory is: What is the leadership recruitment process in Nigeria? These key questions are germane and hold the magic wand to the bigger question of why Nigeria is in rapid decline from all indexes of human development.

(pix: thesheet)

To go straight to providing answers to the above interrogatories, the beginning point is to take a cursory look at the work of the renowned writer Professor Chinua Achebe of blessed memory which he titled- “The Trouble with Nigeria”: Professor Achebe summed up the trouble with Nigeria as that of poor leadership. Professor Achebe quickly added that poor followership is also a major issue. I agree.

Nigeria indeed has a warped leadership recruitment process which emphasizes the role of political godfathers and the role of illicit money which are the combined factors that have consistently determined much of the political leadership of Nigeria since the last half a century.
The consequence of this distorted and crime infested leadership recruitment process is the near- state of collapse that Nigeria faces.

Corruption, ineptitude, indiscipline and above all impunity are some of the cocktails of this poor leadership system that Nigeria is contending with.

Because of the urgent need to salvage Nigeria from impending implosion and collapse, a number of patriotic but scholarly minds have often intervened intellectually by proffering pragmatic panaceas to this debilitating virus of poor and naughty political leadership in Nigeria.

Govt, Labour And Minimum Wage

By Paul Onomuakpokpo  

If workers under the aegis of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) insist on their demand that they be paid a N56,000 minimum wage, they would set our political leaders on the path of thinking creatively about how to govern effectively. For what exists now is a situation where our leaders shield themselves against excoriation for their failure by directing the citizens to excuses that trigger their poor performance despite their genuine efforts to engender good governance.

Their major excuse now is that the nation is reeling under an economic crisis that defies an easy solution in so far as the price of crude oil has hit hard times globally.

Bent on shirking their responsibilities, our government whether at the federal or state levels apparently expects the citizens to banish the thought of their welfare being improved. Now, government officials inundate the citizens with requests to make sacrifices. They remind the citizens that they themselves are making sacrifices as they have reduced their legitimate pecuniary entitlements.

But like other citizens, the Nigerian workers are by no means deceived. For the political leaders cannot effectively persuade the citizens that they are making sacrifices on their behalf and at the same time not feeling the pains of the economic crisis like the citizens. Beneath the leaders’ claim of making sacrifices, what the citizens can see is insincerity . For the leaders cannot claim they are suffering like the citizens if their children attend schools that are different from the public schools that the children of the workers have been doomed by their economic condition to attend. Even if past leaders successfully deceived the citizens, the latter are wiser now. Those who must serve them must experience what has been their lot. The public officials cannot feel the pain of the citizens when they are still enjoying privileges that cushion them against the economic crisis.

Thankfully, the NLC sees beyond the façade of the much-touted sacrifices government officials are making and that is why it is now asking that workers’ economic plight be alleviated by their wages being upwardly reviewed. Clearly, the NLC before now had been agitating for pay rise. But the workers’ day on Monday only served as an opportunity to publicly make their demand. Even without labour making the demand, it should have been clear to government that the so-called N18,000 minimum wage being paid workers does not even have a palliative value. The high cost of living in the country now has risen with the prices of goods more than tripling.

Enugu Massacre: The Branding Of Buhari As Comedian-In-Chief

By Emmanuel Uchenna Ugwu

What does President Barack Obama do when a hate-drunk man enters a school building and shoots American kids dead?

The busiest and most burdened leader in the world suspends his routine and moves quickly to own the carnage as the ultimate guardian of the United States. He goes on air soon after the news breaks. He comforts the bereaved families and calms a shaken nation. He swears that America would visit the runaway killer with a condign punishment. He changes his itinerary and visits the devastated neighborhood as soon as possible.

*Buhari 

What did our own Obama do after Fulani herdsmen destroyed farmlands, butchered forty eight human beings, and burnt down a church in Nimbo, Uzo-Uwani, in a three-in-one violation of the people’s livelihoods, lives and religion?

President Muhammadu Buhari, the sentinel of our homeland, did something that illustrates the age-old inhumanity and irresponsibility of Nigerian rulership: He observed the umpteenth terrorist attack on a peaceable Nigerian community and did nothing!

He waited for the governor of the depopulated state of Enugu to contact Aso Rock and request for an audience.

When Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi reported for the appointment, the Nigerian media styled his visit as an occasion for the governor to "brief" the president.

The spin emanated from reflex factory of the Nigerian press. It was their salute to tradition.

A tradition in which order works in reverse. A setting where, in the aftermath of a humanitarian disaster, a healthy commander-in-chief rests easy in his office and waits for the governor to fly to Abuja to confirm the fairy tale.

The ‘briefing’ is a reverse condolence visit; the quest of a traumatized citizenry for the sympathy of the aloof leadership of their own country. It is an aberration. But it had to happen because Nigerian rulers are strangers to empathy. They are incapable of breaking out of the bubble they live in to acquaint themselves with the distress of the street.

Buhari received Ugwanyi with imperial condescension. The President hoped to earn praise for deigning to see the governor. Of course, a photo-op with his lowly caller would telegraph that he was magnanimous enough to pay precious presidential attention to the incident.

But Buhari failed to exude passable seriousness.  The honesty inherent in his constitution foiled the attempt of his politician persona to enact a convincing make-believe reality. The pictures of his encounter with Ugwuanyi showed Buhari jesting with his awkward-smiling visitor. They looked as jubilant as if they had met... to celebrate the success of the massacre!

The pictures of an exultant Buhari and Ugwuanyi, people who were supposedly meeting for a ‘briefing’ on the bloody mayhem, were most incongruous. The pictures strongly suggest that State House photographers did not find Buhari possessed of the sobriety appropriate for the situation. So the media team was constrained to select from all the shots taken the ones in which the two men appeared to be least euphoric!

Time To Rethink Nigeria

By Ikechukwu Amaechi

No matter how hard one tries, it is difficult, almost impossible, for any Nigerian to pretend not to be angry with the way things are going right now. Even those who want to be seen as being politically correct in this season of anomie are struggling to keep their balance because, let’s face it, there are limits to political correctness.

Something has gone fundamentally wrong with the Muhammadu Buhari presidency. He has failed to be the transcendental, pan-Nigeria leader we all craved for after the Goodluck Jonathan presidency. I don’t know how the illusion came about that such an insular, provincial leader like Buhari can step up to the plate at such a critical time in Nigeria’s history. But here we are, once again, at the crossroads.

For me, the massacre last week of innocent citizens by Fulani herdsmen at Nimbo in Uzo-Uwani Local Government Area of Enugu State was the last straw. Over 50 people were killed in cold blood, scores displaced, and about seven villages and property worth millions of naira, including the Christ Holy Church International, destroyed. The victims were killed in the most gruesome manner – some had their throats slit, others were simply butchered with machetes and at least one was burnt alive on a commuter bus. Nobody deserves this fate.

Yet, security men got wind of this attack at least 24 hours before the hoodlums struck. Uzo-Uwani Council Chairman, Cornell Onwubuya, reportedly alerted Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi and the Commissioner of Police, Ekechukwu Nwodibo, that armed Fulani herdsmen had invaded their community to wreak havoc. No action was taken. The Department of State Securities (DSS) that claimed it discovered mass graves of “Hausa-Fulani” residents allegedly abducted and murdered by suspected members of the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) in Abia State, without any evidence, did nothing to stop the carnage. The military that arrested 76 youths from Ugwuneshi community in Awgu Local Government Area of Enugu State for protesting against the abduction and gang raping of their mothers and sisters did nothing to forestall the mayhem.

After the carnage, Ugwuanyi wept and declared two days of fasting and prayers. It took Buhari – who had threatened to deal with Niger Delta militants like terrorists and vowed to deal decisively with IPOB and MASSOB for daring to challenge the status quo in Nigeria – three whole days to break his silence on the carnage.

I have wondered since last Monday what would have happened if the people of Nimbo had organised to brutally murder 50 Fulani herdsmen. By now, the security forces would have sacked the entire local government. They would have done to them what soldiers did to Shiites in Kaduna. Imagine what would have happened if some Igbo hoodlums were to go to any community in Katsina, Bauchi, Kaduna, et cetera, to kill, maim, rape and plunder. The perpetrators would have been summarily dealt with and the whole of Ala-Igbo would have become desolate by now.

Why Africa’s Industrialization Is Still A Mirage

By James Shikwati

It is time Africans identified the difference between market seeking industries and intrinsic industrialization. When international food, beverage, motor vehicle and information technology companies set foot on African soil, they do so to access domestic markets. Such initiatives do not necessarily lead to industrialization.
To industrialize, Africa must invest in growing its own productivity character, a form of “African capitalism.” Productivity character requires that Africans patiently study what drives Western and Asiatic industrial powerhouses such as Japan and China. What type of individual and societal habits do these industrial centers exhibit? The Japanese are nurtured to focus on personal reflection and how one connects to the entire society. Amongst the Chinese, man is at the center of all things as long as he is balanced with the universe. The West is driven by the notion of the “original sin” that prompts man to seek to redeem oneself.

Sub-Saharan Africa exhibits a strong sense of extractive entitlement to ethnic and extended family networks. The safety or security provided in ethnicity blunts the thirst of individuals to surface innovation and industry. Safety in extractive entitlement is analogous celebrating the ownership of a big piece of family land but waiting for someone else to develop it. Progress is slow for those who merely celebrate ownership of physical, human and intellectual resources and stop at that.

Can the attitude of the continents’ urbanized folks who are always quick to transform challenges to opportunities evolve “African capitalism?” It is easier to blame thriving industrial centers that thwart the ability of others to surface in order to protect their domestic producers.

Africa has no excuse but learn from China, Japan and other Asian Tigers that have successfully navigated Western roadblocks to industrialize. The continent should adopt the urbanized mindset and forge carefully calculated steps that will lead to rapid modernization by studying the systems of successful economies. This quest should urgently replace the political electoral cycle that is driven by short term focus. Long term strategies should exploit the current dominance by Anglo-American industrial initiatives and the USD $ 10 billion China-Africa Industrial Capacity Cooperation Fund. The West and Asiatic characteristics will not by themselves set Africans on the path of industrialization.

Africa’s industrialization dream is held back internally by the lack of a competitive “African character.” Imagine if the continent’s 1.2 billion people reversed their sense of extractive entitlement to the over 2,000 ethnic groups and encouraged individual productive obligation to the numerous challenges facing thousands of ethnic groups! The continent would become a bubble chamber of innovations that address ethnic and by extension global challenges.

Appraising Buhari's One Year In Office

By Lucky Ofodu 

One word can be aptly used to appraise President Mu­hammadu Buhari’s one year in office: discontent. Nigeri­ans are thoroughly disappointed by the turn of events. The President and his party the APC had prom­ised so much, but so far fulfilled so little. The economy is in bad shape. Power is in bad shape; the naira in bad shape; inflation is on a steady rise. The Chibok girls are still in cap­tivity. Let’s not mention the unprec­edented fuel scarcity because doing so leaves a bitter taste in the mouth. It has been a litany of woes. There is a feeling of general discontent across the land.

 

*Buhari

I do not expect the president to mark his one year in office with the same grandeur and panache that ushered him into office because the truth be told, he has not lived up to expectation. The President knows that Nigerians were better off be­fore he came to the scene. They have been inflicted with a lot of pains this past twelve months. What is hap­pening now seems a repeat of what was, when Mr. President ruled as a military head of state in the early 80s when Nigerians were made to queue in the rain and sun to buy bever­ages like milk, sugar, oats and the like, which they hitherto could buy from the shop next door. If nothing is done, sooner we will queue for food and possibly air.

Part of the problem is the fact that the president has surrounded himself mostly with yes-men and propagandists. The latter are those misinforming and making him see nothing, absolutely nothing good about the Jonathan administration. As a result, the president is in a hur­ry to change a lot of things, and in the process making mistakes. He forgets that while everything may be possible, everything is not expe­dient. For example, the sack of Vice chancellors and the dissolution of governing councils of federal uni­versities which he apologized for. There are some others. These mis­takes tend to have deeply divided Nigerians along ethnic, religious and political lines.

These propagandists in the last one year diverted the attention of the president from the core issue of governance which is to better the lives of the citizenry. They pushed him to go after political opponents in the name of fighting corruption. This is all Nigerians have heard in the last one year without any tangi­ble result. No one is saying that those who looted the country’s treasury should not face the consequenc­es. No. what is being said is that it ought not to have become the only focus amidst so many other chal­lenges. Besides, it ought not to have been targeted at political opponents only. After all, many of those shout­ing ‘change’ and ‘corruption’ today, were in the opposition party hold­ing very exalted offices for years be­fore decamping only recently to the ruling party. How come these per­sons are not investigated and pros­ecuted. Or does cross-carpeting to the ruling party make one corrup­tion- free?

Buhari, Fayose, Ugwuanyi, And This Bitch Of A Life

By Chuks Iloegbunam  

“If you are neutral in situations of in­justice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.” – Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

“The ultimate tragedy is not the op­pression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

Vexed voices have, in exasperation, been asking where Reverend Father Ejike Camillus Mbaka is. They are absolutely right who expect the priest to speak up. People should ask where Bola Tinubu is, the one who covets the feat of unknotting Pandora’s Box. People should be asking where many other previously vocal Nigerians are. People should conduct an investigation on the seemingly abrupt dryness of Niyi Osundare’s inkpot, for he has put an incongruous halt to his fondness for poetizing on national ques­tions. All those experts on radio and television, all those incisive analysts on cyberspace and concourses – know you one thing! People have a right to ask what sneaked in and stole your voices. What crept in and rendered you incapable of standing up? What stealthily stymied your very humanity?

People also have another re­sponsibility, which in fact is more fundamental than pointing accus­ingly at the supposed guilty. People should be asking themselves where they stand.

People will, perhaps, temporar­ily desist from wondering whether Wole Soyinka had embarked on a journey out of the planet Earth. The Nobelist’s voice finally crashed against the wall of eviscerating in­justice: 

“Impunity evolves and be­comes integrated in conduct when crime occurs and no legal, logical and moral response is offered. I have yet to hear this government articulate a firm policy of non-tol­erance for the serial massacres have become the nation’s identification stamp.

“I have not heard an order given that any cattle herders caught with sophisticated firearms be instantly disarmed, arrested, placed on trial, and his cattle confiscated. The na­tion is treated to an eighteen-month optimistic plan which, to make matters worse, smacks of abject ap­peasement and encouragement of violence on innocents.

“Let me repeat, and of course I only ask to be corrected if wrong: I have yet to encounter a terse, rigor­ous, soldierly and uncompromising language from this leadership, one that threatens a response to this unconscionable blood-letting that would make even Boko Haram re­pudiate its founding clerics.”

The ‘Fulani’ Rampage

By Obi Nwakanma

 Muhammadu Buhari, Nigeria’s current president is a passionate Fulani, and the Fulani are a transnational migrant group, dealing today with the forces of environmental change that are forcing great pressure on their pastoral culture. Armed Fulani-herdsmen as desertification intensifies in the Savanah regions, grazing and watering grounds disappear, and drives the herdsmen farther and farther out, seeking places to graze, occupy, or settle. The Fulani herdsmen are no strange sights in Nigeria. In fact J.P. Clark, one of Nigeria’s eminent poets, captures both the life of the Fulani herdsmen, but more specifically the resilience and silent will of the cattle in his poem, “Fulani Cattle.” And I should say that I myself have anticipated a great conflict.

 In my yet to be published novel, one of the characters, Simple, is lying in the solitude of his farm near the Orashi river, after a day’s work, and after smoking a little grass, and in the haze of sleep he hears the rustle of cattle in a neighboring farm and thinks, they better not come near my farm or I’ll draw blood. Something to that effect. It did occur to me quite early when I penned that scene that a real menace is brewing, unheeded, and it is the struggle for arable land. What did not occur to me, even in my wildest imagination, is the increasing dimension of war-like activities that now accompany Fulani pastoralists in their moves to settle new grazing areas by force, as the condition of the earth drives them further and further from the Sahel. It may just as well be old grazing pressure, but the recent spate and heightening of attacks of Southern agrarian towns by so-called “Fulani Herdsmen” is throwing many curveballs.

This menace has been reported in the North too, in places like Adamawa, the Plateau, Southern Kaduna, Nassarawa and Benue, basically, mostly Christian areas of the North, where frequent attacks and resistance against the so-called “Fulani herdsmen” have been going on in the last two years with growing intensity. The thrust of the attacks has given rise to a religious dimension to this: the fear that the so-called Herdsmen are masking a greater menace: religious and political conquest of a scale comparable to colonialism. Such a possibility should not be dismissed as conspiracy, because indeed, most political and conquest movements are the products of conspiracies often publicly denied or even ignored until it is too late. So, the spate of attacks have increased with intensity, and some analysts have noted that the South, once seemingly buffered from these activities have become flashpoints, and areas of serious and rapid conflict involving the so-called “Fulani herdsmen,” since the election and swearing in of President Buhari. Is there a connection? I dare not think. 

The Trouble With Buhari's Approach To National Security

By Onyiorah Paschal Chiduluemije

The recent massacre of scores of fellow Igbo and brethren in our homeland by the invading and marauding Fulani herdsmen and the seem­ingly implicit endorsement of their cruelty by the government (judging of course by what could arguably be regarded as a mere formality condemnation on the part of the Presidency that reluc­tantly had to speak on this nas­ty development following public condemnation of almost notori­ous indifference and/or taciturni­ty on matters concerning increas­ing Fulani herdsmen bestiality under this administration) is not just heart-rending, but also it is an indication that there is indeed a deliberate and desperate attempt by this inept administration to generally provoke Ndigbo with a view to compelling them to de­but with their worst case scenario panacea to containing litany of of­fensives against them so far.

 

*Buhari

Just a couple of weeks ago or so, the Directorate of State Securi­ty Service (DSS) under the seem­ingly malfunctioning leadership of Alhaji Lawal Daura – a Fulani man – roundly surprised all sane minds, when it reportedly told the public that the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) allegedly mur­dered no less than Fulani folks in Abia state and readily buried them in a mass grave. Undoubt­edly, while many reasonable peo­ple across the globe still await to hear the last from the DSS in this regard and/or see proofs to sub­stantiate this preposterous asser­tion, it is increasingly crystal clear, as it were, that the only logically ascertainable prima facie intent of the leadership of the DSS under the watch of Muhammadu Bu­hari’s kinsman is to simply crim­inalise the IPOB in order to cre­ate and convey the impression to the international community that Ndigbo and Biafrans alike now parade their own wing of terror­ist group like the Hausa-Fulani Is­lamist terrorist Boko Haram sect. Indeed it is most unfortunate that under President Muhammadu Buhari, the DSS, a hitherto high­ly respected institution of the state, has abysmally become rid­iculed, compromised and relegat­ed to be serving the interest of the migrant Hausa-Fulani in Nigeria at the expense of the larger inter­ests of the real indigenous people of other nationalities of Nigeria.

Strangely enough, while the same leadership of the DSS un­der Alhaji Daura had never and still does not seem to care about disclosing to the public the actu­al number of lives that have been wasted under his watch by the marauding Fulani vermin in Ag­atu community of Benue state, among other places, and the level of damage done so far by his wan­dering kith and kin on the prop­erties of their host community, it is somewhat unbelievable that the DSS appears nowadays to be only “good” at and “alive” to its respon­sibilities whenever and where the interest and affairs of the Fulani/Hausa-Fulani become a fact in is­sue or are likely to be adversely affected vis-a-vis the competing interest and affairs of other folks.

What is more, it is by no means less disturbing, disappointing and, in fact, highly suspicious that despite early warning signals, in­dices and reports that reported­ly went viral within and beyond the Uzo Uwani L.G.A of Enugu State clearly pointing at the fact of the impending attack by the Fulani herdsmen, all the secu­rity agencies, including the sus­pect in the minds of many called the DSS, were understandably docile and as such most proba­bly inclined to treat the pre-at­tack concerns of this Igbo com­munity with near absolute levity, thereby invariably paving the way for the Fulani herdsmen to first carry out their dastardly and eth­nic cleansing act (perhaps in line with an already existing script) so as to later on avail President Mu­hammadu Buhari – their broth­er and patron – the opportunity and the much needed platform to broach and articulate the so-called “priority” of his “adminis­tration’s agenda” and “readiness to deploy all required personnel and resources to remove this new threat to the collective security of the nation”.

Enugu Massacre And The Hypocrisy Northern Governors

By Jude Ndukwe

Still in a mourning mood over the mindless massacre at Enugu by suspected Fulani herdsmen, the nation’s heavy heart was further daggered by what can best be described as the petulance of an arrogant set of governors from the northern part of the country who take pleasure in talking down on the other parts of the country and behave like a headmaster whose pupils must not have an opinion not to talk of expressing such without incurring his wrath.

Following the Ukpabi Nimbo incident in Enugu State, there was a general outpour of rage by all well-meaning Nigerians who thought, and rightly so too, that the president, Muhammadu Buhari, has not done enough to rein in the Fulani herdsmen despite their repeated reign of terror across the middle belt and southern parts of the country. Nigerians had thought the Agatu attack was the height of the continued attack by the herdsmen; they had thought the president would say something to, at least, placate the grieving community, but no word came from him. The worst was that those responsible for the heinous crime had a meeting with Nigeria’s chief police officer where they confessed to their crime, yet, were let go, strangely.

Also, Nigerians could not understand why Buhari gave marching orders to service chiefs to deal with pipeline vandals in the south southern part of the country but gave no such stern orders against the Fulani herdsmen until the public outrage that followed the Enugu massacre. Rightly or wrongly, a lot of Nigerians think that the Fulani herdsmen are enjoying tacit support from the powers that be to carry on their dastardly acts unchecked. This thought stems from Buhari’s actions and statements in the past where he had expressed and actually acted in support of the Fulani herdsmen who are also his kinsmen.

For example in October 2000, President Buhari had travelled all the way from Katsina State leading a  delegation of 5 men to the then governor of Oyo State, Lam Adeshina, to strongly protest the reprisal attack carried out on Fulani herdsmen by the Saki people of the state after the herdsmen had repeatedly attacked people of the area. The presence of Buhari and his delegation was said to have raised palpable tension in the state that they even refused to acknowledge pleasantries from government officials and left in anger without taking the refreshments served them by the governor. This was understandable as the governor, Lam Adeshina, was said to have properly addressed them and put them in their rightful place by warning them to stop parading around causing disunity where there was none!

With this in mind, Nigerians might not be wrong to have accused the president of not acting timeously against the herdsmen because of some ethnic and religious affinity he shares with them.

The Rise Of Fulani Militants As World 4th Terror

By Law Mefor  

It is a story of the untouchables. They grew bolder and stronger right under our watch, while entrenched political and busi­ness interests force government af­ter government to feign ignorance and look the other way as they commit atrocities. They prance through the lengths and breadths of Nigeria with AK47 assault ri­fles, machine guns and sundry war weapons, killing, raping, maiming and sacking and razing communi­ties without consequences.

Call them ‘Fulani militants’ or ‘Fulani herdsmen’ or ‘cattle rustlers’. Whatever you choose to call them, it is the same gang of criminals who have grown and gained global record, since 2014, as the world’s 4th deadliest terror group, inferior only to ISIS, Al- Shabaab and of cause their kin called Boko Haram.

The latest in their trail of sor­row, tears and blood (as Fela would put it) is the ongoing Agatu mas­sacre, which prompted President Muhammadu Buhari, himself a Fulani, to order an investigation on February 28, 2016. Before the Agatu massacre, cattle herdsmen and cattle rustlers have caused similar mayhem in most parts of the Middle Belt, especially Plateau, Kogi and Benue. Other parts of the country are equally not spared by the rampaging brigands - Kaduna, Enugu, Imo, Zamfara, Kano, Kat­sina and many other States all have tales of woe about their gory visita­tions.

They come in the dead of the night when villagers are deep asleep and set their houses on fire. Those who manage to escape are shot. Their brazen killing of over 60 in Zamfara in 2014 was an opera­tion that lasted for hours with law enforcement agents doing nothing. From experience, therefore, noth­ing comes out of investigations launched into their evil activities and this has made them to grow wilder and stronger.

They are brazen and fearless and appear to enjoy consider­able political cover from the high and mighty. For example, rather than help find solutions to these increasing wars between Fulani militants and farmers, some peo­ple who are in a position to broker peace encourage their activities. Such persons like Mallam Nasir El- Rufai, former minister of the FCT and now Governor of Ka­duna State, who rather than find solutions to such threat to national security, could only tweet on July 15, 2012: “We will write this for all to read. Anyone, soldier or not, that kills the Fulani takes a loan repay­able one day no matter how long it takes”. Tacit approvals of such divi­sive and dangerous activities and unwitting protectiveness of those who perpetrate them, are no doubt contributing to their brazenness, arson and murder.

Their growth has been alarm­ingly steady and Government re­sponse only half-hearted. In 2013, the Fulani militants killed around 80 people in total. But by 2014, the group had killed 1,229. Operating mainly in the Middle Belt of Ni­geria and has also been known to stage attacks in the Central African Republic (CAR), according to the latest report from the Global Ter­rorism Index, the group has now gained reputation as a terror group.

Who Could Replace Robert Mugabe In Zimbabwe? [VIDEO]

*President Mugabe and wife, Grace

At 92 years of age, Robert Mugabe is the oldest-serving head of state on the African continent, and one of the oldest in the world.

But as time goes on and the president’s health comes under scrutiny, the national conversation in Zimbabwe is increasingly dominated by calls for Mugabe to step down and debates about who could replace him.

Earlier in April, thousands of supporters of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, led by Morgan Tsvangirai, took to the streets in the capital Harare in the biggest opposition demonstration seen in Zimbabwe for years. Despite calls from the influential veterans of Zimbabwe’s independence war—in which the president himself fought—to step aside, Mugabe remains resolute as ever, saying he will stay in the post until he is 100 and will only hand over the presidency when “God says ‘come.’”

Newsweek considers who might replace the country’s only post-independence leader when—and if—he steps down.

CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE REPORT 

Terror Nomads And Official Consent

By Louis Odion

I received an agitated call a fortnight ago from the most unexpected quarters. It was a response to the column written on the plague of trigger-happy herdsmen festering across the land.

The caller, a successful entrepreneur-cum-polemist and understandably a southerner, frowned at the writer's tone which he considered too conciliatory to the murderous nomads and, according to him, indulging official indifference with a reluctance to use harsh words. 

Honestly, I had thought the nation was already dragged into the perimeter of danger and the moral obligation of the columnist is to exercise utmost restraint in the circumstance; not inflaming passion any further.

In the said piece, one had enjoined the president not to leave the nation in doubt where he stands at this grave moment. One wrote: "Now is the time for President Buhari, himself a cattle farmer, to go beyond the normal call of duty to stave the dangerously growing perception that seeming official lethargy - if not indifference - to the continued killings is dictated by the spirit of kinship he shares with the rampaging herdsman or that the nomad's renewed audacity, this genocidal reflex, feeds on the opium of expected solidarity from the top."

But with the latest pogrom in Enugu on Monday, one now feels compelled by a sense of shame to admit that the blood of the innocent is probably on those of us whose circumspection, ordinarily a respectable gesture of moderation, would have inadvertently stirred in the victims a will not to resort to self-help, naively hoping a bunch of unreconstructed savages could be overpowered with the show of civility. From what is now known, the aggressors seem emboldened all along to scale up their barbarism by every turn, aware the rest of the society are unwilling to lift a finger. The latest killing of 48 citizens in Enugu in cold blood was totally avoidable had the various security agencies under federal command been alive to their duties.

Sadly, the villagers of Ukpabi Nimbo saw their own assassins coming days ahead. But the authorities failed to take steps to shield them. Coming barely a month after the Agwu 76 were abducted by "unknown soldiers" from the same Enugu and held hostage in Abia for protesting the herdsmen's excesses, nothing could be more provocative. Among the latest casualties was of a fresh graduate, Eze Patrick Okechukwu, who just passed out from the NYSC few days ago, and an octogenarian who, at such fragile age, must have looked forward to a peaceful transition. 

Their spokesman, George Ajogu, put things in perspective Tuesday when the state officials joined them to count their dead: "Had the security agencies responded appropriately, this would not have happened. (The herdsmen) did not take us unawares, we knew they were coming. Because we lack security, the Fulani come here and tell us the land is theirs. They tell the farmers to kneel down and they rape the women in front of their husbands."

Elsewhere in Obiaruku in Delta State the following day, the ubiquitous armed herdsmen also went on rampage. No fewer than eight farmers were seized from their farms in apparent retaliation of alleged killing of four cows in the locality. The captives were only released later in the afternoon after the youths had mobilized. 

Given the brutality of the slaughter and the intensity of destruction of homes (including churches), it was clear the Enugu attack was carefully planned and clinically executed. Strangely, the president only broke his silence Wednesday after the deed had been done. It apparently took the outrage expressed from a section of the country over the latest killings before the Commander-in-Chief formally deemed it necessary to direct a crackdown on these killing gangs. The message was delivered by Information Minister Lai Mohammed. 

But considering the gravity of the issues now raised, the least expected is Buhari speaking directly to the nation. In the circumstance, timing is every thing. The message and the messenger arrived almost too late.

The burden of guilt over the blood already shed is therefore more on the president who seems unable to read or appreciate that the growing epidemic of murder, its geographical slant, the attendant ethnic eruptions and social disruptions do not just undermine his credibility as a unifying leader but also the stability of the nation at large. It is high time he realized there has to be a country first before he can be addressed as a president. 

The other day, the government did not consider it out of place to liken pipeline vandalization to terrorism, putting the saboteurs on notice they would henceforth receive the Boko Haram treatment. So, why was it so difficult for the president to come out openly and read the riot's act to the band of murderers who undoubtedly constitute much bigger threat, in fact seemingly hell-bent on putting a sharp knife on the last strand of the already threadbare gaiter tremulously latching the nation together? Really, the impression thus unwittingly created is that the oil flowing in the pipeline is more treasured than the blood flowing in the veins of the citizens.

On Tuesday, the Emir of Ilorin, Ibrahim Sulu-Gambari, lent his weighty voice to the popular clamour for a decisive step before too late: "It behoves on the Federal Government to be more serious on the issue so that it doesn't become another Boko Haram on our hands." Though, he believes the AK-47 -wielding herders are not Fulani but "wandering and migrating tribe of people going everywhere." If indeed they are "foreigners", then the puzzle: why is it so difficult for the Nigerian state to frontally take the supposed "invaders" out?

What the latest Enugu massacre again underscores is the gross inadequacy of the nation's current security architecture and the imperative of one that is responsive and responsible to local need. Today, the security forces in every state are not answerable to the resident political authorities. Even in the hour of emergency, Abuja's order is still considered superior to that of the state governor. It explains why the state security meeting summoned by the Enugu governor Sunday following credible intelligence that something sinister was afoot ended up in vain. Various pledges of commitment made by the local heads of all the security agencies at the meeting (said to have dragged till early hours ofMonday) were of no consequence when the attackers struck at Ukpabi Nimbo few hours later.

Much more fundamental is the alienation of the security personnel themselves. In perpetuation of the unitarist credo of military rule, officers are deployed outside their ethnic origin. In the moment of temptation, most then naturally view conflicts from ethno-religious lens. It probably explains why when the villagers of Ukpabi Nimbo cried out for help for days, no one seemed to have understood their language. 

Sadder still, on Wednesday, I read an article in The Nation entitled "Ranches Or Prison For Herdsmen?" written by Sale Bayari, the Secretary-General of the cattle farmers known as Gan Allah Fulani Development Association (GAFDAN), and my heart sank. In case Bayari was speaking for all members, then more troubles still lie ahead. So far, the only silver lining in the dark clouds was the assurance that the stakeholders and the relevant authorities had narrowed down the options to either setting up ranches or grazing reserves to fix the perennial clashes between herdsmen and farm-owners. 

Given deep cultural complexities of the country on top of pervasive ethnic suspicion, the consensus is that the option of ranch will be more feasible for now. But Bayari argues passionately that the herders would settle for nothing other than grazing reserve. Curiously, this seems to be Buhari's own thinking, with the Agric minister announcing few weeks ago that arrangement had been concluded to import improved grass seeds to cultivate the proposed 50,000 hectares of grazing reserves within six months.

Plausible as he might sound, Bayari's argument hardly takes into account the sensibilities of other ethnic stakeholders, particularly people of the Middle Belt and the entire south who view the idea of setting up grazing reserves across the country today as a dangerous seed that will, in foreseeable future, germinate into a Fulani take-over of the Nigerian space in entirety, thereby fulfilling jihadist Othman Dan Fodio's expansionist vision more than two centuries ago. 

Much as Bayari is free to dream of grazing land without borders, fear of possible acculturation harbored by others can however not be wished away.

Perhaps, a taste of what to expect came from Oyo during the week. Without mincing words, Governor Abiola Ajimobi declared not an inch of his state territory will be ceded to Buhari's grazing reserves: "This is the time to call a spade a spade. Those clamouring for creation of grazing zones across the country should have a rethink. It is against the Land Use Act. It is against the law of natural justice to seize people's land to cater for someone's cattle."

Obviously, Buhari now faces the first real acid test that may potentially define his presidency. 

Mr. Odion is former Commissioner of Information, Edo State

Mr. President, Get Herdsmen Off Our Farms!

By MajiriOghene Etemiku  

As part of what I do in my spare time, and in line with my belief that the earth is the Lord’s with the fullness thereof, I tend a farm in my compound. On that little farm, I cultivate shallow rooted crops like maize, watermelons, tomato and pumpkins leaves and manage a mini poultry. Every morning after my family wakes up and finish with our prayers, we descend on our farm.  And on weekends I would gather the whole family together to weed the farm, tend and water our crops. While in the farm, the feeling is akin to obedience to a holy injunction that we should till the earth, subdue and take care of it.

*Buhari 

Some of my friends and colleagues who have seen my farm are pleasantly surprised at the emerald effervescence of my maize, melon and pumpkin. They have no idea that I had taken the trouble to visit the ADP in Benin City for healthy seedlings which I understand can be harvested in three instead of six months it takes for crops to mature. I know that Nigerians are a laid-back lot, preferring to import food rather than grow it. My wife has happily taken to harvesting pumpkin and water leaves from this farm with which she prepares the family’s favourite – vegetable soup.

I don’t joke with my farm. I am my farm, my farm is me. Even though it is not as large and as capital-intensive as the Obasanjo Farms, I take great pride in it. I see myself as a metaphor for the thousands in my village Uzere who have invested time, money and their lives into eking a living from the land like our ancestors. Touch my farm, go near it and you would be looking for trouble. I remember growing up as a child in Uzere – that I ate so much fish and so much kpokpo gari to the extent that it seemed like paradise.

Over the years, however, as a result of the activities of the Nigerian government and its cohorts, the multinationals that prospect for oil to feed Nigeria, nearly every piece of land and river has been polluted. The pawpaw trees are dead, the cassava, the yams are not growing anymore and that is because the soil is soaked with crude oil. The rivers where we once took a haul of shrimps and baskets of eba and ero fishes, where we once took our bath and drinking water are all dried up. In their places are artificial lakes, aka burrow pits that have dislocated the aquatic balance of our community. When it rains, we dare not drink the water, and that is because gases that have been flared since 1957 in my village coagulate and return as gooey residue on the pots and pans which we put outside to collect the rain water. These were the issues that Ogoni leader, Kenule Saro-Wiwa, took head on, and which his predecessor Isaac Adaka Boro championed before they were killed.