Herdsmen attack: Intensify insecurity in the land

By Emmanuel Ukpong

This is not the best of times for the citizens of Nigeria as insecurity is on the increase, forcing some residents in certain areas to relocate to other states considered relatively peaceful.

Though some criminal activities are localized such as the Boko Haram insurgency in the Northeast /banditry and animals rustling in the North-West, the criminal activities of the Fulani herdsmen are now centered in South-South, South-East, Middle-Belt and the South-West. These could be attributed to the fact that the regions, (apart from Middle-Belt), are arid where it is believed to be favourable for animals to graze and also conducive for the herders to dwell.

Their migration to these areas for economic gain and husbandry appears to lose focus as they have turned into being hostile to their hosts.

Just recently, an American returnee from Ibarapa was gruesomely murdered by the Fulani herdsmen, which precipitated an ethnic conflict in Igangan, in Ibarapa Oyo State. It was reported that the man who engaged in comprehensive commercial farming in animals’ husbandry with several herds and food crops had gone to complain to the Seriki of Fulani settlement of the destruction of his farmlands by cows tended by the Fulanis, when he was grabbed and slaughtered like an animal. His farm, it was reported employed several people.

The incident triggered serious conflict within the community as Chief Sunday Adeyemi aka Sunday Ighoho, a Yoruba activist and freedom fighter led his people to confront the Fulani settlers for them to evacuate their forests and towns wherever they stayed and lived within other people in the town. In the process, the Seriki’s house amongst others were ransacked which forced them to relocate elsewhere.

The Ibarapa indigenes had lamented that they have paid more than fifty million naira as ransoms to free their people kidnapped by Fulani herdsmen in recent times, aside their people being raped, killed and farmlands destroyed.

While the crisis of killings, destruction of farmlands, rapes were still brewing in Ibarapa, Oyo state with the Hausa Fulanis as the principal culprits, the Ondo state Governor, Chief Rotimi Akeredolu had given the Fulanis a week ultimatum to vacate their forests, stop night grazing of animals, discontinue the use of child herders, stop engaging in kidnapping of his citizens, amongst other evil activities, or face expulsion from the state. That ultimatum threw up serious tension in Nigeria as ASO Rock response to that quit order appeared to be supporting the herders.

While solutions to the lingering crisis were being sought from major stakeholders, there were reports of kidnappings and killings of victims across some major highways, most especially in South-West, South-East and parts of North-Central, turning the roads into death traps for passengers and motorists alike.

Such high ways as Ogene- Auchi road, Ore-Benin expressway, Owo-Akure road, Ife-Ibadan expressway were not left out as road blocks were mounted by the herders to trap and encircle their victims.

Such killings recently provoked the women of Etsako West in Edo state to protest the kidnap, rape and killings of their people as well as collecting ransoms from families of victims. The latest of such killings was that of a prominent son of Uromi and a philanthropist who was kidnapped along the Auchi-Benin road while on his way to Lagos to catch a flight to US .He was kidnapped along with others but he was unfortunate to have been killed even when ransoms have been paid for his release. The women had to block the Benin-Ore highway linking Lagos to draw the attention of the federal government and relevant security agencies for their actions.

But most often, it is noticed that the security agencies, most especially the Army have been accused of supporting the dastardly acts of the herdsmen. It was reported that the Army has flogged the people of Orlu in Imo state for expelling the Fulani herdsmen from their area. Again, the Army is also accused of escorting back the herdsmen, into the Ketu-Yewa, a rustic community in Ogun State. The soldiers from the 35 Artillery Brigade, Atamal Abeokuta, who assisted the herdsmen, was reported to have been manhandled by the soldiers. In all these bias stand of the Army and the accusation of partiality by them, the Army authority has not refuted the reports or commented on it, giving credence to their misconduct as being true.

The Isikwuato community in Abia State is not left out in this nationwide onslaught by Fulani attacks as they, just recently, have cried out to the authorities of the state and the federal government to do something to stem the tide of insecurity in their community   occasioned by the nefarious activities of the herders.

Some prominent Nigerians have spoken out on the solutions to this criminal tendency of the Fulanis in their host Communities and most highways in the country.

One of such is the governor of Benue state, Samuel Ortom who openly accused the federal government, in an interview on a national television, of encouraging  them, which he said the solutions lie in disarming them and advising them to adopt Ranching as the most suitable way to carry out their practice in rearing animals. The governor of Kano state, Alhaji Abdulahi Umar Ganduje has re echoed that suggestion when he advocated that Fulani herdsmen should relocate to their states of origin and establish ranches for their animals’ husbandry. This, he believe will put an end to this criminal activities by the herdsmen.

How long will the federal government continue to dilly-dally on the insecurity in the land and arrest the situation with dispatch? Their lame excuse that the perpetrators of these acts are foreign herders, which indeed, further exposed their inability to tackle crime, is not acceptable.

How long will the government see the need to advise whosoever it is into the business of  rearing animals that the best practices is through the establishment of Ranches to ply their businesses? And that people should not be forced, against their wills, to allocate their lands to private business concerns, be it for animal rearing or food crops production?

This is the time the federal government should rise up to the occasion and exercise her primary assignment of protecting her citizens against incessant kidnapping, killings, raping,  destruction of farmlands and other individual properties  by any group of people, in whatever guise.

But as it stands now, the activities of the Fulani herdsmen in terrorizing the people on the highways, their host communities, kidnapping for ransoms, rapes appear not to abate easily, going by the recalcitrance of the killer herdsmen.

Until the government takes the bull by the horns, the killer herdsmen are still very daring in their dastard assignment across the country.

With this, we need to act fast to avoid self implosion, which might be dangerous for our corporate existence.