The rising cases of kidnappings and killings in the southern part of Nigeria, a country that has gained global infamy as the third most terrorised in the world, has once again opened a new chapter on the controversial subject matter of the activities of killer herdsmen. In addition to numerous victim accounts of kidnapping for ransom, the recent arrest and parading of some suspects by the Enugu State Police Command in connection with several attacks that, unfortunately, led to the killing of some Catholic priests as well as traditional rulers, reveals a consistency in demography by perpetrators of this crime: herdsmen of mostly Fulani ethnicity. 
Among the suspects, including Idris Tobe, Suleiman Balarabe, Garba Basalugu, Mohammed Luga and Mojunpan Duna, was Ibrahim Adamu, who confessed to have come to Enugu “to learn the skill of cow rearing” but later joined a gang.
Despite these obvious cases of widespread criminality, there has been a concerted effort by certain individuals and interest groups to obfuscate the true identity of these undesirable elements by raising the charge of ethnic profiling of Nigeria’s Fulani. The media has been intimidated with accusations of deliberately profiling the Fulani for crimes that are not peculiar to their demography by inventing the term “killer herdsmen.”
Unfortunately, the cry of ethnic profiling as a push-back mechanism by the concerned majority of individuals of Fulani demography is akin to living in denial of the existential reality of minority criminal elements. This manner of living in denial renders the problem intractable, with the unintended consequence of image burden for the entire ethnic demography.
Described as “Le marchand de la mort est mort” (the death of the merchant of death) in a premature obituary by a French newspaper in 1888, Alfred Nobel got a privileged glimpse of the first rough draft of the history of his life and times. The report emphasised that “Dr. Alfred Nobel, who became rich by finding ways to kill more people faster than ever before, died yesterday.” A clear case of mistaken identity, as the death of his brother, Ludvig, in Cannes, was widely reported as his at the time.
Nobel was the Swedish scientist, inventor, businessman and philanthropist whose most famous invention was the dynamite, a powerful explosive that revolutionised mining, quarrying, construction, demolition and, unfortunately, became very notoriously useful in the destruction of mankind because of its extensive use in warfare.
Determined not to be permanently recorded in history as the merchant of death, Nobel, a sober and reflective recluse of a genius who neither married nor fathered any child, eight years before his real death in 1896 at age 63, did much to redirect his legacies. To redirect the world from the destructive path of the ignorance of warfare, Nobel dedicated enormous energy and resources to the advancement of knowledge for the growth and peace of mankind. To this end, in November 1895, Nobel signed his last will wherein 94 per cent of his wealth was set aside to establish the Nobel Prize in physics, medical sciences, chemistry and literature, as well as for peace, to be annually awarded to deserving individuals without prejudice to nationality. By taking full responsibility for the misuse of his invention and taking the right steps to curb it, Nobel would no longer be remembered as the merchant of death, as his name has been carved with gold in history and eternally immortalised through the institution of the most prestigious awards in the world for the preservation of mankind, the Nobel Prize.
Nearer home, the Nobel example was deployed by Nigeria’s ethnic Igbo when criminality defined the cities of Aba and Onitsha. Determined to change the terrible images of the two important commercial cities that were rubbing off negatively on the reputation of the larger Igbo demography, a traditional method of law enforcement was evolved with the formation of the Bakassi Boys security outfit, which recorded relative success in ridding the cities of criminal elements, to the relief of the majority.
Similarly, when the issue of human trafficking and prostitution syndicates in Europe was prevalently identified with the Edo ethnic demography, there were no loud cries of “ethnic profiling.” Rather, Edo individuals and interest groups, in partnership with government and non-governmental agencies as well the traditional institutions, took full responsibility by working in concert to unravel the socio-cultural factors responsible for the problem among Edo people.
It is the absence of the Nobel example that is at the heart of the current controversy surrounding the criminal activities of killer herdsmen. Nigeria’s Fulani that are mostly distinguishable by their excellence in educational, professional, administrative and political careers, making them one of the most sophisticated people in Africa, should be concerned more about this endemic problem of criminality among a tiny fraction of their demography and care less about the semantics of ethnic profiling.
They owe it a duty to the rest of Nigeria to help unravel the form, nature, motive as well as other social-cultural factors responsible for the surging crime involving undesirable elements that are identifiable as ethnic Fulani. Nomadic animal husbandry, which is primarily characterised by herding cattle from one place to another in search of pasture, is a cultural economy of Africa’s Fulani, hence the descriptive “herdsmen” for members of the group.
In recent times, conflicts between farmers and herders in the struggle for land resources have seen waves of deadly mercenary fighters that poured into Nigeria from all over West and Central Africa, ostensibly to help their Fulani herder brethren in Nigeria. These mercenary fighters, whose violent activities resulted in killings and destruction of farmer communities across Nigeria, are themselves skilled herdsmen but, in this instance, they are not engaged in the business of cattle breeding, hence the appellation “killer herdsmen.”
However, these killer elements are mostly foreigners and have no sentimental attachment to most of Nigeria’s indigenous peoples, including the Fulani. When not engaged in terrorising farmer communities to make way for fellow migrant nomadic Fulani herdsmen, they turn their energy towards criminality as they now regard the entire Nigerian geographic space as a thoroughfare of limitless criminal opportunities.
With the government of the day still fixated on farmer/herders’ clashes and obvious reluctance to take appropriate action against armed groups, killer herdsmen now have a free rein in criminal activities such as kidnapping for ransom and armed robbery across the country.
Tagged bandits, their natural skill as herdsmen as well as shared ethnic identity with Nigeria’s indigenous Fulani have enabled these killers to infiltrate communities in the North West of Nigeria and unleash strains of criminal activities such as cattle rustling, kidnapping and robbery, in addition to the terror of mass killings. Therefore, it would be a collective assault on the sensibilities of thousands of victims of this pattern of crime to question their judgement on the ethnic identification of their criminal tormentors as that would amount to asking how Donald Trump is identified as White.
There is a clear distinction between profiling a criminal suspect and ethnic profiling of a group. The first investigative step towards solving a problem of crime is to profile the criminal appropriately, down to his ethnicity, religion, associations, contacts and evaluation of his thought process through his interaction. When the media reports the testimonies of victims of crime, including the time, location and ethnic identity of their criminal tormentors, it is not ethnic profiling but profiling of a criminal suspect.