The problem of herdsmen in the country is a complex issue that needs careful handling if the nation is not to be set ablaze and face disintegration. What most people in the North – Central and the three zones in the South do not know is that some of the cows grazing in the four regions are owned by wealthy indigenous men and women, especially traditional title holders as well as retired and serving military and police officers. And this is partly why the number of herdsmen in the South has increased in the last ten years or so. 

Like their northern colleagues, the southern – born military and police officers who own cows are also the ones who introduced the arming of herdsmen with guns to protect their animals from being stolen or killed by thieves or angry members of a community. Where would a herdsman have the money to buy a gun that costs more than two hundred thousand naira? Yet each of three or four herdsmen working together carry a gun.

The involvement of a large number of present and past law officers is also one of the reasons why most herdsmen, if any at all, have not been prosecuted. In other words, it is why they are said to have been released on “orders from above.” As someone in the business, it is not impossible that President Muhammadu Buhari’s herdsmen too carry guns.

Also not known to many is the fact that not all the herdsmen in the country are Fulani. Some of them are Hausa and people from other tribes in the North and possibly from the South too. That some herdsmen have been resorting to banditry in recent years is evidence that the cow business has been suffering reverses, forcing them to find another way to make money.

About 15 or 16 years ago when Fulani herdsmen had problem in Oyo State, General Buhari went to Ibadan to see Governor Lam(idi) Adesina and got the matter settled. But in the four years he has been the president of the country, Buhari has not made any tangible effort to solve the problems the herdsmen have been causing nation – wide. Of course, this is because things have been to their advantage.

Initially, I thought the president’s attitude was because as someone in the cow business he did not want the other herdsmen to attack his own workers, kill or take away his cattle. Especially given the fact that in 2014 or 15 Boko Haram insurgents attacked his entourage in Katsina and he luckily escaped death.

But events in the last one year or so have shown that he has not taken action against the herdsmen because most of them belong to his Fulani tribe and his Islamic religion. Consequently, he might have developed a sinister agenda to help his people. The first reason for this is that his government has never told herdsmen to surrender their guns.

Instead, it is those who were given licenses by government to own weapons that are being told to go and hand them over to the police. Thus, giving the impression that he wants to give the herdsmen an upper hand and create a situation in which they can overrun the North – Central and the southern states when the opportunity presents itself, even after he would have left office.

The second reason is that his government has announced the plan to establish a radio station for the Fulani to broadcast in their Fulfulde (Fula) language. How can the Federal Government use the country’s money to set up a radio station for a people who are only about eight per cent of the nation’s population? The Hausa are 21%, Yoruba 20%, Igbo 17% and the other ethnic groups 36%.

Should such a station along with Fulfulde not also be made to broadcast in the other major languages in the country – Yoruba, Igbo and Hausa? And instead of a Fulani radio station, is it not better and cost-effective for the Buhari government to get the National Assembly to make a law that the stations owned by the federal and state governments, and even private ones, set aside hours every day when they would carry programmes for the Fulani, both in the day time and at night.

The third reason to see partiality in his action is that President Buhari’s administration is said to have decided to pay compensation running into several billions of naira to the herdsmen. The report did not say his government has a plan to pay those whose farms and properties had been destroyed by the herdsmen.

There is also the plan by the Buhari administration to get rural grazing areas (RUGA) created in the states for the herdsmen. Cow business is a private enterprise, so how can the federal and state governments use public funds to establish ranches or animal colonies for the herdsmen?

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More to come next Wednesday

 

 

Rounding off on Gasali & Dr. Okeke

As was seen in the text message Gasali forwarded to me on February 27 which I published two weeks ago, people like him and Dr. Goddy Okeke send out abusive texts for one reason. And this is because they think one would not have the courage to publish the message in which they accused one of corruption or of being an extortionist.

Of course, it goes without saying that many a columnist in the country are involved in these vices and as a result do not have the moral ground to react to castigating messages. Thus, if I did not publish the texts of Gasali and Okeke they would have thought that I did not respond because their allegations were true.

I also published their text messages and telephone numbers for anyone who has information against me on corruption, professional incompetence and of me not having the grace of speaking one – to – one with Almighty God to be able to furnish them with it.

Gasali opened the first of his three – insulting text messages sent on February 13 calling me: “Mr. latter – day prophet of doom whose hallmark and tool of extortion is the dubious use of God’s name.” And ended it with: “Expect my rejoinder in d (the) Sun nspp (newspaper) soon.”

But five – and – a – half months later, he is yet to do so. In fact, he stopped reacting to my series since March 6. Of course, this was because by then I had proved all his allegations to be false and that he was an irresponsible person making unreasonable statements.

I believe that my articles have made him to become ashamed of himself. And that he might have been reprimanded by Muslim leaders and other elders in his family and in Ilorin and maybe including the chieftains of the Nur – Allah Islamic Centre in Indiana, United States, an international organization to which he belongs.

      To be continued next week.