It is trending, it is spreading. The proofs are legion and the evidence is overwhelming. There is an emerging ethnic police force. This will not do us any good.
They have been feigning otherwise. They can no longer hide behind one finger. Their actions and “inactions” are exposing them daily.
We are convinced an ethnic Fulani police force is dangerously in the making. We have all the good reasons to believe that. And huge spanners must be put in its works.
We have had those disgusting rumours. They have dominated our public space. We did not want to align. But in very recent times, we have had cause to have a re-think.
The ugly writing on our cracked wall is becoming a stark reality. It is staring us in the face. And that is our fear.
We can’t forget the Kajola, Ayete, incident in Ibarapa, Oyo State, in a hurry. It graphically exposed the emerging Fulani police force. It brought the matter home more vividly.
The central character is 75-year-old Iskilu Wakili. He is the alleged Fulani kidnapping kingpin holding sway in Ayete and environs. Three times police “attempted” to cage him, three times they failed woefully. They even had the guts to admit it.
The Oodua People’s Congress (OPC) would want none of that. It took up the task to bail out the police. It sent just three of its men after Wakili.
The men were there only once. They walked through fire. They survived onslaught from Fulani herdsmen. That could not roughen them.
The OPC warriors went, saw and conquered Wakili unhurt. They delivered him safely to the same police. The police were speechless. They did not want to swallow a glaring failure. They searched for an escape route. The fear of the emerging Fulani ethnic police force set in.
Like a horror movie, the tables were turned upside down. The brave OPC men instantly became the accused. And the accused was treated like a king(pin).
That informed the wobbling police statement. They changed it to arson and murder charges against the OPC men. Police then “rushed” Wakili to hospital “due to his frail appearance and state of health.”
But this was far from the truth. The statement was grossly misleading. It was the exact opposite of what happened in Kajola. For awkward reasons, police opted to support a particular tribe.
Fulani is it! The president’s kinsmen. It’s amazing and amusing. Others are being provoked intentionally. The Fulani make a boast of it all over. We can hear them loud and clear.
Instances are inexhaustible. It is saddening. A police officer recently confessed to Daily Sun: “It is not as if we cannot do anything, but the directives from above are not helping matters.
“Fulani herdsmen are just above the law. Recently, we arrested them for inflicting very deep machete cut on a Gbagyi person, but order came from above that we should release them.”
The mayhem in Shasha, Ibadan, presents another awful throwback. It was ignited by a Hausa man and was its first casualty. Is it not then laughable that the seven suspects arrested by police were all Yoruba?
Afenifere, the Yoruba socio-cultural organisation, threw a poser: “If it was a Yoruba vs Yoruba crisis, where then is the case of Hausa-Fulani, accused by Yoruba of attacking them and which the Federal Government allegedly agreed to compensate with billions of naira?”
Before then, there was a gloomy murder of a monarch in Ifon, Ose LGA, Ondo State. It was allegedly attributed to Fulani herdsmen. Police kept mum and mute.
Days later, some Fulani herdsmen from the same Ifon complained to “their” police. That their cow was “murdered.” The beats changed immediately.
All in the spirit of emerging Fulani ethnic police force. They swung into action and got some elders of the town arrested.
Perhaps, responding to an order from above, police moved the elders to Abuja. For trial, of course! And the Oba’s murder was left unattended. Was he Fulani? No! Case dismissed. Nigeria’s judicial system, you are too much.
Forget this much-touted “shoot-at-sight” or “at-cite” order. It’s a fake demonstration of a false intention. A mere political statement never meant to be acted upon.
Their body language is not ambiguous. The Fulani are born to burn, rule, ruin and destroy. They must be protected to kill and maim.
They wander almost unchallenged in our bushes and forests. Still, they reign supreme in our cities and towns. And an ethnic police force provides adequate cover for them to commit atrocities.
To all of these, government and its lying agents elect to keep sealed lips. They cannot find their bearing. We get the message. Their silence is golden.
We are convinced this police force cannot protect us. We now know the real interests they serve. We too are resolute not to entrust them with our security.
The ultimate solution is state police. That is the only viable alternative. Any other one is counterfeit. Not even the highly skewed community policing.
We had state police in the First Republic. Bring them back now. Let them confront this emerging ethnic police force headlong.
This boils down to restructuring. We can’t escape it!
TALK BACK
Food blockade: ‘We taught South lesson’
Femi Adeoti,I have read your write-up on the food blockade by some northern traders.
In some of your presentation you are right, but you have misplaced the whole essence of the food blockade just like your brethren FFK. But on his part, after realising the truth, he partook in finding solutions to the imbroglio.
The issue of food blockade from the North to the South has nothing to do with punishing the South.
The Amalgamated Union of Cow Sellers and Foodstuffs Association had voiced their complaint about their members being killed, vehicles, houses and shops burnt and properties destroyed both during #EndSARS protest and Sasha Market massacre in Ibadan.
The army, police, state and federal governments did not say anything. They were left on their own to fend and protect themselves by the same lackadaisical Buhari regime that was not willing to respond.
They resolved that the only option left for them was to stop sending their products to the South, so that government can react to their plights. They wanted government to compensate them for their losses. Government was not willing to even listen to them.
You should understand that the vehicles conveying the products that were burnt did not belong to them.
Most of these farmers took Anchor Borrowers’ loans from government through CBN and they were expected to pay back. Some of their members’ lives were terminated unexpectedly.
How do you want them to react? Southerners were known for always referring to northerners as parasites. It will at least teach southerners to have respect for northerners, because they are not parasites, they are the ones feeding them.
Apart from respect northerners earned as a result of the food blockade, the North will have a break from the never-ending blackmail of restructuring from the South. We all know that you cannot feed yourselves.
With our land, agriculture will be the backbone of our economy. We will export our products to the South and other nations. No nation is complete if it cannot feed itself.
Oil has been discovered in commercial quantity in the Chad Basin, Benue Trough and Bida Basin. We would hasten to start drilling it. Before then, we can do with oil imports from Niger Republic if the South blocks its oil.
Finally, God that brought us together knows the reason for doing it, no region is an island of itself. A word is enough for the wise.
– Hamidu Yusuf, Kontagora, 08036800116