This article would have come out last week, if not for the error of the cybercafé operator in resending the piece that was published 21 days ago, August 7 titled: My position on Buhari’s RUGA project. But the good thing is that the mistake has provided the opportunity to enrich today’s write-up. This is because at the weekend the Governors of the six states in the South West – Ondo, Ekiti, Osun, Oyo, Ogun and Lagos, announced the formation of Western Nigeria Security Network (WNSN) to take-off in October, which is less than two months away.
Late in July Iba (Chief) Gani Adams, the Are Ona Kakanfo of Yoruba land, had revealed that his Odu’a Peoples Congress (OPC) would within four months end insecurity problems in the South-West. The week before the last, it was announced that the Governors of the five states in the South-East – Anambra, Abia, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo, had established forest guards to deal with insecurity in their zone.
But the Governors in the six South – South States of Edo, Delta, Akwa Ibom, Cross River Rivers and Bayelsa, have not made any announcement to the same effect. This may be because the menace of herdsmen is not serious, if not non-existent, in most of the states in the zone.
The action the Governors in the South-West and South-East have announced is a matter of better late than never, because they should have acted in 2017 or last year. Since it was apparent that President Mohamadu Buhari was not prepared to deal with the acts of kidnapping, killing and destruction of lives and property in the two zones, which are largely (80-90 per cent) carried out by herdsmen of his Fulani tribe.
Indeed, it was not until 29 days ago when the traditional rulers from Yoruba land led by His Royal Majesty Adeyeye Ogunwusi, the Ooni of Ife, had a meeting with him at Aso Rock, Abuja that the President spoke for the first time on the insecurity situation in the country in the last two or three years. Among other things, he promised to authorize the granting of license to state governors to buy drones to monitor forests and other hideouts of criminals in the South-West.
He was also reported to have said his government plans to install Close Circuit Television (CCTV) along the country’s highways and other strategic locations to fight kidnapping. We wait to see how soon he would do this and if he would do so in the North and South at the same time or start in the former. We also have to wait and see if he is sincere in his promise to protect southerners or if he was only playing politics, which is not impossible.
The Governors of the states in the South-West and South-East have not told us the type of weapons they would supply to the foot soldiers or forest guards they want to use to fight insecurity. But they would be deceiving themselves if they plan to give them Dane guns with the men on their part also relying on voodoo power.
The herdsmen being Nigerians or from other West African countries or Libya also believe in spiritual or witchcraft power. So, we have to wait and see whose own is more powerful. But more important is the fact that the herdsmen use AK-47 rifles, not Dane guns. Thus to be able to challenge them and have the chance to defeat them, southern warriors too must be armed with AK-47 or better weapons.
What the situation in the South now calls for is for the governors to spend their security votes on buying effective weapons and bullet-proof vests for members of their vigilance groups. And they should not shy away from arming their forest guards with AK-47. This is because the Federal Government has not stopped Fulani and other northern herdsmen from carrying AK-47.
If the southern governors provide their men with AK-47, let us see if President Buhari would have the moral courage to clamp-down on southerners armed with the same weapon. If he does, only God would save us from the country going ablaze.
Since the State Governments would provide the weapons, it would be easy to get them back from the forest guards when the problem of the herdsmen is over. Or they can give them to state police if one is created. And if not, they would be handed over to the Nigerian Army.
As the Governor of Benue State has done, those in the South should also get their States’ Assembly to pass laws to ban open grazing of cows in their territories. Especially as the Federal Government has announced plan to set up Rural Grazing Areas (RUGA) in the states that want it. What is now required is for the governors in the northern states to get President Buhari to come up with his RUGA project quickly. Thereafter, the northern governors should send trailers to the southern states to transport the Fulani herdsmen and their cows and other animals to the North.
But if they don’t act fast on this, then the governments in the southern states should bear the cost of returning the herdsmen and their cows back to the North. The earlier the matter is settled, the better for the peace and stability of the country.
Next week: Why God discusses Bible issues with me
Goddy Okeke, an area-boy type of medical doctor (2)
I am full of thanks to Professor Tony Obayi, a Professor of Business Education and the Head of the Department of Entrepreneurial Studies, Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike, Abia State. This is because since I published the text message in which he castigated Okeke two weeks ago (August 14), the abusive medical doctor had not contacted me.
I decided two weeks ago to change the former title of the series from rounding off on Gasali & Okeke to Goddy Okeke, an area-boy type of medical doctor because of his nuisance behavior. On July 31, he sent me an abusive text and I replied that he should stop doing so because if he did not I would not read his text again.
But in spite of this, he sent another one about five minutes later and within a space of 30 minutes he sent five more text messages. I did not read any of them, let alone reply any of them. Yet the following week, August 7, he sent five messages, which I also did not read. I want to believe that his chastisement by Professor Obayi has made him come to his senses because he would be wasting his time and money sending text messages which I would delete on arrival, without reading them.
Next week: Tribute to late Charlotte Dadah, the back-up vocalist of Uhuru Dance band of Ghana.