It is obvious that Nigeria is fast sliding into the state of a “killing spree” as one of the national dailies described it, but there is always a missing link to the narratives going round about the genesis or the people behind such atrocities
For instance, the alleged killing of innocent individuals in the North-central state of Benue and many other South-west, South-south and South-eastern parts of the country have become a national discourse just after the 2015 general election when Muhammadu Buhari emerged as the president.
President Buhari, a Fulani man from Katsina state, came to power and after six months he constituted his federal executive council; he was accused of nepotism, favouritism and all sorts of names. The worrying farmers/herders crisis has been an old age issue not only in Nigeria but almost all parts of the world, including the cow boys of US.
A young man like me grew up seeing and hearing of conflicts between farmers and herdsmen in my own home town of Burji-Doguwa local government area of Kano state. That has never made headlines or even be included among the news items as many see it as normal happening with an old aged history.
In 2015, the Nigerian security forces successfully degraded the terrorists that they couldn’t attack beyond Borno state. And more than 90% of the people I discussed or listened to them discussing Fulani/herdsmen issue described the latter as peaceful. They normally say that they lived with them and enjoyed staying with them in the past.
Be that as it may, I usually couldn’t help but ask myself: why this sudden change? If the attackers or killers now are Fulani why were they not attacking before? Was there any arrest of Fulani herdsmen after any attack?
If you are a reader of terrorism/conspiracy books you get to understand that there are a lot of things our security agencies have to do on this issue of unknown gunmen. Fulani herdsmen have nothing to do with Fulani but they may possibly be Boko Haram terrorists. It is obvious that after the renewed onslaught on Boko Haram a lot of them have ran away, many of them are now scattered in towns and cities across the country.
Based on what I read in some of the terrorists books, every terrorists group has sleepers cell where they can be causing havoc after they were expected to be destroyed. They will be attacking in the way that one will ordinarily not suspect them.
If we cast our minds back a bit, after the so called #EndSARS protest that led to destroying of public properties, and to the extent of breaking prison in Edo state, the spate of insecurity, robbery, cult clashes have dramatically increased in most southern states. For example, in Edo state after the prison break the number of young men killed by robbers, cultists and unknown gunmen were more then 40, but it didn’t draw the attention of many.
There is tension among the Fulani in South-east due to what has been playing out. However, some of them feel that if some people were asked to leave, they will not be included due to several years they had spent in the east.
Over time, they have mingled and assimilated with the ways of the indigenes, and almost the entire of them speak fluent Igbo language (even more than a number of Igbos that spread across the length and breadth of the country). But now they have been condemned and no one knows who is next to be attacked? Every Fulani in the South-east, South-west and North-central is now living in fear and most of them are deserting their age-long settlements.
It is therefore glaring for any objective individual to realise and understand that terrorists attack innocent citizens not Fulani herdsmen.
I am a Fulani man who was called “Ikwerre boy” back in the days when I was in Port Harcourt, a Fulani man who was also called “Shuwa Arab boy” because of my stay with them. As such, I am in a good stead to sieve the truth out of this seemingly orchestrated campaign against the largely innocent Fulani.
Alhassan A. Bala is an Abuja-based broadcast journalist can be reached through [email protected]
