(Opinion & Article Written by George Onmonya Daniel) …….
Channels television journalist reporting from Jos confirmed that 106 people were buried in a mass graves in Panam Local Government after Fulani herdsmen launched an attack on communities in the area. These incessant killings by Fulani herdsmen heavily armed carrying AK47s has been ongoing throughout this year in Plateau and Southern Kaduna. The Nigerian government under President Buhari have completed lost it on the security situation in the country.
When some may argue that they are some herdsmen who are going about their businesses peacefully and they are right, it is clear that this gun, mass killing, kidnapping, armed robbery and rape culture is becoming a new culture totally embraced by large numbers of these herdsmen.
These attacks used to be in Plateau, Southern Kaduna and Benue and you have all sorts of people making excuses for the herdsmen, but today it is widely spread and over the nation. Places like Niger, Zamfara, Sokoto and Katsina have have overwhelmed by these Fulani herdsmen. Even they are branded bandits and terrorists these terrorists have always terrorised the Middle Belt region.
President Buhari seems to believe it is the grazing routes that has been encroached on that is causing the crisis. The Fulani herdsmen themselves have never said that. Buhari and people in Buhari’s government seem to think so. Before now the story was that the Fulani herds were being rustled by locals but it has been confirmed that Fulani herdsmen are the same characters rustling cows from each other.
The government has not been able to tell anyone exactly what the Fulani herdsmen want. The fact is that these herdsmen are embolden by the body language of the Buhari administration and that of some top government officials in North.
Several notable Muslim Northern politicians have come out to defend the herdsmen’s right to carry guns. Governor of Bauchi State once rained insults at the Governor of Benue State who has continued to shout about the incessant killings and asking Buhari to take action but Buhari ignored his request.
Governor Bala Mohammed told media in Bauchi that Governor Ortom of Benue was responsible for the crisis but didn’t explain how, he even went ahead to defend the right of the herdsmen to carry arms. The APC Chairman, Abdullahi Adamu has also on several occasions defended the herdsmen when people complain. In a video circulating after he became APC Chairman, Mr. Abdullahi Adamu was seen comparing the Fulani herdsmen right to that of an Igbo spare parts dealer doing business in the North. Such meaningless comparison is due to religious sentiment or tribal affiliation.
The fact is that spare part dealers are not carrying arms and killing people across the country, these are normal Nigerians going about their legitimate businesses. Before the mass killings no one has issues or complained about Fulani herdsmen. That some of these men and women do not know that such moronic comparison is absurd tells of the type of people we have as leaders in this nation. Mr. Abdullahi Adamu’s prejudice against the Igbos has nothing to do with the mass killings, he threw into the issue just to distract people. He has been a loyalist to Buhari and his reward today is the APC Chairman.
These reasons are why many other Nigerians believe that President Buhari does not want to tackle the problem head on. All his men and people around him seem to operate following his body language.
The Plateau State governor is part of the problem. Because of his being in the same party with the president and nursing the ambition of being chosen as Vice President in case a Yoruba Muslim like Tinubu emerged as the APC Presidential candidate, the man has one time even accused farmers, his own people, of carrying AK47. There has not been such record of farmers carrying AK47 in Plateau. If they have AK47 these bandits would have no chance.
President Buhari is totally responsible for the madness we are facing today in this nation. His refusal tackle this issue on time because it involves his tribesmen is why the whole mayhem has gotten out of hand.
