ATTACKS BY HERDSMEN: AS I SEE IT

A herdsman

First thing first.

My health-felt condolences go to the people of Ukpabi Nimbo community in Uzo-Uwani Local Government Area of Enugu State for their loss in the attack on their community on Monday 25th April 2016 by men suspected to be herdsmen. This attack, as were others before it, is provocative, obnoxious, and reprehensible. It should be condemned by well-meaning Nigerians regardless of religious, ethnic or political divide

It is worrisome that for the umpteenth time an attack would be visited on a community by the ubiquitous cattlemen. In the Ukpabi Nimbo incident it was reported that about 20 people were confirmed killed. It was also reported that the attackers, numbering about 100 mobilized support from Nasarawa State.

Tragic as this recurrent mass killings may be, my worry however is that predictably, and for the umpteenth time, Nigerians have zeroed in on not just herdsmen but more specifically on "Fulani herdsmen". The familiar narrative in this part of the country is once again playing out, thus pushing rational critical thinking to the background.

My worry is that for the umpteenth time Nigerians are accusing President Buhari of keeping a criminal silence while these killings go on unabated.

My worry is that somehow the accusation against the President appears justified

My worry is that for the umpteenth time no one is demanding action from the governor of the state as the chief security officer of the state, instead salvos are being fired at Aso Rock

My worry is that for the umpteenth time no one is holding the Inspector General of Police to account, or asking him to order a manhunt for the killers and bring them to justice

 My worry is that for the umpteenth time no one is blaming the state commissioner of police for failure of intelligence, even as there seemed to be pointers to imminent danger in this very case. More noteworthy is the fact that in recent times a pattern appears to have emerged with this kind of attack, as it is no longer entirely novel. One would therefore expect that the state Police Command and other security agencies should have been proactive.

And more importantly, my worry is that no one is asking vital questions.

How did the perpetrators mobilize and transport men and weapons all the way from Nasarawa to Enugu without being caught by the security agencies?

Are the perpetrators really Fulani herdsmen? What if they are not? What if some of these attacks are the handiwork of a third force? What if this third force planned and executed this attack and similar ones before it to look like they were committed by Fulani herdsmen? What if Fulani herdsmen were made the fall guy?

These are some of the questions bugging my mind. We have seen how Boko Haram was founded as an instrument for political negotiation but disguised as a religious sect. How are we sure the new phenomenon of the rampaging and murderous herdsmen is not one such instrument?

It seems our collective brain has been boxed into a box and no one appears to be thinking outside the box. We appear to be simply content with characterizing the perpetrators of these heinous crimes as Fulani herdsmen, thus foreclosing other possibilities. Or maybe I am an alarmist.  

You may call me a conspiracy theorist but try figure out how it come to be that the upsurge in in mass murder by herdsmen coincides with the curtailment of Boko Haram insurgency and the ebbing of  the terrorist set’s attacks in the northeastern part of the country?

Let me try to make point clearer.

Last year when the Chief Olu Falae kidnap took place, I opined that given the sophistication and efficiency with which the kidnap was executed, it was possible that the perpetrators were not Fulani herdsmen. I opined that they may be terrorists. Since then, other similar attacks resulting in kidnap, arson, murder and destruction of farm lands by the so-called cattlemen have taken place. Indeed they are now almost a daily occurrence. The perpetrators have become more ruthless, conning and more tactical; the most telling being the Agatu killings.

This has strengthened my opinion once again that we need to brace up to the possibility that the cattle rearing community has been infiltrated by Boko Haram and that they have device a new modus operandi. Given the heavy losses the terror sect has been suffering from the Nigerian military forces in recent times, vis-a-viz their operational fluidity and penchant to improvise and disguise, I will not put it beyond them to also find a safe haven among cattle herdsmen. Our being fixated with expounding the narrative of "Fulani herdsmen" only helps to divert attention from them. Perhaps that is what they want us to think after all, and we may be playing right into that game plan.

Our security agencies should begin to think outside the box. They should go beyond the usual traditional channels and methods of intelligence gathering. They should beam there searchlights on the cattle rearing community. Attributing these attacks to Fulani herdsmen is, in my view, naïve, judgmental and premature. The situation calls for clear-headed thinking.

Part of the problem really is the perspective from which we often view the perpetrators of these attacks. We bring ethnicity into it instead of looking at the issue as a purely social phenomenon. Our mindset is often first of all to see the perpetrators as "Fulani herdsmen" instead of what they really are – criminal elements – and it is this mindset that usually define official attitude to the menace and our handling of the menace.

What I however find unacceptable is the seeming official conspiracy of silence that has so far greeted these attacks by herdsmen. The silence of government each time these people strike is, in my view, criminal. It is almost as if the perpetrators had the permission of government to carry out their heinous crime. This is the kind of official attitude that allowed Boko Haram to graduate from being a ragtag machete-wielding peasant riff-rats to the hydra-headed monster that it has become today.  

And this official attitude of indifference is not just at the federal level alone. State and local governments are involved too. A band of cattlemen attacks a community in Benue, Enugu,  Delta or Ondo state and we do is to accuse Aso Rock of keeping mute simply because the alleged culprits are supposedly from the same ethnic group as the occupant of Aso Rock. We behave as if the states do not have governments with full complement of security agencies.

I thought we were told that state governors are the chief security officers of their states? On assumption of office a governor swears on oath to protect the people of his state. So what is now stopping the same governor from ordering a manhunt, arrest and prosecution of these terrorist herdsmen each time they strike? Why should we expect that only Aso Rock is competent to take a decision concerning these rampaging mass murderers? By so doing, are we not collectively and unwittingly rendering the governors powerless?

While a definitive statement from Aso Rock is certainly desirable, as was the Riot Act recently read to pipeline vandals, it is nonetheless expected that state governors who are directly affected should champion the quest for justice for the victims of these incessant attacks. But it appears the governors are doing little in this regard. It is instructive that till date no state governor, Senator, Representative or even traditional ruler has sent a powerful memo to the President on the danger posed by the activities of the new cattlemen. What exactly seems to be their handicap in this regard? 

Enugu State governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi reportedly openly wept on seeing Ukpabi Nimbo massacre. He also declared two days of fasting and praying in the state for those who were brutally murdered in that attack. This is very annoying and irritating. Somebody should please tell the governor that the people of Ukpabi Nimbo community do not need his tears. Neither do they need fasting and prayer. What they need is justice and the governor is in a position to give it to them. Shading tears is not only defeatist but also an admission of his inability to carry out his constitutionally sworn responsibility of protecting the people.  

And what about the State Police Commissioners and the Inspector General of Police?  Why are they handicapped too?  All we often hear from the Police when these attacks occur is that the situation is under control – nothing else, no investigation, no arrests, no prosecution, no preventive measures taken, nothing, absolutely nothing. They go to sleep, until another attack on another community happens. And this attitude is replicated all over the place in our country.

Just what is the matter with us as a people that human life is no longer worth a shit? What has become of our institutions of state? Is it just a problem of capacity, or is there a deeper more fundamental problem with our statehood? Everywhere you look is crisis upon crisis; and there seems to be no solution. And the prospects are getting more ominous. The cattle rearers I grew up to know were peace-loving nomadic peasants whose instrument of trade was not more than a stick, bow and arrow, and sometimes a knife.

The frequent disagreement between these herdsmen and their host communities has gone beyond being just a natural consequence of economic and cultural relationship. It has become a political issue too, posing serious danger to national peace and security, and it should be viewed as such. Boko Haram is now a factor to be seriously considered in the mix. So too are unscrupulous politicians and disempowered treasury looters who may have found cattle herdsmen a convenient tool in their evil machinations.

All said and done, a National Council of States meeting specifically on the activities of cattle herdsmen is now compulsory. President Muhammadu Buhari must waste no further time in convening it immediately.

(Google pictures)