It did not begin with the recent slaughter in Anambra State. Neither is it a matter that anyone in authority should raise any eyebrow about. Such eyebrow will be more than perfidious.
Yet we know that the wave of barbarous hordes in the form of herdsmen in various parts of the country has taken on the status of an emergency. The earlier we realised this as a people and nation, the better for our peace and cohesion.
The narratives, in their details, take on peculiar characters in different parts of the nation. In parts of the north, it smokes from long-running, atavistic ethno-religious grudges. It even takes advantage of flaming indigenous-settler tension. But in other parts, it is a story of suspicion arising from charges of cattle rustling leading to violence.
But in most parts of the country, it is a story of bare-faced impunity, an in-your-face recklessness of rapine, murders, arson and rapes.
In all the incidents reported, especially in the last few months, it has been a case of a band of cowmen barreling through other people’s territories and acting with a certain proprietary hubris as though the legitimate owners are impostors. This is unacceptable in the 21st century anywhere.
A few cardinal incidents could help to put the violence in perspective. One of them took place in Agatu community in the middle belt where the Fulani herdsmen razed down the community, burnt down homes, and slaughtered everyone in sight, old, young, children and women. They also raped and brought the once vibrant, cohesive soul of the place to its knees.
This dizzying flashpoint of sadism stirred the emotion of well-meaning persons in the country and elsewhere. Some of the elite in the region expressed horror and disappointment. It was a theatre that got even more absurd when the herdsmen justified their primitive acts in Agatu. The interim national secretary of the herdsmen’s umbrella body, Gan Allah Fulani Association, Saleh Bayeri, said the herdsmen were right in their attack on the Benue State community because they had to take vengeance on the people of that community for killing a Fulani man in 2013.
He said the Agatu people invaded the compound of one Shehu Abdullahi, killed him and made away with about 200 cows. Saleh explained that the police treated the matter without precision or seriousness. So, the herdsmen took their own initiative and attacked the communities.
This was an act of impunity. If the police failed in bringing justice to Abdullahi, it was wrong for them to take the law in their hands and attack persons, most of whom were not shown to have had hands in the death of the man. It is lawless. It arises from a sense that they can get away with anything. The effrontery that propelled Bayeri to express gloatingly an act of impunity ridicules us as a nation of laws.
The other incident was in Edo State where the herdsmen killed a man without any evidence of provocation. The community was enraged and they lashed back and razed down the herdsmen’s post and led to a sense of community alert and an air of adversarial relation between the herdsmen and the local communities. Silence has replaced raw nerves of conflict since.
The third incident occurred in a forest near Aba in Abia State, where numerous bodies were buried and the Directorate of State Services stoked ethnic umbrage when it said five Fulani persons were killed. But tens of other corpses were buried but they were invisible to the eyes of the secret service. How did they identify who was Fulani or not?
The recent attack in Anambra State led to outrage everywhere in the country. Tens of innocent citizens were slaughtered. It was a touching scene to see the Governor of the state, Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, as his face melted in tears. Gory pictures of the slain, slaughtered bodies and blood-spattered scenes as well as razed houses tell the story of impunity and a sense of murderous entitlement by the herdsmen.
We cannot as a people accept this sort of violence of marauders. They have given the impression that the nation state cannot do anything while they launch their campaigns of devilry. The herdsmen’s umbrella body, the Gan Allah Fulani, should be subjected to the law without prejudice. If the leadership supported the purported reprisal attacks, and was bold to ventilate it in public, the leadership ought to be investigated and the culprits prosecuted.
The presidency ought also to intervene in this matter. Its silence may be seen as a sort of quiet indifference, or even encouragement. The gory scenes and the theatre of blood has escalated to such an extent that nerves are now frayed. In the southwest, especially in the Oke Ogun area of Oyo State, tensions have rippled between the herdsmen and locals.
The exigency of presidential intervention cannot be played down because the tensions are soaring. If the present state of off-handed aloofness persists, we may witness the Edo State examples in larger scales. It will mean that the government has left the communities to their devices.
The herdsmen were known to wear hats and wield sticks. Now they move about with powerful and lethal firearms. That explains the primitive swagger and confidence with which they moved into farmlands and kill indigenes as though as a matter of right.
If this continues, without a meaningful federal intervention and presidential voice, the locals could resort to self-help. We do not envisage or desire a scenario where locals arm themselves and various parts of the country become fiery swaths of warfare between groups of the same country who should operate under the same law and constitution.
The herdsmen’s charge of cattle rustling is believed to be genuine in a number of instances. We cannot accept a nation where persons or groups are not allowed to trade without the fingers of thieves. The thieves ought to be prosecuted and made to face the force of the law when caught. But everyone must have to be according to law. In Agatu, the killing of Ardo Makadi or the stealing of 200 cows are no reasons for killing children or raping wives or nubile women.
The Gan Allah Fulani Association has asserted that the activity of the herdsmen hinges on their fundamental right to freedom of movement and association. But a democracy guarantees freedom so long as it does not violate others.
The Buhari administration should not only voice its condemnation of the killings as it did yesterday, it should also act now to mollify the tempers seething in the regions where kith and kin have lost lives and properties destroyed.
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