INTERMITTENT and eerily so familiar, the plains of Plateau are drenched in blood again after another gruesome tragedy engulfed the North-Central state. Just about a week after rampaging Fulani gunmen-herders slaughtered scores of people in the Irigwe kingdom, attackers intercepted and murdered 22 travellers in Rukuba, Jos, the state capital. The attackers seized the travellers, who were returning from a religious rite in Bauchi State and massacred them. They never reached their destination in Akure, Ondo State, before their premature transition to the great beyond. This is the most horrific way to die. It is condemnable; completely unjustified.
By an odd coincidence, the return trip of the Fulani religious procession occurred during the burial of some victims of the Irigwe massacre. That moment, all hell broke loose, and reprisals ensued. It was horrible. The tension that followed was understandable because this is human life. The Federal Government, for long accused of neglecting the frequent massacres of the natives by the herdsmen, went into overdrive. The President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), started talking tough. The Inspector-General of Police, Baba Usman, deployed six special police squads coordinated by a Deputy Inspector-General of Police, and a surveillance helicopter to track down the perpetrators. More than 33 arrests were made within 48 hours.
These killings numb the mind. The killing spree captures the intractable violence in Plateau. In the past two decades, the state has become tarnished and stained with bloodshed. Violence recurs at a dizzying pace. In part, it is pure criminality. This intertwines with the ethnic aspect of the violence. Nomadic Fulani herdsmen, seeking pasture and territorial conquest, have long been linked with these massacres.
It is these sporadic attacks by the herders that precipitated the Rukuba killings on August 14. A week before that date, gunmen believed to be Fulani herders had invaded more than 10 communities in the Jos South, Bassa and Riyom local government areas, perpetrating atrocities as before. In the carnage, more than 50 persons were slaughtered. Unhindered by the security apparatus, the invaders torched 400 houses. They rendered 22,000 people homeless. The communities as usual alleged that security personnel did not respond to their calls for help during the attacks and that a nearby military unit said it had no orders to intervene. This is a tinderbox.
Crime is heinous and should be punished irrespective of the ethnicity, faith or status of perpetrators and their victims. Society runs on the concept of impartial justice that should be done and seen to be so. But in Nigeria, many are convinced that crime is selectively punished. The Plateau outrage and the federal response speak in no uncertain volumes: when the Fulani are victims, say the critics, the Buhari regime moves swiftly into action. When others are squashed, there is an ominous silence. Selective action is the crux of the matter. One-sided law enforcement prolongs the vicious, cyclical violence. The world did not see this rapid action by the regime when 200 natives were massacred in June 2018 in 11 communities that straddle Barkin Ladi, Jos South and Riyom LGAs.
Nor was there any conscious government action in July 2012 when suspected Fulani herders slaughtered a senator, Gyang Dantong and the Majority Leader of the Plateau State House of Assembly, Gyang Fulani. Both lawmakers were killed during the mass burial of about 50 victims of the previous week’s attack on villages in Barkin Ladi and Riyom LGAs of the state. Injustice is fuel for violence. Instead of seeking scapegoats and arresting a few natives, the government must apply the full weight of its coercive powers on all perpetrators of violence.
Already, the reprisals have started. Two days after the Rukuba tragedy, suspected Fulani herdsmen murdered five natives, four in Bassa LGA and one in Jos North LGA. This time, the government has yet to make arrests.
The prolonged Plateau mayhem has besmeared Nigeria’s image. In 2018, the Global Terrorism Index credited Fulani herdsmen/militants with 321 deaths and 72 attacks in 2017. Plateau, Benue, Zamfara and Taraba recorded the highest attacks. The herdsmen have been rated the world’s fourth deadliest terror group based on their endless atrocities. The GTI 2020 named Nigeria the third most terrorised country in the world after Afghanistan and Iraq.
Rather than bring them to book, the government has been placating these killer-herdsmen. So, their victims feel abandoned, being neither given justice nor compensated. That is divisive.
Conversely, Nigeria’s neighbour, Niger Republic, declared two days of national mourning after gunmen massacred 37 persons in the Darey-Daye region of the country on August 17. In addition, the government promised to “pursue the fight against terrorism until the final victory.” That is a far better approach in the fight against insecurity. The people are more likely to support the efforts of a government that favours this even-handed approach.
But Plateau State is a microcosm of the unbridled insecurity in Nigeria. In the North-East, Boko Haram’s Islamic terrorism has claimed over 350,000 lives, directly and indirectly, the UN Development Programme stated. In North-West Nigeria, bandits kill, kidnap and rape with impunity.
No region is safe from bloody marauders. In January 2020, the descent into infernal insecurity propelled the South-West governors to establish Operation Amotekun, a regional security outfit. In 2021, the South-East governors followed suit. At this point, Plateau State has no option but to establish a state security outfit, or, in conjunction with willing states in the North-Central, set up a regional unit like Amotekun and the South-East’s Ebube Agu.
In the area of security, the Buhari regime scores woefully. It can rewrite that by depoliticising insecurity, which has severed trust between the leadership and the people. In the interest of the country, that must stop. Being in control of the entire national security system, Buhari’s remit is to tackle the root causes of insecurity, applying the stick to all offenders fairly and justly.
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