With Fulani herdsmen of far Northern Nigeria murdering, maiming, arsoning, raping, and kidnapping their way through large swaths of Southern Nigeria, Nigeria has become a tinderbox about to go up in flames and the charred remains may be countries far from the aspirations of ordinary Nigerians for a lumbering giant of a country, hobbled by religious and ethnic differences, and yet managing to keep faith with hope that the country cobbled together by Colonials for Colonial interest would someday serve the interest of her people.
On Monday, a band of reportedly 500 Fulani herdsmen wielding automatic and semi-automatic weapons, machetes, bows and arrows, and other accoutrements of war descended upon the largely agrarian community of Uzo-Uwani in the Northern part of Enugu State leaving scores dead, hundreds inflicted with grievous bodily injuries, houses and Churches burnt, folks fleeing and scampering for safety; many internally displaced, and the entire community thrown into agony, with gut wrenching grief wrought in the hearts of Nigerians confronted with gory images of the mayhem in social and print media.
Loading ...The attack at Uzo-Uwani closely mirrored the massacre at Agatu, in Benue State, weeks earlier by the so-called herdsmen. The attack at Uzo-Uwani and the Agatu massacres were well organized, and by all accounts, well presaged to give both inquiry and actual notice to authorities. There is no way that the logistics of the build up could have evaded the prying eyes of law enforcement and call to mind the apparent failure of the Nigerian State Security apparati, or else their tacit involvement, or reckless disregard of their duty to guarantee freedom from large scale and organized acts of war against citizens of Nigeria.
Joined to organized large scale acts of war by Fulani herdsmen are incessant encounters of violent nature between herdsmen operating in Middle Belt to Southern Nigeria, and local farm owners who dared to raise ire against the wanton destruction of their farms and crops by herds of cattle often to the nonchalance of the shepherding herdsmen. Farm owners who dared to challenge them are snuffed by violent putdowns, grievous bodily injuries and death in most cases. Well over one thousand Nigerians have met their death in this fashion in the past one year alone.
Although the immediate cause of the murderous mayhem are uneducated, AK47 wielding herdsmen; by far the legal and proximate responsibility for the mayhem lie squarely in the hands of the real cattle owners and that is where the blame should be directed, fault found, and intervening public policy propounded and implemented.
Your average AK47 wielding herdsmen is starkly illiterate, a nomad, lives with his herd, sleeps in the forest, eeks out a living in the hardest way imaginable, and is otherwise destitute. His cattle is his life. He is pretty much an indentured laborer of the real owner of the cattle. His job is to protect the cattle with his life, if necessary; collect proceeds of sale and ensure that the money is remitted to the cattle owner. He works at the direction of the cattle owner, and would be flared if he fails to account for any cattle under his care.
There is a modern day master-slave relationship between the cattle owner and the herdsmen doing his bid to take all reasonable and unreasonable measures to protect the master’s economic interests. It is the master that buys the AK47, gives very little back to the herdsmen and his family in sustenance, makes sure that the herdsmen and his family never get any decent education in life or opportunity to break out of servitude, and charges the herdsmen to lay down his life for his cattle.
The herdsmen are in effect modern day slaves of Northern Nigeria slave owners vested in keeping the herdsmen rooted in a nomadic lifestyle of many centuries ago, and worth no more than the chattel they are asked to lay down their lives to protect. The herdsmen are in effect pawns in the chess game of Northern Nigerian feudalism that continues to this day. The herdsmen roam freely throughout Nigeria but are mentally shackled to the slave relationship that was programmed into them from birth.
The illiterate herdsmen who receives little or no wages, sleeps in the forest, raises child slaves for his master, has no education and no hope ever of breaking out of indentured servitude and is really not the threat that Nigeria faces today. To kill a herdsman is to hack at the branches of the tree of violent cattle herding. The root of the war against fellow Nigerians are the owners of the herds and the herdsmen.
A couple of days ago, about 56 marauding Fulani boys armed with instruments of war were apprehended in Abuja. Days after, it is being alleged that they have escaped custody. Reports of criminal violence perpetrated by herdsmen make their way routinely to police stations. The defendant herdsmen continue to ply the forests like untouchables of the criminal justice system. Ordinary Nigerians are forbidden by law from carrying weapons but herdsmen carry automatic and semi-automatic weapons and nobody dares accost them. In the wake of Agatu massacre, perpetrators have not been apprehended and the trail of pursuit has long since gone cold. Chances are, the group that perpetrated the Agatu massacre is the same group that perpetrated the Uzo-Uwani massacre. The outcome will most likely be the same in Uzo-Uwani. The hot trail of apprehension is growing cold already, being watered down by the usual platitudes and banalities of ineffectual law enforcement. The nexus between powerful Northerners in government and their herdsmen is where the root of this matter is and this matter appears intractable.
Nigerians should condemn and rise up not against the herdsmen but against their owner and those ruling effendi of Northern Nigeria who are economically vested in this modern day servitude. They are the Emirs, the politicians, the royal houses of Northern Nigeria. That is where the spot light should be and not on illiterate herdsmen, perpetual cemented in underclass and have been so for generations and whose scions are being grooved to continue the chain of servitude. The owners set the marching rules of engagement and they are vicariously responsible for the invidious war against fellow Nigerians from the Middle Belt down. That is why the criminal justice system cannot touch the herdsmen and that is why there is no political will or even moral will to put an immediate stop to the incessant herdsmen mayhem.
The only hope for justice in the aggrieved communities is reprisal against herdsmen that will quickly spiral into an orgy of violence. If the herdsmen can carry AK47, so can others. No ethnic group has monopoly of violence. The militarization of civic life in Nigeria has essentially begun and Nigeria will slowly turn into an enclave of local warlords as an immediate consequence of the failure of government to protect her citizens from indentured herdsmen.
It is doubtful if the President has the intellectual capacity to comprehend the enormity of the problem facing this country in the hands of herdsmen. The deep sense of outrage is not coming from Aso Rock and the sense of urgency is lacking. The menace has been growing and gathering for a long time and it is getting to a head. The Uzo Uwani incident is a definite trigger point and the President needs to drop whatever he is doing and swing into action.
He needs to dialog with the cattle owners, most of whom are the very people serving in his Cabinet or are otherwise his friends in high places and the royal houses of Northern Nigeria. They can and should call the herdsmen to order and failure to do so should be taken as a unilateral declaration of war against fellow Nigerians.
It is time for our Northern brothers to dismantle the dehumanizing feudal system that subjugates herdsmen and their offsprings to an entire life of servitude. Every Nigerian should enjoy the promise of basic education and the opportunity to contribute to nation building beyond living in the forests and going about with animals and rearing servants for slave owners. Cattle ranching should be embraced like in other civilized parts of the world. It is time to insist that Northern Nigeria does away with the feudal system that relegates fellow Nigerians to a life of servitude by depriving them of education and meaningful economic opportunities and raising them as human pawns programmed to do their master’s bidding.
No reasonable person lays down his life for his cattle or kills fellow human beings for cattle. Nigerians should be outraged by the social order that grooms and condemns fellow Nigerians to mere chattels condemned to a life of many centuries ago.
