Nigeria: A Funny Country Where The Life Of A Cow Is More Precious Than That Of A Human Being (Part 2) – By Chief Mike Ozekhome
ENCORE
Two weeks ago, we started beaming our search light on the above discourse. Today, we shall conclude on same.
For the records, IPOB did not do one-tenth of what the rampaging herders are currently doing across Nigeria before the federal government promptly proscribed it, and deployed fully armed army to the Umuahia to terrorise the indigenes, including the leader of IPOB, Nnamdi Kanu and his father. Till date, the exact where about of Kanu is unknown. The doctrine of “last seen” shows that it is the Army which invaded his house that should tell Nigerians where Nnamdi Kanu is.
Yet, the young man was, like Adaka Boro and Ken Saro Wiwa before him, merely agitating for self-determination as Biafran people, a concept universally recognized as a right under various international instruments, including UDHR, African Charter, European Convention, etc. IPOB was not armed; did not kill anyone. It merely organized its members to protest peacefully on the streets of Umuahia, Aba, Onitsha, Owerri, Awka, Enugu, blowing whistles, marching, wearing berets and mouthing “Republic of Biafra”. They were put down brutally. Yet, when the dangerous herders attack and kill people in their communities across Nigeria, the President either sends the Vice President, Osibanjo, to go and make “peace”, or send the IGP to relocate to such areas! Who does not know that the Police cannot match the weaponry of the herders? Suddenly, the military, which is really equipped to deal with such murderous uprisings and insurrections are suddenly kept in their barracks. Such palpable double standards and brazen discrimination do not a great President make.
What can we not see and hear in this country? Presidential spokesperson, Mr Femi Adesina had argued that the number of innocent Nigerians so far mindlessly slaughtered by these unrestrained herdsmen under Buhari is not up to those killed under Jonathan. So, loss of human life became a mere game of arithmetic numbers! One northern lady, contributing to the debate on this herdsmen menace on the floor of the House of Representatives, a menace which has since dwarfed Boko Haram insurgency in its potency and hideous massacre, told a shocked nation that in the north, cattle life was more valued than human life. She confidently anchored this eerie inverse reasoning on what she called the “culture of our people”, made so by God. God? “In fact, the cattle owner values the life of his cattle more than his own life”, she profaned. I could not believe my eyes or ears. An angry male contributor to the debate took on her, admonishing that she was insulting humanity, because “even one billion cows are not worth the life of one human being”. I agree with him.
Consequently, on security matters, the PMB government, respectfully, has failed woefully, as assessed by former president Olusegun Obasanjo in his 13 page, 3,565 damning tirade against this government in his trending statement titled: “The way out: A clarion call for coalition for Nigeria movement”. Kidnapping, armed robbery, suicide, prostitution, women trafficking, child labour, hunger, inflation, loss of jobs, youth unemployment, destitution, melancholy, haplessness, hopelessness and gnashing of teeth, have so far been on a spirally rise. For political correctness, governors, ministers and politicians encourage the obvious ethnic and religious cleansing currently going on in the country. Nigeria has never been so divided as it is today.
Some of them went to Aso Villa to endorse PMB for a second term, barely a day after 73 victims of Herdsmen pogrom were buried in mass graves in Benue state, with their hot blood still steaming in the air, with grisly putrefaction.
NOW THIS
SHORT TAKES
Nigerians are quite creative. Even in the midst of hunger and anger, they still crack your ribs with humorous, but figurative expressions, satires, innuendoes, parables and proverbs.
SAMBISA FOREST: ITS USEFULNESS
686 square kilometers. 6.8 million hectares. 68 million plots of 100ft by 100ft. at 5 cows per plot, it can take 340 million cows. 340 million cows is 18 times the current number of cows in Nigeria. They have not told us what exactly they are looking for. But we know. (Anonymous).
To show that our government is really getting it wrong, the Ghanian president, Nana Akufo-Addo, only recently, directed his country security forces to arrest any herdsmen seen parading cattle on the streets of Ghana and the cattle executed and barbecued by the citizens. He made a veiled insult to and mockery of, Nigeria, by saying that Ghana is not Nigeria where the absurdity of cattle reigning over human beings is prevalent and tolerated. (Samuel Ehis Irabor).
MORE HARD & DEADLY TIMES AHEAD: THE CATTLE COLONIES
“The Nigerian government has decided to establish cattle colonies in every state of the country. Each colony will be five thousand hectares of land (5,000).
Note that 1 hectare is a football field; 10 hectares is one square kilometer; 100 hectares is 10 square kilometers; 1,000 hectares is 100 square kilometers, i.e, 100,000m by 100,000m. And now5,000 hectares is 500 square kilometers, i.e, 500,000 m by 500,000m. This is a stretch of 25 kilometers by 20 kilometers of land mass. This is the kind of land mass they want. Imagine parts of the land stretching from Zuba to Gwagwalada to Airport junction to kuje to AYA towards Nyanya to Bwari and environs. Do you know that many local Governments land mass in Nigeria are smaller than one colony? Do you know that there is only one (1) cattle colony in the whole world? It is in Pakistan, near the town of Karachi” (Anonymous).
CHANGING THE NARRATIVE
Initially, what we were told was that these are not Herdsmen at all. Then, we were told that they are militias from Nigér Republic. Then, Governor El-Rufai announced his government would pay compensation to the terrorists to pacify them so as to stop killing. Then later, we were told that actually they are Herdsmen, but they were provoked into killing the locals. Then, we were told that their cows were stolen. Then we were told that it was actually Benue youths doing the killings, not the Herdsmen. Then the Herdsmen later boasted openly that they are the ones doing the killings, and said it was because of the grazing laws, introduced by Governor Ortom. Then the Herdsmen gave conditions for peace, otherwise they’ll continue slaughtering and massacring people including men, women, the elderly, children and pregnant women with their unborn babies ripped open and foetus killed. Then the IG of Police said that it was just small communal clashes and misunderstanding, nothing more. Later, the IG apologized when the facts stared him in the face. Then the presidency blamed Atiku (his presidential ambition in focus).Then later the same presidency blamed Jonathan. Then some APC elements blamed PDP.(Anonymous with some input from me).
Now: The number of people killed by Herdsmen under Jonathan are more than the number of people killed by the Herdsmen under Buhari”, says Femi Adesina, presidential spokesman. So why are you people complaining? Why not wait until the number killed under Buhari surpasses the number killed under Jonathan, the statement seems to suggest.” What a Disaster we are in”.
AND THIS
OPEN GRAZING IS A SIN
EXODUS 22:5 “If anyone grazes their livestock in a field or vineyard and lets them stray and they graze in someone else’s field, the offender must make restitution from the best of their own field or vineyard.
May God save Nigeria from wicked Nigerians.
GLOBAL CATTLE BUSINESS. FACT SHEET
Top 10 NATION Cattle inventory 2017.
India 303 mil; Brazil 226 mil; China 100 mil; USA 93 mil; EU 89 mil; Argentina 53 mil; Australia 27 mil; Russia 18 mil; Mexico 16 mil and Turkey 14 mil.
TOP 10 MILK EXPORTERS are:
New Zealand, Germany, Netherlands, France, USA, Belgium, Australia, Belarus, UK, Saudi Arabia come tops. The same for the top 10 beef exporting nations.
Nigeria is not found among the top 20 nations in the global cattle business. They do not practise Cattle Colonies or primitive Cattle grazing. They apply modern technology and ranching to maximize optimum profit. They do not condone the killing of their Citizens in place of Cattle. Why Nigeria? (Ayo Owolabi, edited by me).
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK
“Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality”. (Warren Bennis).
LAST LINE
Hope Nigerians are reading, digesting and awaiting the next exploring discourse of Sunday Sermon on the Mount of the Nigerian Project by Chief Mike Ozekhome, SAN, OFR, FCIArb., LL.D?
