Fulani “Herdsmen” and the Way Forward

Recently there was an attack in Benue state that claimed many lives. The claim by the state Government is that the attack was carried out by Fulani herdsmen, whatever that means. But this is not the first time lives were lost in Benue due to the problem of clashes between farmers and herders encroaching upon their farmlands. Two years ago there was a similar attack on Agatu community of the same state that claimed many more lives. There are also similar attacks in other parts of the country especially South and North Central states where the pasture is greener.

Like on every issue, Nigerians are divided. First, since the issue has to do with Fulani, a tribe closely associated with Islam, the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) and the Southern press took their side. It is an opportunity to pour out the anti-Islamic venom on an issue that is purely criminal. As a regular reader of online newspapers I always find the headlines of southern newspapers and the comments revealing. They have a regular pattern. From the headline you would know the side taken by the newspaper. The news will be twisted to make you believe what you are required to believe. Then the comments will follow along the same line. If they are not abusing the ‘clueless’, ‘certificateless’, ‘boko haram sponsor’ etc. at the top they are attacking Islam for being a jihadist, blood-spilling religion.

In its contradictory response, CAN accused the Federal Government of protecting the Fulani herdsmen while at same time calling on her to act. They also called for prayer ‘against’ the herdsmen, not for peace as would be expected of a religious body that has followership across all segments of the Nigerian society including herdsmen.

On the same side as CAN and the southern press are the Fani-Kayodes and the Fayoses. Like a Facebook friend observed, Buhari is becoming too soft for the liking of many Nigerians by allowing the likes of Fani-Kayode and Fayose to attack him at every opportunity including an accident involving his child. The security agencies have a responsibility to not only protect Mr. President from bodily harm but also from personal insults that are distinct from constructive criticisms. We are still expecting them to play this part of their role.

On the other side are the Miyetti Allah organization and their sympathizers who would always claim that the herders have the right to open-grazing, impliedly even on farms not belonging to them, because that is their means of subsistence. On this recent one, the Miyetti Allah association claimed that it was in retaliation to the killing of 1000 animals by local militia. The Miyetti Allah has its powerful sympathizers in the social media. For example, a Facebook pal of mine with large number followers would go to any extent to justify whatever is done by Fulani. For many Fulani when a brother is involved there is no principle, no justice but of the kind obtainable among the pre-Islamic Arabs, “help your brother whether he is the oppressor or the oppressed”.

The extremely sentimental kind of reaction by CAN, southern press and others have pushed many Muslims to blindly take side with the Fulani herdsmen even against the Qur’anic injunction of investigating before forming an opinion. My brothers are further emboldened by the arrest of some armed militia allegedly sponsored by the Government of Benue state or some anti-Islamic outfit.  

But the Government is also divided. While the Benue state Government is adamant on anti-open grazing law the Plateau state Government will not use the word ‘anti’ on any ‘business’. The Federal Government will call ‘stake-holders’ conference to iron out the problem. Meanwhile the president has asked the IG to relocate to Benue state and some herdsmen have already been arrested. The contradictions continue.

As a Northerner, especially one with some Fulani blood running in him, there is a side I am expected to take regardless of my first hand experience of dealing with other Nigerians including Fulani herdsmen. Unfortunately I don’t join the bandwagon. Even when I attend meetings, any meetings, I usually express my own opinions which are not necessarily the opinions of any group I am seen to belong. It has been difficult but it gives me satisfaction.

The conflict between herders and farmers is not new. It only became glaring after the Fulani herdsmen as they are now known began moving down south with desert encroachment on our own part of the country. It is well known that our communities in the North West are made up of a mixture of Hausas and Fulani, the former being farmers and the latter being cattle-rearers. The two groups were enjoying peace with very minor disagreements on farm encroachment until somewhere in the 1980s through 1990s when a strange type of herders began to cross our borders and tramp on our farms with their cattle. The menace became pronounced during the Abatcha regime when security forces were in many cases dispatched to tackle them. In one of such cases which I remember very well, when those “Udawa” became a nuisance to farmers around Funtua in Katsina state a team of MOPOL was sent to counter-attack them and most of them were killed and their cows were slaughtered and eaten by their farmer victims in Funtua township. But there was no problem. Both the herdsmen and their victims were “Muslims”. CAN did not call for prayers or condemn Federal Government. The southern press did not carry any catchy headlines as no Christian was involved and life continued.

I believe the Miyetti Allah association does not expect us to take them serious. It is never an excuse to feed your cows with the farm produce of innocent people just because grazing reserves were sold by some Government officials or traditional rulers. It is even more unacceptable to kill human beings because some cattle were stolen. The Sokoto state Governor has offered to give enough land for open grazing. I expected Miyetti Allah to accept the offer and develop the given land for the benefit of their members. This will, in addition to bringing the desired peace, give an opportunity for them to have economic control over the animals and their products in form of beef, hide, manure, etc. That they have not done that keeps me in doubt about their actual motive.

The North West is not in any way more peaceful than North Central or southern states, no thanks to the activities of Fulani cattle rustlers and kidnappers. These criminals have attacked and killed many innocent people and in some cases raped or abducted their families in Zamfara, Katsina and other North Western states. Two years ago I published how my uncle was killed by these criminals after rustling over 350 cows from his village. These cows belonged to innocent villagers who have never encroached on anybody’s farm to feed them. These criminals are still active but because the victims do not make noise and have no trained militia to launch a counterattack it is allowed to continue. What an irony!

That some ethnic militia are being trained to launch attack on ‘us’ is no news. Whole Muslim communities were displaced and their property plundered by these militia in different states of the North. But whose fault is it? Instead of us to train our youth to defend us we abandoned them to be recruited by Boko Haram. The average northern Muslim leader is selfish. He/she only cares about their children. That is why we are overtaken in almost everything including building befitting mosques despite the huge human and material resources at our disposal. And instead of us to look inwards we are blaming others for doing what we have failed to do.

To move forward we have to be frank to ourselves and stop supporting criminals just because they are our blood. The Miyetti Allah association should be creative in helping their members if they do not want us to believe that they are benefitting from these crises.

Finally, President Buhari should address this problem once and for all and if necessary apportion blame and punishment to those responsible. And very importantly, the activities of criminals in the North West have not been properly managed. Is it because we have voted for our own?

Rail Lines to Daura and Jibia: Why I am Confused

Since the announcement of the presidential approval for the construction of rail lines to Daura and Jibia among other places, I have been speechless. My wives who have been trying to find out what is wrong with me have not been successful. The duo have known me to be for the man Buhari and I have been able to convince them from the beginning that Buhari is one of the best things to happen to Nigeria. Fortunately, the two of them were not around when Buhari was the military Head of state in the 1980s. Thus, what I told them about the General Buhari regime is what they believe. Of course I did not tell them a lie. Buhari is incorruptible and he did as much as he could as a military leader to force all Nigerians to be like him through his WAI programme, his many decrees and imprisonment of corrupt politicians. But that is where he got it wrong, I have always told them.  It is impossible for all Nigerians, nay majority of Nigerians to become Buharis. The reasons are not for this discussion.

My inability to utter a word on the issue either to my family, friends or in the social media as I usually do is due to the many questions that continue to puzzle my mind. Why these projects at this time when the president is more than half-way to the end of his first and hopefully the last term? Yes, hopefully the last term because those of us who love Buhari would never like him to contest in 2019 even if he gets much better before that date. Our reason is simple. He should stay and manage his health. Of course his ‘supporters’ would never like to hear this. They will continue to prod him to contest even if what remains of him is the skeleton so that the feeding bottle will remain in their mouth.

Another question is, are we witnessing another PDP approach to politics? The PDP understood the weaknesses of Northerners very well and it had always used them to win election. For example, Northerners have a very short memory. The only thing they seem to remember is what is happening now. The PDP thus started projects that have bearing on the life of Northerners few weeks to general elections. Immediately after the elections the projects were abandoned for another three and a half years.  A handy example is the Kano-Kaduna dual carriageway. This road which links the administrative headquarters of the former Northern region to its commercial capital was constructed in the late 1980s by the Babangida administration. Despite being the busiest road in the far North it has been allowed to become a death trap due to lack of maintenance. The PDP administration severally promised to reconstruct it and the Minister of works was always shown on NTA inspecting the road when it was election time. This happened in 2003, 2007, 2011 and 2015. Today the road remains worse than it was 19 years ago. Incidentally, the Buhari administration has made a similar promise but there is nothing on the ground so far.

Assuming that the Buhari administration is serious about carrying out these projects, how realistic are they given the fact that more than half of his term is gone?  It is obvious that given the slow pace with which projects in this part of the country are executed under Buhari administration it could take Buhari not less than five terms of four years to execute the rail projects enumerated by the Minister of transport last week. The case of Kano-Katsina express road is a good example. This project began almost with the Buhari regime but the work was abandoned at Bichi which is a distance of about 30 kilometers out of 160 kilometers. This is happening when projects in the south are executed by this administration at an unbelievable speed.

Now, which is better? To manage what is on the ground or to pursue phantom dreams? The road network in the North is in a state of total disrepair. There is hardly a road linking any two state capitals that is in good condition. Few weeks ago I lost my new tire and nearly my life and lives of some of my family members to portholes along Kano-Dayi road which is the road linking Kano with Zamfara, Sokoto, Kebbi and parts of Katsina state. Hardly will a day pass without an accident on that road just like the much talked about Kano-Maiduguri express road whose construction begins and ends between Kano and Wudil, another distance of 33 kilometres. These observations apply to other roads including Kano-Daura road which links the President’s hometown with the rest of the country. With all these, what makes sense is that our choice Government will do what it can to put back our roads into good condition instead of pursuing vividly unrealistic rail projects.

I still wonder how I can explain my position to my family and friends or even the person reading this. Nigerians are a binary people. Most of them understand only two things, condemnation and praise. A critical observation means condemnation and withdrawal of support. But should we continue to blindly follow?

Governor Badaru and the Politicization of Mistakes

During the political campaign that preceded the 2015 general elections, a major challenge confronted Muslim politicians in the then ruling party, the PDP. Muslims, especially Northern Muslims saw any of their brothers campaigning for Jonathan as an outcast. Jonathan was seen as the promoter of Boko Haram because for as long as he remained in power the Boko Haram fire continued to spread to all parts of Northern Nigeria with apparently no will from the President to end it. Added to this was the fact that Jonathan was being challenged by General Muhammadu Buhari, a person considered by Northerners as a messiah who would not only tackle the problem of Boko Haram but restore the good old glory of Nigeria by killing corruption and other political and economic problems  of the country.

This put Muslim politicians in PDP on their toes as the storm gathered. For the small boys at local levels, the practice of printing campaign posters with Buhari picture alongside theirs became the norm. But for the big boys at the centre, they were doing all they could to prove to grassroot voters that they were also practicing Muslims. This made many of them to open their political lectures with long Islamic prayers and quotations from the Qur’an and Hadith. Some of them would go on to warn the public that Buhari’s running mate was a big pastor and that a vote for Buhari would promote the church, and so on. It was in the midst of this imbroglio that the former Vice president, Arc Namadi Sambo at one of their campaign rallies attempted to recite Suratul Fatiha, which is the opening chapter of the Quran. However, to the disappointment of many of his admirers, he failed to recite it properly. And many including my humble self were not surprised. For the western-educated elites of Sambo’s generation, the only opportunity they might have had of learning the Qur’an was at the Qur’anic school of their locality before they went to boarding secondary school. At boarding schools there was no provision to further their knowledge of the Qur’an. The IRK was anything but serious. In fact, the IRK teacher was usually a subject of mockery by the pupils who called him with various names like anakallahu, ustaz, etc. With this background, it is not surprising to be unable to recite the basic parts of the Qur’an correctly.

What is wrong is the way the error was politicized even by people who should know better. I remember a popular columnist who was also a member of APC mentioning the number of errors he found in Sambo’s recitation of Fatiha. Whether he personally met Sambo as his Muslim brother to discuss those mistakes is doubtful.

Dear reader, I m not writing this piece to discuss Sambo and his recitation of Fatiha. I believe by now he must have learnt and corrected his mistakes. This is particularly expected because he is no longer in Government and has more time to dedicate for spiritual development. Employing a Sheikh to teach him Qur’an from the scratch would not be a problem. Luckily, he is from Zaria a city with reputation for Islamic scholarship. In addition to bringing Sambo closer to his creator, it will also make him reappear better whenever he makes public reappearance.

What prompted me to pick my pen is a video clip currently circulating in the social media. This time it is not about a pro-Jonathan politician. It is about Governor Muhammad Badaru of Jigawa state, a prominent figure in the ruling party and a member of its National working committee. The clip was posted to one of the whatsApp groups I belong where I first saw it. Later it has spread like a wild fire as sharing continues. In the video released by Jigawa State New Media Office, the bearded governor is shown struggling to read a poorly written speech on the occasion of honoring Jigawa indigenes that excelled in Qur’anic recitation competition.

As I watched the three minutes clip, what particularly impressed me were the messages the Governor sent. It is the first time, for example, I saw a state Governor offering scholarship to Qur’anic reciters to study in any university of their choice anywhere in the world. In the past such offers were made to footballers and some actors or actresses. The governor also promised to continue supporting Qur’anic education and Qur’anic reciters at both Qur’anic and Islamiyya school levels. And if the governor fulfills the commitment he made in that clip, problems of Education sector shall be solved, at least in Jigawa state. After urging the Jigawa state contingent to represent the state well, he concluded by praying for them in particular and the state in general.

Unfortunately for most of us, we are always looking for mistakes and human beings are always full of mistakes. A big mistake (yes, a big one) was made by the governor in reading that speech. In Islam, there are standards of respect for the prophet (peace upon him), his companions and other figures. In particular, the Prophet (peace upon him) described as a truly stingy person anybody who refuses to pray for him whenever he is mentioned. Thus, it has become part of the average Muslim life to say sallallahu alaihi was sallam (may peace and blessing of Allah be upon him) whenever a mention of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) is made. When Allah is mentioned it is usual to glorify him (subhanu wa ta’ala). To glorify the Prophet (peace upon him) as done to Allah is abominable and that is exactly what Badaru did. Even if the mistake was made in the speech he was reading, as I would like to believe, it is expected that given his status, His Excellency the Governor should have corrected it. But it is not too late. Allah is forgiving and merciful for those who seek his forgiveness. As for those of us who always politicize the mistakes of others it is better to desist and seek corrective approach. For if APC benefitted from the mistakes of Namadi Sambo, it is now the turn of PDP to use Badaru’s lapse to achieve what politicians want achieve. But what do they achieve?

Southern Zaria: Why CAN should beg for peace

The history of Northern Nigeria has left it with two distinct groups of people who are living in anything but love and harmony. Of the nineteen Northern states, Muslims outnumber the Christians in 16, with Christians having the majority in Plateau and Benue states. The two religious groups fare almost equally in Taraba state. Of the 19 elected governors in the North, 16 are Muslims representing 84.2 % while three are Christians representing 15.8 % in the North and 8 % nationwide. In the North Central geopolitical zones where they nicknamed the middle belt, there are more Muslims than Christians. Four of the six elected governors in the North Central geopolitical zone are Muslims with the other two being Christians. The meaning of these figures is that Northern Christians are a very small minority compared to their Northern Muslim compatriots. Their number is even much smaller when the country is considered as a whole.

Despite their small number, Northern Christians have taken a centre stage in any Government whether it is headed by a Muslim or Christian, Southerner or Northerner. This is not by accident. It is well calculated and managed to fruition by those who benefit from the Northern Christian project. Over the past several decades, this cabal has devised several methods of sustaining their relevance. One of them is religious crises. From the mid 1980s when the Kafanchan crisis took place, thousands of lives and property worth billions of Naira have been lost, no thanks to this group of people who preach the message of hatred to their followers. An average ordinary Christian in the North has been made to believe that his number one enemies are the Hausa/Fulani who enslaved his great grandparents and still marginalize his people and must therefore be totally eliminated from areas considered to belong to the Christian minority. Their definition of Hausa/Fulani itself is dubious. One would be surprised that Kanuri, Nupe, Egbirra and other tribes with predominant Muslim members are also referred to as Hausa/Fulani when it is convenient to do so. This is why whenever the so-called minorities strike in their areas of dominance no Muslim, not even when he belongs to their own tribe is spared. This way several Muslim communities have been wiped out in Kaduna, Plateau, Bauchi, Taraba and other places. What follows such crises is usually setting up reconciliation committees and/or probe panels with equal number of Muslims and Christians, which is precisely what the perpetrators want - recognition.

To understand the mindset of the people of southern Kaduna state, one has to hear from a person like me who was born and brought up in the former Kaduna state and who thus lived, schooled and interacted with the people popularly called ‘southern zaria’.  Yes, southern Zaria because they belonged to the Zaria emirate until chiefdoms were created for them by Makarfi administration as a way of cajoling them to stop their regular attacks on the people they consider settlers in their midst. The attacks were many. They started in Kafancan in 1987 and continued in Zangon Kataf I, Zangon Kataf II, Kachia, Kafanchan II, etc. The attacks and their aftermath have a regular pattern. The southern Zarians who live in the bush would attack a Muslim community, in most cases displacing the whole community destroying property, mosques and killing hundreds; there will follow minor reactions from the major cities of Kaduna and Zaria characterized by burning churches and beating up Christians. Thereafter police and Army will be deployed to deal with and arrest religious ‘fanatics’. Muslims will thus end up being the victims and the culprits at the same time. Kaduna state governors from Abubakar Dangiwa Umar have always set up panels of enquiry to investigate ‘the remote and immediate causes’ of the crisis but no one was ever punished. The reason is clear. The criminals are highly placed and untouchable Christians with the support of Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), anti-Islamic press and all manners of human right hypocrites.

Like the popular Almutanabbi saying goes, innaka in akramtal karima malaktahu, wa in anta akramtal la’ima tamarrada’, that is “if you honour an honourable person you win him, but if you honour the dishonourable they become arrogant”. Makarfi overtures did not win the hearts of southern Zarians. Rather they saw it as a result of their violence and were thus encouraged to do more. For example, it was after they were given chiefdoms and key appointments in Government that they killed over a thousand Muslims in the name of post-election violence. The number of Muslims killed on one day in Zonkwa after the 2011 elections is more than the total number of people killed in Maidugri township by Boko Haram in that year. Yet, no one was arrested even though the killers could be identified in the pictures widely circulated on social media.

One of the biggest mistakes Northern Christians made is coining the term Hausa/Fulani to refer to the same person. All along their victims have been the Hausas, but because they believe that they are the same with Fulani they expect the same reaction from the latter as they have been getting from the former. The Hausa man is soft, accommodating and forgiving. The Hausas so easily forgive and forget that one can mistake them for fools. The Fulani are no fools. You can never get away with the blood of a Fulani man unless there are no other Fulanis around. While the Fulani may be encroaching upon farmlands and rustling animals, their presence has been a blessing in disguise for other Muslims in this part of the country. For example, they have so accurately checked the excesses of Biroms that the erstwhile killers of ‘Hausa/Fulani’ are now negotiating for peace.

My advice for the people of southern Zaria, other Northern Christians and indeed the Christian Association of Nigeria is to toe the line, apologize for what they did in the past and ask for peace. This will save them from more embarrassment and save lives and property. No one has monopoly of violence.