By Emmanuel Onwubiko
Two years ago or slightly less than that period, I
penned a lengthy article about the rise and rise of the Nigerian outlaws just
as the centerpiece of the reflection was on how the terrorists that most
Nigerians know have come to become so influential to an extent that the two men
employed and paid with our money by president Muhammadu Buhari as his spokesmen
number one and two, have suddenly switched allegiance from Nigerian
constitution to defend this notorious group known as Miyetti Allah cattle
owners association.
This bunch of outlaws purportedly have given themselves
the task of always providing media justifications for all the deadly attacks
against local land owners and farmers all across Nigeria by armed Fulani
herdsmen.
I think the investments in such a large scale that would
have been made by the office of the president have managed to deflate media
outcry against the activities of the armed Fulani herdsmen. The media no longer
give outrageous coverages to the deadly activities of armed Fulani herdsmen.
It would seem that the media investments by the office
of the Nigerian president towards cleaning up the image of the umbrella
association that supports activities of armed Fulani herdsmen has succeeded in
changing the negative narrative to an extent that the media now reports that
there are conflicts between farmers and pastoralists when the exact opposite is
the case that the armed Fulani herdsmen are the aggressors who have attacked
farms in all parts of Nigeria and in some cases like in Plateau and Benue
states have reportedly taken over ancestral villages from the owners who have
been chased away to wallow in the derelict shanties called internally displaced
persons camps. Shocking to the married too is that the media owners who are
mostly Southerners have chosen profits through bribes for propaganda in
preference to allowing unfettered access of the media by independent views on
the violence going on in Nigeria.
Apart from the switch of media narratives to curry
bribery induced favours for armed Fulani herdsmen because of the seemingly
generous funding of a media propaganda, the central government has for two
years sought by hook or crook to force down the throats of other Nigerians the
one sided financial settlement of the Fulani herdsmen in the name of Ruga
settlements.
When government in Abuja found out that outside of the
core North West states, Ruga settlements for Fulani herdsmen has been rejected
outright in the whole South and North central, this same government stepped
back and has redesigned another clever financial compensation for Fulani’s
called National livestocks transformation plan.
So far, president Buhari has managed to railroad the
governors to approve #100 billion towards the implementation of this deceptive
financial compensation for Fulani’s.
National Economic Council met few hours back and
approved a budget of #100 billion for the implementation of the National
livestock transformation plan which is the baptismal name of Ruga settlements
for Fulani’s.
The proposal was submitted on Thursday to the National
Economic Council by its Sub-Committee on Farmers/Herders’ crisis.
The NEC meeting was presided over by Vice-President Yemi
Osinbajo at the Presidential Villa, Abuja. Mind you the VP has just lost out of
the ferocious power play in Aso Rock with the stripping of a lot of powers by
the cabal.
As we learnt from media reports, the Chairman of the
sub-committee and Governor of Ebonyi State, Mr Dave Umahi, made the
presentation to NEC in what is clearly a choreographed plot from above.
Umahi explained that contrary to the widely held belief,
the NLTP was not about cows alone but had three planks, including care for
persons displaced by farmers/herders’ crisis and education programmes. This is
not true. The name of the project for which N100 billion is voted to be used is
called NATIONAL LIVESTOCK TRANSFORMATION PLAN. Where then did government
mention the farmers victimized by armed Fulani herdsmen? Why this illiterate
deception?
Also, we were told that states are free to use any
animals of their choice in implementing the programme. Why is government all
out for livestock whereas other professional groups including crop farmers are
left behind? This is a sinister agenda for Fulani interests and no more.
We refuse to accept this half-baked attempt to confuse
us clearly seen from what the governor said that the committee proposed that
the Federal Government would bear 80 per cent of the N100bn, while
participating states would support with the balance of N20bn and land for the
programme.
He added that the programme remained voluntary and would
accommodate only states that expressed participation interest.
However, there is no effective take-off date yet as the
proposed N100bn will still be reviewed by the next meeting October before a
date is decided. Now here is what the central government and their
zombies from the States are hiding.
The hidden fact is that the #100 billion was the same
compensation package that the immediate past interior minister General
Abdulralman Dan-Bazau accompanied by the Inspector General of police and other
Northern Moslems heading all the internal security platforms met some
representatives of armed Fulani bandits in Zamfara few Months back just before
the last general election and promised them to stop the killings so government
can give them this package.
But as soon as information filtered out that there was a
plan to bribe armed Fulani bandits as reportedly agreed at a secret meeting in
Zamfara, all the major characters who are all Northern Moslems came out to
deny. Now the truth has come out even though they cleverly redesigned these
bribes to Fulani to look like the beneficiaries are not only Fulani’s as
erroneously propagated by Ebonyi state governor after the central government
presented the budget proposal.
But Nigerians must not accept to be deceived.
What is at play is a carefully packaged compensations to
be paid to armed Fulani herdsmen responsible for mass killings, the type that
made global rating agencies to say expertly that armed Fulani herdsmen are the
third most dangerous terrorists in the world.
One thing has however come out of all the rigmarole by
the current central government in its attempts to deceive Nigerians. There is
something that looks like a coincidence that the #100 billion budget for the
re-baptized Ruga programme for Fulani’s is coming exactly when both some
Northern governors and the IGP are all in a negotiation with armed Fulani
bandits.
Nigerians need to note that what they call armed bandits
in Zamfara, Sokoto, Katsina, Niger and other Northern states is not different
fundamentally from armed Fulani herdsmen just as Miyetti Allah that has
increasingly become influential is the umbrella association for all of these
actors within and without government.
There is now a barrage of coordinated media propaganda
from a multidimensional arrangement within the central government and its
allies to try to confuse Nigerians by seeking to provide any kind of
justification for the sickening sessions of dialogues with armed bandits and
the settlements for armed Fulani herdsmen known as Ruga but now changed to the
so-called National livestock transformation plan which the government will
divert Nigeria’s fund totaling #100 billion to execute a discriminatory
programme for Fulani’s which offends section 42 of the constitution.
That section states thus: “(1) A
citizen of Nigeria of a particular community, ethnic group, place of origin,
sex, religion or political opinion shall not, by reason only that he is such a
person:- (a) be subjected either expressly by, or in the practical application
of, any law in force in Nigeria or any executive or administrative action of
the government, to disabilities or restrictions to which citizens of Nigeria of
other communities, ethnic groups, places of origin, sex, religions or political
opinions are not made subject; or (b) be accorded either expressly by, or in
the practical application of, any law in force in
Nigeria or any such executive or
administrative action, any privilege or advantage that is not accorded to
citizens of Nigeria of other communities, ethnic groups, places of origin, sex,
religions or political opinions.
(2) No citizen of Nigeria shall be
subjected to any disability or deprivation merely by reason of the
circumstances of his birth.”
Also, the Northern governors and IGP are engaged in
ferocious media spins seeking to justify these illegalities. The Inspector
General of police perhaps sounded so crude when he abused, defecates and
jettisons the constitution by saying it was right to dialogue with armed
bandits who have blood in their hands.
The IGP unabashedly stated as follows: Inspector-general
of Police (IGP) Mohammed Adamu has defended the authorities in the North East
for dialoguing with bandits who had killed many people and destroyed
properties.
Briefing State House correspondents after a security
meeting presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa,
Abuja, the police boss said dialogue and negotiation were used by the late
President Umaru Yar’Adua to address militancy in the Niger Delta, a development
which he said resulted in the amnesty programme for repented militants.
He believes that the strategy will also bring out peace
and security in the North.
According to Adamu, the security situation in the
country has improved since the dialogue started.
He explained that the deployment of kinetic action
sometimes does not solve a problem, but negotiation and dialogue.
“When we are talking about peace initiative, there are a
lot of things that we take into consideration. You give out something to get
something.
“If you remember, some years back, we were having issues
in the Niger Delta, which kinetic actions could not solve until amnesty and
peace initiative came up.
“So, I think in the strategy to deal with challenges in
terms of either security or war, there is peaceful negotiation. It is not that
you are a bandit and on the course of the banditry you committed crime you must
be punished when there is peace initiative going on. If you refused to accept
the peace initiative, of course, you have to face the consequences,” he said.
On why he likened Niger Delta militancy with the
killings by bandits in the North West, he said, “It is not comparison per se,
but an example of how negotiation and dialogue can bring peace.
“Even in terms of war, you go into dialogue to achieve
certain level of peace. So, if dialogue can bring peace, why do you have to use
force? That is what I am trying to say.”
But let me tell the IGP the home truth that armed
bandits are criminals and mass murderers and not freedom fighters. If I may ask
this IGP, what CAUSE are the armed Fulani bandits and kidnappers fighting for
that they now have killed hundreds of innocent people in those states? This is
the darkest period of our national life. But I hope that Nigerians will wake up
and retake their nation before we are all enslaved.
*Emmanuel Onwubiko heads Human Rights Writers
Association of Nigeria (HURIWA)
and blogs@www.huriwa.blogspot.
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