Undoubtedly, a major is sue that dominated discussion in the country this week is the unending herdsmen’s onslaught across the country. Many people proffered solutions or rather, reechoed some already existing suggestions on how to bring an end to the problem.
While the Northern Governors Forum routed for a ban on open grazing, Nigeria in general and urged cattle herders to adopt modern practise of animal rearing, the nation’s lawmakers called on President Muhammadu Buhari to rejig the security architecture of the country by taking more decisive steps to curb insecurity in the country, urging the new security chiefs to take more drastic actions to bring an end to the menace in the country.
To many Nigerians, these are very old songs that have been heard over and over again. We will soon not be able to count the number of times such ban will be pronounced either by the National Executive Council or the state governors under various umbrellas, yet cows are daily seen everywhere – on peoples’ farms, on the streets, and even on major highways causing havoc; yet some of the herders who have metamorphosed into bandits have continued to kidnap people for ransom, rape women and kill innocent citizens unabated, among other crimes.
Today is not a day to dwell so much on the governors and their obsolete declarations without back-up actions. I want to focus on solutions recently proffered by a respected Muslim cleric, Sheikh Ahmed Gumi. The cleric who claims he has been voluntarily visiting the bandits in different locations across the northern part of the country, as his own contribution to solving the insecurity problem in the country, has been canvassing for amnesty for the criminal Fulani herdsmen.
Speaking on a national radio station on Wednesday, he called for dialogue, rehabilitation of the herders for there to be peace in the country. According to him, the herders are aggrieved by the way they are being treated by the government and other members of the Nigerian society, hence they resorted to banditry as a way of fighting the government.
Hear him: “They have genuine complaints. They feel oppressed by the government and the people in the society. They don’t have uniformed leadership, they don’t have lawyers, they don’t have people to speak for them, and they don’t have means of explaining their grievances to the people. Many Fulanis are killed in the bushes, nobody to speak for them. They use the money they make from kidnapping to buy weapons to fight the Nigerian government.”
Sheikh Gumi, who confirmed the speculations that some of the bandits are foreigners, decried the lack of amenities like water, hospitals and schools in the bushes they choose to reside. He suggested that the bandits be incorporated into the country’s security system, that they be placed on salaries, warning that “if Nigerians do not want this type of thing, Nigerians should be ready to be kidnapped.”
Listening to the interview increased my worries about the hope for a better Nigeria where the citizens will be free to use the roads, go to their farms without being raped, maimed or killed, where people of different ethnic groups and religion will coexist in unity and love. Yes, we cannot fail to appreciate the cleric’s show of patriotism. Often, we are told that security is everybody’s business that the government cannot do it alone and he has exemplified it by embarking on such a risky venture for the sake of security in the country.
However, much as I try, it is difficult to understand why a renowned cleric like Gumi should be asking that criminals who have wasted and are still wasting harmless peoples’ lives, depriving people of their money and other means of livelihood, who violate our women, among other atrocities, should be patted at the back, settled, empowered and be paid salaries. Neither is it possible to fathom how some terrorists who even the federal government admitted are non-Nigerians will be conscripted into our security agencies. Does it mean Nigeria is no longer a sovereign nation such that any group can build their own nation inside our nation with their own ideologies and be giving conditions for peace in the country?
On the issue of being neglected and oppressed, if one may ask, please who relegated the nomadic Fulanis to the bush? We have seen educated and enlightened people of the same ethnic origin come on air to defend their nomadic nature. Just a few weeks ago, the Governor of Ondo State, Rotimi Akeredolu, issued a seven-day ultimatum to herders to vacate the state’s forest reserves and that became a big issue. Many ethnic groups across the country have asked them to leave the forests to towns as their cattle rearing business causes a colossal damage to their farming business and that was seen as a threat.
On the issue of education, in 1989, the National Commission for Nomadic Education was established by Decree 41 0f 1989 (now Cap 243 LFN 1990) to provide education to the nomadic pastoralists and migrant fisher folks, with the aim of providing functional and relevant education that will facilitate integrating the nomads into the national life and equip them to make favourable contributions to the nation’s socio–economic development. How many nomads have taken advantage of that? Shouldn’t the Sheikh and his likes be educating and sensitizing the nomads to get educated through this means or make moves to make the commission function optimally if there is a problem in that regard?
Bad governance at various levels is a problem being faced by many Nigerians. What then happens if all aggrieved persons and groups decide to take up arms against the government? The Niger Delta militants that were granted amnesty in the pass had genuine reasons for their agitation. On the other hand, the bandits are criminal elements who deserve to be arrested and dealt with in accordance with the laws of the land if the security agencies would work in the interest of the country and its citizens instead of seeing the insecurity situation in the country as an opportunity to enrich themselves.

By: Calista Ezeaku