No To Fulani Radio

In what appears to be an arrogant and flagrant disregard to the furore generated by the N100 billion it gave the Miyetti Allah to boost its operation, the Federal Government hinted, penultimate Wednesday, that it had acquired an Amplitude Modulation broadcast radio licence for herdsmen as part of efforts to end perennial farmers-herders’ clashes.
The immediate past Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, who divulged this at a media parley stated that the radio station which will broadcast in Fulfulde language, mainly spoken by the Fulanis, will serve as a vehicle for social mobilisation and education, in addition to interactive radio instruction methodology that will be adopted to reach the very hard-to-reach segment of the target population.
Adds Adamu: “It will enhance our capacity to address crisis between herders and farmers with attendant consequences to loss of lives, destruction of productive assets, nomadic schools, facilities, teaching and learning resources”.
Expectedly, the action has heated up the polity with many describing it as a confirmation of the allegation by former President Olusegun Obasanjo – which was also corroborated by Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka, about the planned Fulanisation of the country by the Muhammadu Buhari-led Federal Government.
Both the Southern and Middle Belt Leaders Forum (SMBLF) and the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) have faulted the Federal Government’s purported approach to the resolution of the herdsmen-farmers crisis.
Wondering why the Federal Government could not reach out to herdsmen through the existing radio stations, CAN, through its spokesman, Pastor Bayo Oladeji, accused it of pampering the Fulani herdsmen described by the Global Terrorism Index as one of the deadliest terrorist groups in the world.
The apex Christian body had sought answers to many questions which The Tide agrees no less: Why didn’t they set up a radio station for farmers too? Where is the radio station for the bandits in Zamfara, or for the Niger Delta militants? And against the backdrop of the non-prosecution of persons for the killings in the North Central, is Obasanjo’s allegation of a planned Fulanisation of the country not playing out?
Even as the Jama’atu Nasril Islam (JNI) led by the Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Sa’ad Abubakar III, and the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) have striven assiduously but unsuccessfully to rationalise the Federal Government’s action with their obviously warped argument that it is in the interest of peaceful existence and unity, the SMBLF, on its part, said the setting up of the radio station smacked of hypocrisy and deception by a government that had in the last four years denied responsibility on behalf of the Fulani herdsmen for crimes the herdsmen even owned up to.
Indeed, if hypocrisy and deception are not intended, why did the Federal Government decide to promote a language most Northerners do not even understand? Why did it not set up radio stations for the officially recognised languages and the over 250 languages spoken in different parts of Nigeria?
The Tide sees this move as a serious indictment on the All Progressives Congress (APC)-led Federal Government which has taken Buhari’s nauseating clannishness too far. This is even more so as the announcement came at a time it is acting as the information wing of the terrorist Fulani herdsmen and Boko Haram sect which have, ipso facto, been given a huge sense of security.
While we agree that radio, like other media of mass communication, can engender peace, unity and development, especially in a multi-lingual and multi-ethnic society, it can also be manipulated to become, as in this case, a dangerous weapon of spreading hate propaganda against other nationalities in Nigeria given the way and manner the Buhari government has handled the killings of thousands of Nigerians by Fulani herdsmen and Islamist terrorists.
Following the death of 4,940 Nigerians in terrorist acts in 2016; 1,832 in 2017 and 1,532 in 2018, the 2018 Global Terrorism Index stated that Nigeria is the third most terrorised country in the world (after Iraq and Afghanistan). And only recently, the Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed Adamu, hinted that 1,075 Nigerians were killed by criminals and 685 kidnapped in the first quarter of 2019. For a country not at war with another country, this is a high casualty rate that gives cause for worry as every Nigerian is a potential victim. Broadcast media, being the fastest means of communication and one of the busiest crossroads in the appraisal of human behaviour, could be used by terrorists to unleash mayhem on innocent citizens.
Thus, the Fulani Radio idea, coming just as Buhari assumes his second term in office, would only serve to advance the frontiers of the Fulani irredentism which, of course, would be fatal to the much-needed cohesion and peace of the Nigerian nation.