BY CHRIS GYANG



And ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free (John 8:32)



 In 2015, the Global Terrorism Index (GTI) rated Nigeria’s Fulani herdsmen as the fourth deadliest terror group in the world. These are the vicious Fulani herdsmen who have murdered thousands of innocent farmers, pillaged and taken over huge territories in the Middle Belt and other parts of the country. But between 2015 and today, Nigeria’s terrorism dynamics have morphed considerably. 


For instance, another jihadi outfit, Islamic State in West African Province (ISWAP), has joined the fray, almost pushing Boko Haram to the fringes of the insurgency in North-Eastern Nigeria.  Also, arrays of well-armed outlaws have since carved out their own empire in North-Western Nigeria where they routinely kill, maim, rape and abduct school children for ransom. 

The ones in the North-West have been variously described by Nigeria’s security networks and government officials as ‘armed bandits’, ‘kidnappers’ and ‘unknown gunmen’. These are the same generic labels Nigeria’s Federal Government and their lackeys have continued to attach to the Fulani herdsmen GTI indicted so as to water down their apparent brutal and expansionist propensities.


The Buhari government has refused to accept the fact that it is Fulani herdsmen that have been terrorizing the North-West, Plateau State, Southern Kaduna and other parts of Nigeria and mete out appropriate punishment to them. This has become one of the driving forces behind the ever surging waves of terror and other bloody acts of criminality all over the country. 


But on September 6, Governor Aminu Masari of Katsina State took the bull by the horns and gave the lie to most of the Buhari government’s untruths about the matter. In an interview on Channels Television’s Politics Today, he made this revelation which sent shock waves throughout Nigeria:


“Majority of those involved in this banditry are Fulanis whether it is palatable or it is not palatable but that is the truth. I am not saying 100% of them are Fulani but majority of them are, and these are the people who live in the forest and their main occupation is rearing of cattle.”


And regarding the true identities of the so-called bandits also terrorizing other parts of the country, especially the Middle Belt, the governor declared: “They are the same [Fulani] people like me, who speak the same language like me, who profess the same religious beliefs [Islam] like me.


“So, what we have here on ground are bandits; they are not aliens, they are people that have been living with us for 100 years. The infiltration we have from some West African countries and North African countries are also people of Fulani extraction.”


Recall that, on December 12, 2019, President Buhari tweeted: “Nigeria is committed to supporting the free movement of Africans within Africa. Yesterday at the Aswam Forum in Egypt I announced that, in January 2020, we will commence issuance of visas at the point of entry into Nigeria, to all persons holding passports of African countries.” At the time, it appeared innocuous. 


But security experts and African affairs analysts say that that single move by President Buhari considerably exacerbated the already teneous security situation in the country as it opened the country to foreigners, especially dubious Fulani herdsmen from the Sahel and beyond. 


The BBC reported that while Mr. Buhari was making a show of opening up Nigeria, the continent’s most advanced economy, South Africa, was planning to create a new Border Management Authority “to curb the entry of undocumented migrants.” Critics say it was a deliberate policy by the Buhari administration to give the Fulani from other parts of the continent unhindered entry to Nigeria in furtherance the Fulanisation agenda. 


That said, the implications of Governor Masari’s confessions are two-fold. First, he confirmed the widespread assertions by victims that it is indeed Fulani herdsmen that have been unleashing a reign of terror on all other Nigerians for close to two decades now. This corroborates GTI’s 2015 assessment. 


Second, those faceless, bloodthirsty marauders that the Buhari government and their hangers-on such as Governor Lalong of Plateau State want the world to believe are ‘unknown gunmen’, ‘bandits’, ‘miscreants’, ‘common criminals’ and ‘kidnappers’ are also Fulani herdsmen. Indeed, Governor Masari has rattled the Northern Establishment and its co-travellers.


According to Amnesty International, these so-called Fulanis killed over 1,100 people in Northern Nigeria between January and July 2020. Not less than 380 people, mostly women and children, were also abducted for ransom during attacks in Katsina, Kaduna, Niger, Nasarawa and Zamfara states.


At last, those who have willfully subjected Nigerians to the gruesome irredentism of Fulani herdsmen and their militia, especially during this horrific six-year reign of their kinsman, President Buhari, are now coming round to accepting culpability. They are now reaping the sour fruits of their sinister plot to subject other Nigerian nationalities to the kind of stifling hegemony they have effectively imposed on Northern Nigeria’s Hausa populations since Danfodio’s 1804 jihad. 


But even Governor el-Rufai of Kaduna State, the poster boy of the Buhari administration, once conceded that it is Fulani herdsmen that have been on a killing spree in Southern Kaduna, the Middle Belt and southern Nigeria.


As early as 2016, he revealed that he had paid Fulani herdsmen handsome compensations to stop their orgy of violence against the mainly Christian Southern Kaduna communities (but these have continued till today). He told journalists that state agents had travelled to some neighbouring countries to make these payments. “As recently as two weeks ago, the team went to Niger Republic to attend one Fulani gathering that they hold every year with a message from me,” he disclosed. 


Does this ring a bell about the threat Sheikh Dahiru Bauchi made in August that if the Plateau State Government does not pay compensation for the killing of 22 Fulani men in Rukuba Road, Jos, there would be terrible repercussions? Anyway, this should be a discussion for another day.


However, nemesis is now catching up with the core North. Of course, it was very clear that, sooner or later, the obnoxious bubble would burst because no plan hatched with nefarious intentions can stand the strain of time. The monster they unleashed on other non-Fulani Nigerians is now threatening to consume them. The hunter has become the hunted. 


The core North’s hypocrisy, duplicity and double standards about the origins, true nature and intentions of the Fulani herdsmen’s attacks and other forms of unbridled violence, kidnapping of school children for ransom, etc, that have spiraled and underpinned the last six years of the Buhari administration are now being exposed.

 

 Governor Aminu Masari is not the usual run of the mill politician who would go out of his way to court publicity. In fact, his personal comportment belies his admirable political pedigree and current standing. Having served as the Speaker of Nigeria’s House of Representatives (2003 – 2007) and is now in his second term as governor, he can be said to be among the core North’s political elite.


As we shall soon see, he has had a first-hand experience of the atrocities and wiles of these Fulani herdsmen who have made life for the citizens of his state a living hell. Observers believe that it is the frustrations he has suffered in his bid to rein in these villainous Fulani herdsmen that finally pushed him into making these true revelations.    


On August 23, two members of the Katsina State House of Assembly (Haruna Goma and Abubakar Mohammed) openly wept during plenary over the surge in insecurity all over their state. The PUNCH newspaper reported: “Also, the lawmaker representing Katsina constituency said the insecurity challenge was beyond imagination, as about 32 out of the 34 LGAs in the state were now affected, adding that even within Katsina metropolis [the state capital], people were being kidnapped.” 


But in an interview on Intercontinental Television (TVC) in early April, Governor Masari had declared that President Buhari had delivered on his campaign promises (one of which was to curb spiraling nationwide insecurity). This, according to him, was despite the “rubbish” some Nigerians were heaping on Mr. Buhari - an indigene of his state. 


At the time, the governor’s political correctness was boundless. Hear him: “I think APC is still the strongest, most reliable and dependable party in Nigeria. I don’t think Buhari has failed us. I think he has tolerated us.”  The Cable, which carried this story, reported that in 2020 alone, not less than 3,326 Nigerians had been killed in criminal attacks. 


The governor’s sweet platitudes were in tandem with the prevailing, misleading, narratives, emanating from the core North and the ruling APC. They sought to at once cover up the severity of the insecurity threatening the very existence of the country and hide the identities of the real culprits and their motives. 

 

TO BE CONCLUDED