37 Herdsmen Bombed, Farmers Killed: Rather Than Play To The Gallery, Sanusi Should Meet Mutfwang To Address Issues
The Oasis Reporters
June 17, 2023
By Greg Abolo
@gregabolo
@Theoasisreport1
The news that easily pops out with certain regularity from northern Nigeria hardly ever go beyond unbridled ethnic identity killings, revenge attacks and more vengeance with their champions or leaders posturing to appear more angered or more injured and it seems it is more of self relevance and self advancement.
Meanwhile, the ordinary people suffer more deaths and more destructions while problems remain basically unsolved and unresolved and this is so sad.
In the politics of it, television viewers watched the postulations of former Emir of Kano who is also a former Central Bank of Nigeria governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi on AriseTV.
Perhaps dreading a scenario of sliding into irrelevance, he pops up at Aso Rock to visit, according to him, his old friend President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to thank him for implementing the petroleum subsidy removal which he had always spoken on and so on and so on.
In order to connect with as many constituencies as possible, he announces that he also came to plead with the president to revisit the issue of his tribal herdsmen, 37 of them who were bombed by the country’s air force under his kinsman, former president Muhammadu Buhari who equally doubled as the country’s Commander-in-Chief.
In other words, what Sanusi is impressing on Nigerians is that while a Fulani General was the Country’s Commander-in-Chief leading a largely seen as Fulanis led security, the Air Force was also bombing and killing fellow Fulanis and he wants a president of Yoruba extraction to avenge the killing, allegedly done under a Fulani leadership.
So slick.
Meanwhile, his tribe has leaders. But he an ex-tribal leader, is the one speaking up.
I came to appeal to President Bola Tinubu on the case of the 37 Herdsmen who were bombed by the Nigerian Airforce in Nasarawa few months ago. It's a case we do not want to forget and he (Tinubu) promised to look into the matter – Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, Former Emir of Kano pic.twitter.com/glqMo3BEvV
— ARISE NEWS (@ARISEtv) June 16, 2023
Before you ask what his real mission is, hear the new governor of Plateau State, Barrister Caleb Mutfwang in a tweet:
“Concerning the killings of innocent people and the fresh attacks on communities on the Plateau, I convened with the heads of security agencies for them to carry out their constitutional responsibility of protecting and securing lives in rural communities in the state.
I buttressed for security to be deployed to areas where there is little or no security presence.
Those who have been arrested in connection with the killings and looting would be prosecuted and will be charged to court as soon as investigations are over.
Concerning the killings of innocent people and the fresh attacks on communities on the Plateau, I convened with the heads of security agencies for them to carry out their constitutional responsibility of protecting and securing lives in rural communities in the state.
— Caleb Mutfwang (@CalebMutfwang) June 15, 2023
I… pic.twitter.com/9F1sofHUeE
When you dig further, you’d discover that the killings in Plateau are more often than not, believed to be carried out by ethnic Fulani herdsmen militias who make no bones about spreading their killing exploits on social media videos, boastfully asserting what they do and what they did.
Then angry farmers would pounce on innocent Fulani communities in revenge attacks.
Furthermore, you’d discover that the Plateau people are predominantly agrarian and Christian, while the itinerant herders are nomadic and Muslim. The two different groups who are always at each other’s throats hardly find common ground to meet.
That is the underlying reason behind the endless crises in northern Nigeria. Rather than talk with each to resolve common issues on mutual coexistence, they look for more ways to outsmart each other and equally kill each other in morbid propensities that defy reason.
Cows eat grass. Farmers plant crops that cows may think is grass extension, and when the battles start, they push themselves into regressive poverty.
Sadly, you never hear of progress in the herdsmen business. You don’t find tinned or powdered milk wholly produced by the Fulani. But in the Netherlands, they make billions of dollars every year from dairy through the about 5 million cows that they rear and there are no clashes between crop farmers and herders.
Plateau State for instance grows an enormous amount of crops from Irish potatoes to tomatoes etc, yet you don’t have naira millionaire farmers as you’d find lettuce or cabbage billionaires in dollars in Canada.
So what’s really wrong with Nigerian herders and farmers ?
I humbly suggest that Sanusi Lamido, to represent Fulani who are largely herders, should meet Caleb Mutfwang , to represent the indigenous Middle belt farmers, either in Jos or in Abuja. Not Tinubu. The two of them can brainstorm and find common ground for mutually assured dialogue, not mutually assured destruction.
Greg Abolo
gregabolo@gmail.com
