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By Juliana Taiwo-Obalonye
Governor of Ebony State and Chairman of the South East Governors Forum David Umahi, featured on the Presidential Ministerial Press Briefing organized by the Presidential Communications Team at the presidential villa, Abuja.
He spoke on the implications the burning of INEC offices, police stations in the south East region will have on the Igbo Presidency come 2023 and why the Southeast will not back down on the ban of open grazing.
He spoke on these and several other issues affecting the region.
Excepts:
How did you come to the conclusion that the clashes between the herders and farmers are orchestrated by foreign herders?
Let me start with security at the level of South East. The security situation in the South East is a mixture of realities, fake news and war propaganda. But do we have insecurity in the South East? Yes we do. And when we look at the IPOB in total isolation, the issue of agitation started with Uwazuruike and of course, even before Uwazuruike our late Odimegwu Ojukwu, war was fought in this regard and it was declared at the level of national governments of no Victor, no vanguish. I think after some years, Uwazuruike came up with MASSOB and started with a couple of agitations and the key background of this agitation, has always been marginalization of the South East, which I hate to say in specific terms are the national civil service where the South East people are not promoted like their counterparts from other regions. Where development is not happening in South East, where appointments are skewed against South East. And it must be on record that Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of IPOB was a member of that MASSOB, I think he was the second in command.
But let me place it on record, that MASSOB was there during the regime of Obasanjo and shortly before the end of the regime, Kanu pulled out and formed his own IPOB. IPOB was there during the time of Jonathan. And then they expanded their demands. I had intervened by way of holding meeting personally with Kanu in my state and intervened by way of holding meeting with all the commanders and that was before the altercation they had with Kanu at Abia State and we were going to find solutions before things escalated. Now, the Eastern Security Network (ESN) is also a product of IPOB, you can see how these things are being multiplied but the point remains that from the onset of MASSOB, the then government did not address the matters properly because when your children cry for any reason, you have to find out what is the problem, what are the reasons and you fix it. I think those people were so badly ignored and that shouldn’t have been. And so, what is happening today with regard to IPOB South East is not a product of this government per se, but it is a product of a national governments that didn’t address the matters from the outset.
And ESN is also a child of necessity, how? We have been living with herders for hundreds of years with minor misunderstandings, you spoil my farm you pay some compensation, I kill your cow I pay compensation, nobody was hearing all that, it was an in-house thing. But with the crisis in Libya, and some other West African countries, and the foreign herders with AK 47 infiltrated the entire country and so, you begin to see the foreign herders killing our farmers, raping our farmers. And these foreigne herders are in the forests, beyond the control of any state governments and security agencies. And suddenly, the IPOB said look we have formed Eastern Security Network to protect the farmers.
Unfortunately, their abode is in the forest; the abode of the herders is also in the forest, and so what do we expect? A very high level of insecurity within such locations. And so, the situation in the South East right now is a situation in which non violent approach of IPOB at the beginning has been hijacked by bandits, by cultists, by criminals.
Why do I say this? A lot of violence that happen in South East now, the IPOB people will come and say we are not violent, we are not the people killing the security agencies, if you get any of such you have to decisively deal with such people. So it’s very confusing. Who and who are behind this insecurity in South East. What I will not deceive myself is to agree with anybody to say that foreign mercenaries have infiltrated southeast. It’s war propaganda. We are the ones killing ourselves, we are the ones burning down our police stations. And so we don’t deceive ourselves if we want the problem to be solved.
Are there rightful agitations? Yes. Has it turned violent? Yes, it’s been hijacked and that is the truth about the situation in South East today. And so, the governors of South East appear to be unpopular with a very small section of the South East. Why? Because we refuse to toe their own way of doing things and their way of doing things is war, and we don’t want to secede, we want to belong to Nigeria, a fair Nigeria where justice, equity and freedom, are the platform upon which we exist as the people, and for each of the regions.
And so, we don’t want the herders to be killed, because we also have our people scattered in all the regions and we don’t want the herders to violate the cultural values and laws of the land. So it is peace that the South East governors have been preaching.
And Ebubeagu that is frightening some people, especially politicians in South East is nothing but a translation of our vigilante which we have always had and which is backed up by law. But Ebubeagu is a kind of regional security cooperation, it is a change of name. My state we have signed our Ebubeagu into law and it has come to stay. And it is to protect the people once you are not a criminal you are safe in my state but no matter whate name you bear whether you are banned or unbanned and you are causing trouble in South East, Ebubeagu will address that together with security agencies.
“And so, I have offered along with governors to our youths, present to your demands in prints and hand over to us. There’s no region in this country today, that do not have one thing or the other against the federal government. But we cannot sit down to discuss and that’s what we are demanding from our youth whether banned or unbanned so far you’re from South East. Let us see your demands, let us see your grievances and give us six months to engage the federal government to address all these because I believe in dialogue. I believe that we can sit down as people to discuss and find our differences, and we can learn differences and also we can together discuss how we can strengthen our operation as a people.
How did we come to the conclusion that the clashes between the herders and farmers are orchestrated by foreign herders?
I did say here that we had herders in our communities dating over 100 years back. We have always had minor clashes with village heads in those days but that suddenly it could be because of failure of Libya and also crisis in other west African countries, the herders that have been trained violently with AK 47 began to infiltrate into Nigeria via the south East, north section. And so these are the people that now initiated a different dimension of herders, farmers crisis. That is where they begin to kill people, rape women and then the people began to react to them. This is how we came to the conclusion, in the sense that when some of them were arrested, they don’t speak our language and even the security agencies even at the federal level have attested to this fact that most of these things are perpetrated by these people.
Have they indoctrinated our ruga herders, yes. I loved what El-Rufai said one time, I support him on non-payment of ransom. He said why will a herder continue to rear cattle for big men when he can do one single kidnap and get N20 million. So it’s a case of tell me your friends and I will tell you who you are. And sometimes the local herders believe that the foreign herders are fighting for them. Why do I say so? When they attacked Ebonyi State all the herders that we have been doing everything to protect left the state without informing us. So that is how we came to that conclusion and it is still subsisting.
On the presence of security men on the south Eastern road?
Let me take it in two dimensions, before now, when this insecurity was not so much, I’ve always had this influx of, you know, security people on the roads at the South East. I asked why is it that we have this people in South East, and somebody I will not mention his name, said look, when you stop a man in the north and you say, let’s go to the station, he will go to the station with you, he will sit down with you, you tire and you will release him without giving you any kobo. But your people from the South East are in a hast and that even when they are right they still want to give you something so that you will let them go. And that’s the reason why where commerce thrive you would definitely see a lot of people around there and this time security people. So that’s what was happening.
Before now, I was preaching to dismantle a lot of roadblocks, which happened before this insecurity increased and sometimes I will stop on the road and then release vehicles that lined up. Do they extort money? Yes. Even their leaders are not saying they don’t but we will preached against it. I continue to say that one of the reasons of ENDSARS is what people pass through on a daily basis on our roads. Nigerians are already traumatized because of the economy which is the global problem. And so stopping them on the roads unjustifiably is not the best.
But has my position changed? Yes. If arms are being transported, I cannot tell the security agencies how to do their work. And if security agencies personnel are being killed, I cannot tell them how to protect themselves. So that is the reason. I think the earlier this insecurity is over in the South East…I think is only in our region, apart from the northeast that security people are being killed, where police stations, army officers are being burnt, it is very unholy and this is not the character and culture of our people. So that shows you that it is criminality.
On the kidnapping of Amos Ogbannya and the allegations that he was kidnapped by the governors men?
I have directed for full scale security investigation on that, but my little conviction is that it is a self-inflicted kidnap to further tarnish my image. There is so much politics in Ebonyi State, since I defected to APC. And the point is that I said I will not endorse anybody for any position, that I’ve seen that it doesn’t work and that the people will do it. And so that is a heightened level of exploration, that they call themselves into position. For example, this Amos was my coordinator but he was going to instigate war in this country. How was this? He organized youths that are attacked the healers, the herders that did not do anything to them, no crop was destroyed. And the other development center coordinator in Ifikpo North, killed somebody in broad daylight with AK47. And so the NGOs were on me and I had to remove them from office. The records of killings in this three locations are very clear, they are there and the herders were going to attack us. I insisted that they pay compensation because our law in the State is that if you kill herders cattle you are going to pay compensation and you will also face the court. The same goes for herders against farmer. So this is the law and it’s been guiding us.
So these same boys were the ones going about saying they were not given entitlements but by RAMFAC salary scale, I give vehicles as a kind of welfare not as part of salary package and the vehicle is for the office use not for individuals. They said they were not paid impress, budget is an estimate and they asked to be paid impress while out of office and it is just unethical. And funny enough, some of them are lawyers.
So to further distract me which I have refused to be distracted, they said that he was kidnapped. They announced the kidnap, release and so it is a whole funny situation.
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The police has discovered something,
they discovered the bullets in his vehicle. And so it is very funny for somebody to be jumping from one place to the other to be kidnapped. What do I need to kidnap him for? The miracles of the state are speaking for themselves, and the people he represent are failed politicians who have had opportunities to help the people but appropriated the wealth of the state for themselves and I have directed that they should look for their code of conduct filings and then we will expose it to the public, so that people will see what they were before now and what they are now.
So that is that. I don’t lose sleep about that because my hands are very clean, of course I am a child of God and not a politician.
What is the objective of setting up INEC offices in the southeast on fire?
A lot of people have been brainwashed in the southeast about Biafra. The Biafra I desire is the Biafra of the mind, Biafra of development, the Biafra where each state of southeast will deploy the resources that we are getting from the center, and from our IGR to develop our place. That is the Biafra that I see. I see a Biafra of equity and justice all over the regions. That’s what I see. So some of them have been indoctrinated there will be no election in 2023 and that is very dangerous. Because, if you say there will be no election in your region, then the National Assembly could make an emergency law to say there will be emergency rule there and there is nothing you can do about it. Because, INEC offices are not being burnt in the South West and other parts of the country. So, it is a very terrible mindset for anyone to be doing this. We don’t know who is doing this but I know they are criminals. We still have one constitution whether it is rightly or wrongly put together, it is still our constitution. And until it is changed, nobody can do anything about it.
On ban on open grazing and what Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, said that ban on open grazing by southern governors is equivalent to prohibiting spare parts trading in the north?
I may not want to comment so much on what he said. I read it on social media but I will like to put the fact the way it is. A lot of us do not understand what this open grazing and what is closed grazing. In my faith, it says that if your right will cause you to sin cut it off, that it’s better to go to heaven with a hand that is short of one than to go to hell fire.
Now, from the beginning of age, our relationship with the farmers and the herders, don’t forget my father and mother were farmers all through. I and my brothers and sisters were all trained from the proceeds from farming activities. The traditional situation has been that we have cows in a farm settlement and then after a season, the farmers will ask them to move to a certain locations because they will fertilize the land which will also benefit the herders because they will be grasses in those places.
We have never had cattle roaming the roads. For the cattle shit once it drops on the asphalt road it messes it within seconds. They pass through this road and pass through these farms. In the southeast we don’t have grazing routes but in the north we have cattle routes. Nobody is going to say ban open grazing in some areas in the north where they are cattle routes where they move constitutionally from one point to the other. But in the south there is no cattle route and for you to move from one point to the other, you have to move through farms, through population dense areas. And this is what the southern governors, South East in particular are saying. Let’s go back to our traditional method of relationship, we will no longer allow you to take your cattle from one local government to the other.
And the implication is that this foreign herders also come as mobile herders with AK47, and so that is the source of conflicts. So anyone that is saying that there should be no ban is on the other hand saying that this killings should continue and that is what gave birth to ESN. Whether we support it as governors, we don’t. The people tend to support it because of the foreign herders pretending that they are rearing cattle and they our killing people.
In my village a white man handling construction was kidnapped. So what the southern governors are saying is that let’s return to our traditional kind of relationship. I don’t support cattle to move from one state to the other and the northern governors have said we will ban this. Let us encourage the federal government, let’s treat this cattle rearing as a business. Take money from federation account and develop ranches, there are designated ranches in the north. The northern governors are willing but are being frustrated. I know once you develop these ranches in the north a lot of movement will stop in the south.
We want to live in peace, we want to live as brothers and sisters. And if the right hand will cause you to sin, cut it off. It is the same thing as saying let the cattle moving from one point to the other be stopped. Nobody is saying the herders should not be in the southeast but it should be treated as a business. When people go to other areas they buy a land, they rent a shop, that is how businesses are done. You don’t enter people’s land without their knowledge, it is not done anywhere. I don’t think there is any southeast person that enters any region and sets up a business without proper permission. So that is the truth about the open grazing thing, I think people misunderstand it, they don’t really understand what we mean.
Why say foreigners are killing you on one hand and then you say you are the ones killing yourselves, how can you reconcile that?
That is a different thing from what we are saying. Yes because security people have also engaged these people in a gun battle and have brought them down. We have not seen any foreign herder, we have not seen people from other regions and these security people that are being killed, 99 percent of them are from South East. So we are killing ourselves. And those that are fell by the bullets of the security people when you see them, you see that they are our brothers and sisters and this is not good for us. Our youths are giving themselves to be slaughtered and they are making us to shed tears, they are being indoctrinated. I see some people coming from other region trying to incite us, they pretend they want to fight for us. How can you fight for us, during the war did you fight for us? It’s a way of inciting our people to go into war, go into crisis so that we can experience another round of betrayals and I say to our people be wise. We are given to wisdom we should apply wisdom at this time.
Can we link the arrack of INEC offices and 2023 Presidency?
You know the youths have their mindset and that is why I am doing everything possible to increase the value of education. I am sure someone who studied medicine, engineering will not go to carry gun, listen to anybody telling you to go and die or that with this juju on you, no bullet will enter you. And bullets are entering. Somebody asked why am I asking for the censor of juju people (herbalist), yes because in my local government a juju man kidnapped two people and buried them alive. We didn’t know how to locate him, it took the efforts of a lady which I won’t mention to find him, he is in the cell now.
So we want to know these people deceiving our young people. Because if you see our young people that were fell by bullets, you see juju tied around them. You see the security agencies going to their shrine to destroy them and the shrines have not been able to respond. So they are deceiving our people to go and die.
So I can’t explain if the burning of INEC offices has anything to do with 2023 Presidency for southeast. Should I not say that the South East deserve the Presidency 2023, I leave it to you.
What’s your reaction to the allegation by National Assembly members from your state that you are after their lives?
I am a child of God and a disciplined person, they are just afraid of Ebubeagu but their fear will be heightened because of those NASS members come to the state and cause trouble, this same Ebubeagu will arrest them. Whether you are a former Governor or a senator, if you come to the state and cause trouble, you are not above the law Ebubeagu will arrest and prosecuted. Those talking about their lives were the same people that were in office and wasted the lives of our people. The matter is still in court.
You see, I blame the federal government so much because you allow these people to be moving about with security agencies and they are there causing trouble. They are very terrible. People that have appropriated the wealth of the state to themselves, people that have no means of livelihood before, they have never counted one million, they now have mansions and go about talking all kinds of rubbish. I have no value to go after their lives, they are just afraid of Ebubeagu.
Ebubeagu is the demand of the South East, it has come to stay and will function. Imo State has signed Ebubeagu into law, I have not even signed my own. So other states will do the same.
What do you think is solution to the killings and destruction in South East?
I have done stakeholders meeting in the 13 local Government areas, I have done several days prayers. I have deployed the widows to fast and pray, I have deployed the elders council to go round and talk to our people, I have deployed founding fathers to go and talk. All these talkings we are getting result. Some of the bad boys are pulling out and surrendering to us and they are giving us information. But my position is that these people are our children, it pleases me not. I’m trying to let them know that what they are agitating for can be solved through dialogue. We are calling on our youths to submit their demands to us, we will come to the center and submit. If in the next six months we have not substantially addressed it, we can join you in the agitation but right now we don’t support you to insult the President, leaders of southeast and other leaders. That is not agitation, that is foolishness. Agitation is agitation.
So we have to tell ourselves the truth, if we want to address marginalization and exclusion from the affairs of the nation, we have to apply wisdom. We shouldn’t go by the way of violence and allow people to hijack peaceful demands of our people. This is our position.
