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There appears not to be a national consensus on how to deal with the bandits causing mayhem around the country.
Even as the prognosis grows dire, the strategies for taking out the disparate criminal elements are becoming more complex and diverse. In the absence of a coherent ideology, politicians profer solutions for the current security crisis from a narrow prism of religion and ethnicity.
Pro-Fulani elements and victims of criminal herdsmen’s attack have taken entrenched and diametrically opposed positions on who is to blame, and how to solve the perennial kidnapping for ransom, in different parts of the country. While it is unacceptable to blame the entire Fulani ethnic group for the sins of a few, most of whom are not even Nigerians, we cannot but condemn the refusal of the law enforcement agencies to prosecute the criminals already apprehended for the heinous crimes of kidnapping and mass killings, for which they were arrested.
None of the more than 5,000 Boko Haram fighters, bandits, armed robbers and other violent criminals who openly levied war against the state has been charged to court since the terror war began about a decade ago.
Therefore, in the absence of prosecution, there is no disincentive to discourage criminality. Chad hanged 15 terrorists who were tried and convicted about a year ago. Early this year, Iran executed some felons convicted of terrorism, including a popular wrestler who was found guilty of murder.
In Nigeria’s case, the so-called repentant Boko Haram fighters are being rehabilitated and given money, while their victims rot away at IDP camps, with little food, poor security and no basic healthcare. These displaced persons are sometimes attacked, raped and dispersed by invading Boko Haram terrorists. What sort of miscarriage of justice is this?
Our leaders seem to think that throwing money at problems will bring solutions. How do you justify paying ransom to bandits who kidnap defenceless schoolchildren? Some governors send middlemen regularly to the hideouts of bandits to dialogue and negotiate with them, as if these criminals deserve to be so pampered.
In one of his public statements, President Muhammadu Buhari even urged host communities to learn to accommodate the Fulani herdsmen. This was in the thick of the violent clashes between herdsmen and farmers in Benue State. Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State said on television that revenge attack was a character trait of the Fulani.
Rather than condemn the notorious vengeful attack of the herdsmen in host communities, the governor tried to let us understand that revenge was in the DNA of the Fulani people. Perhaps, for this reason, people should avoid casting the first stone or attract greater counter-violence when the Fulani are attacked, Governor El-Rufai seemed to be saying.
But revenge attacks, which seem to be the order of the day in the communal violence involving Fulani herdsmen and farmers in host communities, violates the rule of law and cannot stand in law; even for cultural reasons. An eye for an eye is not in our statute books, and nobody can use that archaic concept to justify violence.
Part of the discordant notes coming from nothern leaders on this vexed issue of national security is the outrageous claim by the Bauchi State governor, Mr. Bala Mohammed, that herdsmen have the right to carry guns. An unrepentant Fulani irredentist, the governor is more concerned with the rights of his kinsmen to self-defense than the havoc the criminals among them inflict on their innocent victims across the nation.
This is not an attempt at ethnic profiling, but the major perpetrators of violence against other ethnic groups in different communities across Nigeria are herdsmen of Fulani extraction. That is a fact nobody can controvert. While it is true that their cattle are being rustled by criminal elements in host communities, their resort to self-help or disproportionate revenge attacks has escalated the crisis out of control. Two wrongs never make a right, and, like President Buhari once said, “We cannot justify impunity with impunity.” We cannot justify one crime with another either.
Those who steal cows in host communities, or attack herdsmen or kill the cattle because they encroached on their farmlands, must be seen as criminals. If these felons were often apprehended and promptly prosecuted, perhaps, the Fulani would have realised that, since justice is often promptly served on these natives who ruin their fortunes, there would be no need to embark on revenge attacks to extract their pound of flesh.
However, because the attackers of the herdsmen were often only given a slap on the wrist by the host governors, like the ruling Fulani elite do to their herdsmen, the crisis can become a ding-dong affair between the rival governing elite in the North-South divide. It has assumed a more dangerous dimension that has pitted the Fulani ruling elite against the other ethnic groups across Nigeria.
The thinking now is that, if Buhari were to be a President of southern origin and not a Fulani himself, the rampaging herdsmen would not have been so audacious, because of the whiplash they would definitely have got. I want go with this line of thought. However, to save the nation, let reason prevail for a moment and let patriotic, nationalistic sentiments prevail over ethnic loyalties. We need to save Nigeria from ethno-religious strife.
(To be continued next week)
Weekend spice: Every busybody has a motive.
Ok folks, let’s do it again next Friday. COVID-19 is real. Stay motivated.
•Ayodeji, author, pastor and speaker, can be reached on 09059243004 (SMS, email & WhatsApp only).
