By Fred Chukwuelobe
From Benue to Plateau to Enugu. From Taraba to Uromi in Edo State. In parts of the South East, the South West, and the North. No one is spared. No one is safe.
They are kidnapping and displaying their ransoms to our faces on social media. Nobody is doing anything or so, it seems.
They are disguising as herdsmen and hunters, brandishing sophisticated weapons such as AK-47 and SMGs.
They are destroying farms and killing innocent civilians at will.
Plateau State Governor Caleb Manasseh Mutfwang has been crying, saying that 64 communities in his State have been taken over by the rampaging herdsmen.
In Enugu State, people of Eha Amufu have fled their communities and left them to the herdsmen.
Governor Peter Mbah is seriously concerned with developing Enugu Urban to pay attention to the besieged people of Eha Amufu.
In Edo State, the people got tired of waiting for Government to help them and they took laws into their hands, murdering in the most heinous manner 16 ‘hunters’ travelling from Port Harcourt, Rivers State, to Kano ‘to celebrate Sallah.’ They allegedly had sophisticated weapons hidden in their trucks.
The last time I checked, Rivers State is a creek, and I know that fishes are the predominant species living there. You don’t need to hunt them. You just cast your net and haul a large number. Unfortunately, oil spills have destroyed marine life in the oceans and creeks of the Niger Delta. So, fishing has become impossible. What is possible and trending is millions of USD paid to Niger Delta militants to protect the numerous pipelines causing the spills.
While not condoning the heinous acts at Uromi, I have raised concerns about the real motive of the ‘hunters.’ Knowing our country, governments will not seriously interrogate their motives. What they’re doing is to placate their kit and kin and beg them not to retaliate. I get it. I mean, these were human beings murdered by aggrieved citizens who felt abandoned by the governments whose primary responsibility it is to protect life and property. But what about those killed elsewhere by herdsmen. Their lives, too, matter.
While our governments seem to have calmed frayed nerves for now, the herdsmen are rampaging in several fronts, and nobody seems willing to confront them. We are busy with political appointments, sharing offices, declaring a state of emergency in Rivers State, and leaving the real emergencies unattended.
We are too afraid to tell ourselves the truth; that these herdsmen have a purpose, and that it is not about grazing lands for their herds but about conquest. When you displace people from their homes, it is not cattle that will live there but human beings. Mordern animal husbandery does not require large expense of grasslands. So, let’s stop the hypocrisy. It is about conquests, and people are systematically being dispossessed of their lands and their lives.
In the core South East States with relatively low herdsmen insurgence, government has deployed hundreds of soldiers and policemen to deal with the criminal elements masquerading as ‘freedom fighters.’ Shouldn’t such deployment be sent to these volatile areas too?
It’s time for us to wake up to the realities of now. Those who think they are far flung from the epicentre should think again. It is spreading, and unless it is stopped, everybody will taste it.
As I watch the development and the silence, if not the connivance of those who should act, I am reminded of the famous quote of Martin Niemöller, “First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”
Will they come? Surely. They live by conquests. Their brand of religion they claim to be practicing spread by conquests. Nobody is even sure if theirs have to do with religion or conquest for more lands. Whichever, it is an ominous development and needs to be curtailed.
They’re making inroads in the US, the UK, and other Western countries. It is a matter of time before they get to us. Those who do not agree with their brand of religion should speak up now and act fast. Silence is acquiescence. As Prof. Wole Soyinka wrote in his novel, The Man Died, “The man died in all who keeps silence in the face of tyranny.”
A stitch in time, they say, saves nine.
(c) Fred Chukwuelobe