by Dominic Umosen
With particular
emphasis, history acknowledges the overwhelming sense of misgivings by Northern
political leaders for their serial indiscretions and misguided political
decisions which began in 2011 when regional leaders met in Abuja and resolved
to step up hostilities against President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration in
demonstration of the region’s disaffection from loss of political power in the
country. Initially, this uncharitable disposition was attributed to tantrums by
an over-pampered child who may be hell-bent on ignoring the basic wisdom that
wise folks do not betray the confidence of their traditional political allies;
which is the exact political currency Arewa is repaying its traditional
political allies in the South-South with.
Profound disappointment
in the South-South regarding Arewa’s grand betrayal also triggered reverse
outrage, with some hawks like former Niger-Delta militant, Alhaji Mujaheed
Asari-Dokubo advocating that Niger-Delta aborigines should unilaterally
expropriate crude oil as compensation for collateral damages visited on
minority oil-producing nationalities in the region. Enraged by this
ingratitude-based arrogance against the South-South on one hand and endless
hostile exchanges with neighbouring minority nationalities in the North on the
other, it was a matter of time before these hostile exchanges exerted
irreversible stress on the fabric of homogeneity between Hausa/Fulanis and
their neighbour minority nationalities, destroying it in the process and
definitively erasing a famous socio-political attribute of the region.
For the first time
since the amalgamation of defunct Northern Nigeria and the Southern
Protectorate, individuals from that part of the country began to defend the
interests of their distinct nationalities in the region, as opposed to a
mythical one and indivisible aggregate Northern political interest which
deviates from what used to be regarded as aggregate Arewa identity. However,
the collapse of the Northern political identity has been most dramatic in Plateau
State because there, inter-ethnic acrimony has made it impossible for the man
who fought a civil war to keep Nigeria one – Gen Yakubu Gowon – to visit
his Pankshin home. The former
head-of-state’s predicament posts a supreme irony. Indeed, Plateau has become
the epicenter of a vicious inter-ethnic war in which the Hausa-Fulani are
permanently locked in battle against minority ethnic nationalities in the
savannah.
Part of reasons for the
dramatic collapse of the mythical political homogeneity of the North is the
fact that democracy invariably destroyed much of the unmerited privileges that
the Hausa/Fulani-controlled military hitherto lavished on their kith and kin,
including fiercely-arrogant itinerant herdsmen who seem blissfully ignorant of
the fact that nomadic pastoralism is no longer fashionable the world over.
Because it is no longer possible to indulge or lavish excuses for the
over-exuberance of armed herdsmen, well-coordinated clashes between them and
farming communities have triggered consistently bloody exchanges, with farmers
becoming more determined to protect their farmlands from ravages by rampaging
livestock which should ideally be sequestered in ranches as done in every
civilised society.
The reluctance by
government to restrict livestock to designated ranches was developed during
military rule. The institution developed
and perfected this reluctance to do what is right because doing so might
inconvenience the owner of a consignment of livestock who may have been in some
sort of cahoots with the local garrison commander, hence untouchable. The
frequency of such practices has been drastically curtailed under this
dispensation where the fear of insurgents have imposed a new vigilance on
security agencies, inspiring more farmers in traumatized and exasperated
communities to resist encroachments on their farmlands by livestock and
herdsmen who are often unbelievably well-armed, enough to complicate the scope
of their menace as well as ensuing exchanges with these invaded communities.
Indeed, the frequency
of such violent exchanges between herdsmen and farmers has triggered countless
clashes in several communities across the country. Across Benue, Bauchi,
Plateau, Imo, Ogun, Ekiti and many other states, tales of clashes between
roaming bands of herdsmen and farmers are routine. Beyond the loss of innocent
lives involved and the provocative nonchalance of herdsmen who refuse to
distinguish between farmlands and fallow bush, Nigerians are sufficiently
exasperated by the reluctance of government to enforce the universal norm which
specifies that nomadic pastoralism is outdated and that anyone seeking to
engage in large-scale livestock farming should make provision for ranches to
eliminate the likelihood of recurring friction between herdsmen and farming
communities.
When the articulate
Middle Belt Forum, the umbrella group for minority nationalities in the
North-Central Zone, issued a threat to reciprocate attacks on their communities
by itinerant Fulani herdsmen, the justification for this unprecedented threat
of retaliations was provided by frequently-bloody attacks on these communities
by Fulani herdsmen who have acquired a greater capacity for menace and are
better armed than soldiers. Testimony to this increasing sophistication in the
menace posed by Fulani herdsmen is the enabling circumstance surrounding the
killing of the former Senate Health Services Committee Chairman, Dr Fulani
Dantong by some Fulani herdsmen who invaded a grieving Berom village in Barkin
Ladi Local Government Area in Plateau State. According to eye-witnesses,
soldiers attached to the Joint Task Force advised the grieving villagers to
flee allegedly because the invaders arrived better-armed than themselves.
The greater bulk of
ammunition that triggered the collapse of the fabled political homogeneity of
the North was provided by animosity triggered by these violent clashes between
herdsmen and farmers in the savannah. The traditional indifference of a typical
herdsman to a farmland and a bush provoked former Chief of General Staff, late
Maj-Gen. Tunde Idiagbon to threaten to gun down any Fulani herdsman that
encroached on his farm in Ilorin. Indeed,
anger by minority nationalities in the North against the predominant
Hausa/Fulani invariably became proportionate to the frequency of attacks on
their communities and the destruction of the properties by indiscriminating
herdsmen and their rampaging flocks.
Other tear-jerking
legacies of feudalism like the almajiri
phenomenon further intensified the disintegration of the region’s fabled
political homogeneity. It is an enduring testimony to the prevailing culture of
political mischief that despite the fact that salvation was graciously
engineered for these human eye-sores from outside the region, efforts to
rehabilitate them by President Jonathan were vigorously resisted by selfish
regional leaders like Gov Babangida Aliyu of Niger State who argue that the
sorry lifestyle projected by these human dregs is a worthy and befitting
cultural heritage. Yet Aliyu sends his wards to the best schools abroad and
lavishes his teenagers with toys almajiris
can only dream about.
This sensational
hypocrisy by self-serving political leaders in the region contributed
significantly to undermine and eventually trigger collapse of the region’s
fabled political homogeneity. It also explains why it was possible for an
unimaginative governor to spend two-terms in Yobe to acquire choice limousines
and exquisite palaces for traditional rulers and after climbing on the crest of
prevalent ignorance to senatorial relevance, he gyrated on the axle of mischief
to blame President Jonathan for endemic poverty in the North-East. It is
unfortunate that instead of holding leaders like these to account for the
travesty they represent, some misguided people are holding others to ransom in
the name of insurgency which further exacerbates erosion of political
homogeneity of a milieu that has been torn apart by internal contradictions.
The
views expressed above are solely that of the writer and not necessarily that of
Omojuwa.com or its associates.
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