BENUE MASSACRE AND A DIALOGUE WITH THE DEAF.
By: Mojoyinola Abd'Afeez
Thank you lord for giving us the best of leaders in the whole world. Thinkers, intellectuals, and the visionary leaders are those who continue to rule (I mean not ruin) us and have made us great and great again. An ingrate will deny the miraculous and amazing developments in the economic, security and the educational sectors of this country. In fact, a report has it that other world leaders like Trump have been struggling to get in touch with our president so that they can drink from his spring of ever flowing intelligence. To borrow a line from the UI anthem, he is a 'soothing spring for all who thirst…' for ingenuity . Or who will deny his ingenious approach to the crisis that is ongoing in Benue state? His deafening silence could be construed as a punishment for the atrocities committed by the Benue farmers? Yes. The farmers must pay the price of their folly!
On January 11, 2018, it was reported by the OpuroNation.com (OpNation) that president Muhammadu Buhari, visited the burial of the victims of the attack by the Fulani herdsmen and commiserated with their families. The same Newspaper has it that, he ordered a battalion of soilders to move down to Benue state, thus to safeguard the lives of people and their properties. Why should one not believe that news? Was he not the same president that deployed troops on some eastern parts of the country when there was agitation for the state of Biafra? Was he not the president that ordered the arrest of the Shite leader, El Zakyzaky cum his followers who were alleged to have used arm against the Nigerian Army and disrupted the peace of Kaduna and Zaria state? Or was he not the one that stationed the headquarters of Nigerian army in Borno where the Bokoharams were feasting on the blood of the innocents? Was he not the one that sent the security operatives to Delta state when there was vandalization of oil pipes? Then, how will Benue state be an exception?
Enough of indirectness. Nigeria is a country where tribalism thrives like a bushfire in the harmattan season. It is a personification of favouritism which is easy to find in Nigerian dictionary. Many Nigerian leaders have continued to find solace in its hut. Whenever they want people to elect them for any post, they thrust the dagger of tribalism on their throats… Vote for your brother. Do not sleep on the altar of forgetfulness that this "Iblis" or tribalism (the spirit of Evil, he who enjoys stirring up ill-feelling between individuals and the communities), has continued to steer us apart from our first day of independence. Take for instance, after six years of independence, we stood on a sprawling soil soaked in fratricidal blood. That is the evil of tribalism which the presidency wants to wear its cloak again. Should it not have been better for the president to address the issue of the killings by the Fulani herdsmen in Benue state now before peace is impossible?
Journalists and analysts have provided many solutions to the seeming unending rift between the farmers and the Fulani herdsmen but the government has turned a deaf ear. For instance, in an article written in The Nation by Professor Biodun Jeyifo titled ," First, Disarm the Herdsmen (and Famers); then Work for a Just and Honourable Peace between them", he explained that, the state should have and exercise a monopoly over the means and instruments of violence but special cases where private companies and individual citizens are allowed or licensed by the state to carry arms for their self-protection. However, it is crystal clear that only the Fulani herdsmen have the authority and audacity to thwart this law and will not be brought to justice. Look around your community, you will see them with sword and guns. Eyes bloodied by rage.
As it was suggested by the presidency, ranching, a modern approach to cow rearing, which a country like Mexico is into, should be adopted so as to find a lasting solution to the farmer-herdmen crisis. For we should stop facing the deadly impulse of antiquity in the age of rocket science and computers. Herdsmen should not be seen as unchangeable.
What all these boil down to is that Mr President should break the silence and embrace the solutions being proffered. If not, to paraphrase the saying of Gbanabom Hallowell, a Sierralonean poet, "our dinner tonight may come with gun wounds and our desert tongues may lick the vegetable blood…the pepper strong enough to push scorpions up our heads."
God forbid, another civil war.
WRITER'S BIO:
Mojoyinola Abd'Afeez is a student of University of Ibadan, Department of English; a writer and campus journalist. He can be reached via mojoyinolaavicenna@gmail.com
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