Nigeria In One Minute

The menace of the Fulani Herdsmen

Published

8 years ago

May 25, 2016

Herdsmen invade Ondo council secretariat, worker take flight

On my way to Ogbomosho last weekend, I saw the Fulani Herdsmen quietly grazing their cattle. They usually cut a very beautiful picture with their unique costumes fawning over the cattle and speaking in the unique language only the cattle understood.

My mind went back to my youth, we used to be intrigued by the herdsmen and even walk with them although at a safe distance playing with the cattle and trying to understand how they could walk for such a long distance with as many cattle.

How did this beautiful people turn into the menace they are today. At what point did they turn into a marauding army causing all sort of havoc and spreading sorrow across the land.

From Benue through Enugu to Ekiti they have turned themselves into a terrorist group and instead of the Government to take decisive steps in protecting its citizenry and bringing these evil people in, they are planning ranches as if it is their right to kill and maim people simply because their cattle have to feed. Today the life of one cow is worth more than the total lives of a whole village.

Fayose has raised an army of hunters to defend them in Ekiti and this intself just goes to illustrate the helplessness that comes with waiting for government to carry out their legitimate responsibilities.

What however bemuses me is the fact that nobody is considering that these could be Boko haram people hiding as herdsmen to cause this carnage. I have waited and listened to all the news analysis without hearing anybody considering the possibility.

I am thinking that the continuous pounding and decimating of their numbers in the Sambiza Forest may have led the Boko Haram people to change strategy and hiding behind cattle continue their reign of terror.

If we look at it from that angle maybe the issue would be treated much differently. I am of this very strong view. Let me tell you very clearly, the Fulani herdsman at lest the ones I have encountered and studied in my sociology class are not violent by nature. They are very beautiful people, an archeologist’s marvel.

They have stayed through their roots and have refused the vagaries of modernity to change their nomadic lifestyle so I am almost ready to issue a blanket statement that they are not capable of all that we are seeing.

Let us work under the theory that their numbers may have been infiltrated by terrorist and this would now give us a clearer view to fashioning out a more decisive course of action.

We need to act fast before Fayose releases his citizens to mass suicide because that is what will happen when local hunters with Dane guns are made to face AK 47 wielding terrorists hiding behind the cloak of the Fulani Herdsman.

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