Farmers/herdsmen’s clashes or terrorist attacks?

AFTER a brief respite, six persons were again reported to have been killed by Fulani herdsmen near Ikpayongo, Kwer Local Government Area of Benue State on Wednesday May 16, 2018.  Killings by the herdsmen have a usual pattern that informed Nigerians cannot be unfamiliar with.  When they do not ambush their victims, they opt for a ruthless incursion in the course of which innocent people are killed, maimed or raped while their habitations a reset ablaze.  There have been no reports of confrontations between armed groups resulting in casualties on both sides.  It has always been a one-sided affair in which heartless herders launched ferocious onslaughts on sedentary farmers and their family members who, in many cases, are rendered homeless when not gunned down or hacked to death. The pertinent question that arises is : how true or correct is it to say that what Nigerians have been witnessing between farmers and herdsmen are ‘’clashes’’?

The Advanced Learner’s Dictionary defines the word ‘’clash’’ as a short fight between two groups of people.  The synonym for clash is ‘’skirmish’’ and they both mean an encounter of a short duration. The herdsmen have for many years constituted a serious threat, particularly to farmers, in many parts of the country.  They have been the attackers inflicting losses, human and material, on settlements along their grazing routes.   More often than not, the defenceless villagers have been running for dearlife when they are lucky to escape?  The word ‘’clash’’ is thus a misnomer – a complete misrepresentation of the fact – in the context in which it is being used.  What the victimsare confronted with is the menace of the herdsmen.  It is outright terrorism.

The number of people sent to their early graves this year alone runs into hundreds with Benue State– the major slaughter slab – accounting for a substantial percentage of the staggering number.  The constant reference to mass murder as clashes – between the murderers and their victims – constitutes an insult to the dead and downplays the gravity of the crime.  It conveys the wrong impression that the hapless victims were vanquished in a shooting war with an enemy that had a superior fire power.  It conceals the fact that the marauding cattle rearers at times launched their attacks in the dead of night.

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There have been some futile attempts to divert attention from the main issue.  There has been the unconvincing argument that the rampaging herdsmen are from Nigeria’s neighbouring countries.  Are we now desperate to establish cattle colonies to pacify the murderous foreigners because we lack the capacity to confront them?  Are they legal immigrants in Nigeria?  Were they, along with their animals, properly documented before crossing the border into Nigeria’s territory?  Did they come into Nigeria with the lethal weapons they have been using to wreak havoc on Nigerian citizens?   If they are illegal immigrants, why has the government been so helpless in dealing with a band of marauders who have no right to be in Nigeria and have been committing heinous crimes on Nigerian soil?

Some have been trying to sell the argument that the murderous gangs are Boko Haram insurgents.  They have, however, not explained why the herdsmen’s umbrella body – the Myetti Allah – has been vigorously defending the blood-letting in Benue and some contiguous states. They have also not challenged Defence Minister Mansur Dan-Ali – another defender of the herdsmen – who has not seen anything wrong in mass murder as a reaction to the blockage of the herdsmen’s grazing routes.  He said the herders were Nigerians and should be accorded their rights as Nigerian citizens.  He could not recognise the clear distinction between freedom of movement and trespass.

The widespread condemnations and lamentations that followed the New Year’s Day massacre in Benue State have not in any way deterred the herdsmen.  They have been responding to the global outrage by widening the scope of their killing field.  According to reports, they have extended their atrocities to 18 of the 23 local government areas in Benue State and they have been wasting lives in neighbouring Taraba State with equal frenzy of violence.  What type of clash leaves one side rampaging and gloating in sadistic satisfaction while the other side is constantly carrying out mass burial? In one of their most insensate atrocities, the brutes attacked St. Ignatius Catholic Church in Ukpor-Mbalom in Benue State during a church service.  As they are wont to do, they ruthlessly terminated the lives of two priests and 17 worshippers.  Earlier in a similarly heartrending case in neighbouring Taraba State, 55 people were killed and most of them were members of the Methodist Church.   Should we regard those incidents as clashes between the church and the herdsmen or as terrorist attacks?

The Global Terrorist Index rates the Fulani herdsmen as the fourth most deadly terrorist organisation in the world.  The use of a euphemism cannot therefore whitewash mass murderers into fighters for self – determination or freedom of movement.  Even if bitter leaf is given a new name, it will not acquire the taste of honey.  The use of the word ‘’clashes’’ to refer to what has been happening between farmers and herdsmen cannot diminish the gravity of the atrocities being committed. Words change their meanings but do not lose their meanings.  If the word ‘‘clash’’ has not lost its meaning, it is glaringly inappropriate in the farmers/herdsmen’s context. Nigerians have been witnessing terrorist attacks and not the hackneyed and misleading ‘’farmers/herdsmen’s clashes’’.

• Olatoye, a veteran journalist, lives in Ibadan