Herdsmen as countrymen

A few days after the horrendous killings of January 1, the leaders of Benue State visited President Muhammadu Buhari at Aso Villa. The leaders most probably took that initiative when it became clear that the president was not in any hurry to visit the state to commiserate with the government and the people. And for the records, President Buhari has yet to find it expedient to pay a visit to Benue State despite the enormity of the mindless bloodletting that took place in that state, allegedly at the instance of herdsmen.

Nonetheless, and strangely too, the president took the opportunity provided by the visit to beg the leaders to accommodate their countrymen. That was terrible and unfortunate. What kind of accommodation and what manner of countrymen? Who are the countrymen the president was referring to? Already, there are Fulani communities in Benue State.  Or was the president alluding to the killer herdsmen who have been described variously by the country’s topmost security officials as ISIS elements and foreigners?

It is difficult to situate the president’s entreaty to the Benue leaders within a salutary context. How can the president be extricated from the web of bias when he pleaded with the Benue leaders, who were still mourning, to accommodate the marauding herdsmen, many of whom had just been accused of assailing innocent citizens in the state, leaving tears and blood on their trail?  Yes, the Federal Government promised that the perpetrators of the dastardly acts in Benue would be fished out and brought to book. But how many killer herdsmen were arrested and sanctioned according to the law in the past?

Indeed, any promise to deal with the killer herdsmen in Benue and other states of the federation insults the sensibilities of Nigerians since the leaders of Miyetti Allah are still walking as free men in the land. Some of these leaders have more or less owned up to the recent killings in Benue by providing justifications for the bloodletting, with a promise of more horror if the law abolishing open grazing in the state is not abrogated. Are these the kind of compatriots President Buhari was begging the Benue leaders to accommodate?  Should the leaders tolerate and accommodate herdsmen until they finish off their citizens?

Although the federating units are reportedly not under compulsion to participate in the scheme, the Federal Government’s proposed  establishment of cattle colonies as the panacea to the seemingly intractable challenge looks  like a reward  for, or at best a pampering of, the herdsmen. No government can orchestrate and condone such an unabashed preferential treatment and hope to achieve peace and greatness in a multi-ethnic society. But even more unsettling is the fact that President Buhari and his aides do not seem to appreciate that they are handling the herdsmen’s debacle very poorly. For instance, the Minister of Defence, Mansur Dan-Ali, who addressed the press after a meeting of the security chiefs with the president last week, blamed the recent clashes on the anti-grazing law and blockage of grazing routes.

That less than thoughtful statement by the minister tends to suggest that a state in a federal structure is bereft of the constitutional rights to legislate on the protection of lives and property of its citizens. No dispassionate observer will construe the minister’s statement to mean anything other than official justification for the herdsmen’s atrocities. This is most unfortunate. But the minister’s careless pronouncement should not be surprising, as he had just emerged from a security meeting that could not have benefitted from the diversity of quality suggestions on how to resolve the problem because of its narrow composition in terms of ethnic extraction and religion.

Clearly, what will guarantee peace is not the appeal to Benue leaders to tolerate the evil which the killer herdsmen represent. The Federal Government must ensure that the pastoralists live peacefully with their host communities and obey the extant laws of the states where they ply their trade.