What is your take on allegations by Governor Nasir el-Rufai that 130 Fulanis were murdered in Kajuru and his silence on 12 Adara people that were murdered?
On Friday, the day before the presidential and national assembly elections that would have held on February 16, 2019, I am sure that all of you watched the announcement by Governor Nasir el-Rufai with shock and amazement that 66 people were killed. The announcement was made in such a manner to portray to the world that the incident happened a day before the election, assuming any incident happened at all. It was shocking to us, because I am the National President of Southern Kaduna Peoples Union [SOKAPU]. As the national president, Hausa, Fulani, Etia, Adara people, all of report incidents to me. And I know, as a matter of fact, that on Sunday, the national president of Adara Community Development Association called to inform me that they came under a barrage of attack and that 11 people were killed. Immediately he informed me, I told him that authorities should be notified and I believe that authorities were notified. No action was taken by any government, whether at the local government, state or federal government level. Security agencies were not mobilized to go there. Nothing was said about it by the governor of Kaduna State. I am sure you know that in September/ October 2018, there was a terrible mayhem leading to loss of lives in Kasuwa Managi, but the governor never went on air to announce the number, ethnic nationalities of the people involved. So it was an utmost shock and dismay that the governor on the eve of an election of such magnitude and importance to Nigeria would go on air to state that 66 people were killed. We could not fathom why the governor did that.
Recent history
Let me go down the memory lane to say that around August 2018, this same governor went to Kafanchan and in a meeting with CAN officials he said that Southern Kaduna people love violence, that violence in Southern Kaduna is cyclical, that it happens every four years. We saw the statement as a proverbial case of a witch crying in the night and someone dying the following day. We believe that it was a script that was being written and to be projected soon. We cried out, promptly issuing a press statement in early September to decry the governor’s statement and that somebody somewhere was preparing towards election and that if anything should happen in Southern Kaduna around election period, the world should hold the governor responsible. We had the courage of our conviction to tell the world that. And I am proud to tell you that up till today, nobody refuted our postulation. If what we asserted at that time was not correct, we expected the government to have refuted it. So it is not with any surprise that the governor, because he already had prepared his script around August, is preparing the world for violence. So when the violence did not occur with the magnitude of his prediction, he had to disproportionately sensationalise and appeal to certain sensibilities of people to show that there actually was violence.
With regards to the 66 people, 11 people etc, let me say that as national president of SOKAPU, we in Southern Kaduna are inherently very peaceful people. We are a very hospitable people, and we hate violence and killing. Regardless of what took place, as national president, I am bold to say that the life of a single Fulani man is as precious to us SOKAPU as the life of any other human being. The life of a Muslim is as precious to us as the life of any other human being. The life of an Adara man is as precious to us as the life of any other man. The life of a Christian or an animist is as precious as any other man’s. Therefore, wherever a single man dies as John Donne said “the death of any man diminishes me” and so, the death of any man whether Fulani, Hausa or Adara diminishes us, so we condemn violence as a people and we condemn violence as a union.
Are you then absolutely certain that no Fulani was killed?
The question that we would ask is “when someone says that five people were killed and another said five people were not killed, the onus is on he who asserts that lives have been wasted to prove that, actually, lives have been lost. el-Rufai said 66 people were killed and there were disputations that it didn’t happen. It wasn’t me that disputed, but many other people. The onus is now on his Excellency, the governor, to cause the bodies to be shown. Where are the bodies? Assuming they were killed on Friday, were they already buried on Saturday when the governor visited? That is difficult to believe. It sounds like tales by moonlight. Nobody saw the dead bodies. The purported graveside that I saw on television and then I saw two goats or rams and a cow and two motorcycles that were burnt.
Could it be a script? Why was the grave not exhumed? We are in this age where there are processes and procedures. All that is required is to go to court and obtain an order and let this grave be exhumed to prove clearly and if it is proven, the world would know. We shouldn’t be sentimental; we shouldn’t be emotional about anything. This is the standard minimum criterium internationally. There should even be coronal inquest. All those things have not been done. When you exhume grave, you move there with representatives of Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), international observers, Nigeria Medical Association (NMA), because if you exhume fresh corpses, we would know but if you take people to old gravesites, exhumation will be done and then the corpses would be there. But NMA would be able to prove whether these corpses are fresh or not. We would not want to be drawn into whether it is one person, 66 people or 130. Tomorrow, el-Rufai is likely going to wake up and say the figure has risen to 1,000. Assuming without conceding that the casualty figure is even 1,000, we want proof, because there is a contention now on the figure.
We have seen the corpses of the 11 Adara people and as I speak with you, the governor has not deemed it fit to go to Adara land. He has not gone to Angwan Barde. Killings were done in Goska, in Kasakori and several other villages in Southern Kaduna, but there has not been a single internally displaced persons (IDP) camp, no single relief material from the government of Kaduna State. Nothing has been done by way of ordinary palliatives not to even to talk of serious relief materials. We called on the Federal Government at that time to set up something like a marshall plan to rehabilitate the places, but nothing has been done either by way of a commission.
So what could be the governor’s motive for all this?
As far as we are concerned, the reason the governor is doing what he is doing is simply to profile Southern Kaduna people as violent so that he would achieve a particular purpose. As far as we are concerned, Christians in Southern Kaduna, Muslims in Southern Kaduna, Fulanis in Southern Kaduna are one. And let me tell you that SOKAPU is the only community organisation in the whole of Kaduna State that has embraced everybody. We have embraced Muslims, we have embraced Christians, we have embraced animists, we have embraced Hausas, we have embraced all. Our chapter president of the whole of Lagos State, Dr. Ashi is a Fulani man. In our BOT, we have Christians, we have Moslems and so, SOKAPU is calling on all the people of Southern Kaduna to remain united and should not allow anybody to divide them through ethnic or religious bigotry as being displayed now. This is pure bigotry with the aim of profiting politically. These are political merchants and nothing more, nothing less.
What is the cause of perennial conflicts in Southern Kaduna?
I would not want to use the word conflict. I also hate the usage of the term farmers/herders’ conflict because there is nothing like that. By the mouth of the governor himself, he told the entire world that the killings from 2011 arose from the post-election crises in April of that year and that over 1,000 Fulanis were killed in Southern Kaduna. What was recorded of that violence was that it began immediately election results began to trickle in and it was obvious that a particular candidate was going to lose and that in the whole 12 northern states where there was violence, 1,200 people were killed. The records are available on the internet. With specific reference to Southern Kaduna, violence started only on the third day after it broke out in the 12 northern states. In the whole of Kaduna State, no fewer than 100 people were killed and violence started elsewhere.
Now, it beats one’s imagination that somebody will in this modern day when things are recorded want to revise history before our own eyes and say that over 1,000 people were killed in Southern Kaduna when throughout 12 northern states, 1,200 people were killed. And, according to him, from that time, Fulanis from 14 African countries came into Nigeria, passed several borders and several states targeting Southern Kaduna so that they would take vengeance. He also said that he sat with them and paid compensation. If he paid compensation, then attacks should have stopped. But what is coming out now is that he appears to be the one that has been funding terrorism against Southern Kaduna people, because if you paid and yet they are still attacking us, then who did you pay? The money was never appropriated; Minister of Foreign Affairs or his Interior were not involved. What it simply means is that he has been playing a script all this while.
The truth is that somebody somewhere has a plan to do away with the ethnic nationalities in Southern Kaduna, to take over our land. Here, we have lush vegetation not requiring the use of fertilizers for farming. What we have been facing is not conflict but attacks and genocide, terrorism and nothing more, nothing less. If they say it is Southern Kaduna people that offended them, what about Benue State and Plateau states? Did they also kill over 1,000 Fulani in those states too? Mallam Nasiru el-Rufai is the greatest security threat to the whole of Kaduna State and we call on the Federal Government [to take action] on this man.
and then