When will these Fulani provocations end?

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Let’s start this piece on December 9, 2008 when I covered the burial of Oluwaleke Olalekan Akande, one of the corps members cut down during a religious crisis in Jos, Plateau State. I watched in tears as Leke’s elder sister, Mojoyin, broke down, crying “It’s not fair!” as her brother was lowered into the grave at the St. Mark Anglican Cemetery, Olomi, Ibadan. Previously, the killer, a self-confessed Hausa-Fulani militant who had ‘Leke’s phone as a trophy, had kept boasting about the slaughter. He did not pick up the phone when I called him just before the burial, intending to pronounce curses upon him. If you were appalled by how equally boastful the killers of Deborah Samuel, a student of the Shehu Shagari College of Education were on May 12 this year were, just remember that such boasting did not start today.

Here is a suspected Fulani murderer speaking to a relation of Mr. Gbenga Owolabi, a United States-based businessman who had only just returned home: “Your brother (Owolabi) talk say he go give me N50 million, you talk say N2 million. If you want talk about N2 million, no call this number tomorrow. Wetin your sorry want do? Nah Fisebillilahi I dey do? I’m satisfied with his death because he is not the only human being. If I kill him today, I will go and kidnap another person. After all, he is not my dad. N20 million can’t free him from me.”

Owolabi, together with one of his workers, a final-year student of LAUTECH thrown into the job market following the prolonged strike embarked upon by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), was murdered in cold blood even after the killers had collected N5 million ransom. The duo had been reportedly abducted on July 29, and in the audio tape of Owolabi’s family’s interaction with the killers, the man could be heard crying that he had been tied up in such a way that blood flow was impeded in his body. Unless there is no God Almighty in heaven, these killers will not escape hot death.

Now, there’s an intellectual angle to the provocations. Here’s the Bauchi State governor, Bala Mohammed, making a case for his stateless compatriots in September 2019: “The Fulani man is a global or African person. He moves from The Gambia to Senegal and his nationality is Fulani…So, we cannot just close our borders and say the Fulani man is not a Nigerian. In most cases, the crisis is precipitated by those outside Nigeria. When there is a reprisal, it is not the Fulani man within Nigeria that causes it. It is that culture of getting revenge which is embedded in the traditional Fulani man that attracts reprisal.”

There you have it: the Fulani man is a god that others must worship. When he exacts vengeance, it is because of innate power. Mohammed, sounding nasty and vainglorious, believes that his tribesmen have a monopoly over violence. He labored to justify his declaration that Fulani herdsmen from Chad, Niger and other neighbouring countries would benefit from the National Livestock Transformation Plan championed by the Federal Government. Speaking on Channels TV, Mr. Governor bellowed that it would be inappropriate to deprive the ‘transnational Fulani’ of the benefits of the livestock plan simply because they were not Nigerians. In other words, the Fulani as international citizens are entitled to all lands without passports. No modern state has been organized on such a ridiculous basis.

But Mohammed was not done. In probably the most incendiary declaration ever made by a governor in Nigerian history, he said in February 2021: “Because the Fulani man is practising the tradition of pastoralism, he has been exposed to cattle rustlers who carry a gun, kill him and take away his cows: he has no option but to carry AK 47 because the government and the society are not protecting him.” The Special Guest of Honour was speaking at the launch of the Bauchi Correspondents’ Chapel of the NUJ magazine, Correspondents Watch. Pray, if the Fulani herders who have given Nigeria a top spot on the Global Terrorism Index are entitled to weapons to protect their cattle, why are members of other ethnic groups not? Some people just cannot learn from Rwanda or anywhere. After all, they have their trusted megaphone with which they daily haul insults at others.

Just in case the controllers of federal power have not grasped the point, the Fulani identity is daily being battered through the atrocities of the men let loose on other Nigerians by drummers hiding behind the power flora and fauna. Almost on a daily basis, Yoruba, Igbo, Idoma, etc, girls and women are abducted, taken to forests bleeding and barefoot, and raped either to a point of senselessness or to eternal silence. The men are chanced upon on their roads and abducted and slaughtered even after the payment of hefty ransoms. The security agents who wax lyrical while hunting down the government’s critics fly no drones above the skies to locate, arrest and prosecute the killers. Egged on by the realization that a fellow tribesman currently has control of Nigeria’s guns and bullets, the killers forget that tomorrow is precisely why today is of little significance.

Re: Time to end ASUU’s fraud

I read your column in Tribune. The best ever. Very pragmatic treatise. Nigerians should challenge this evil called ASUU.

(0702 526 2728)

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Well done my indefatigable editor! What you have written about the ongoing ASUU’ strike is not a matter of vituperation but rational contribution to correct the misconduct of the union! What they are claiming is a legitimate quest but it calls for the application of wisdom. They need to consider the lives of their helpless students.

Rev Michael Oladimeji (08023852901)

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You have again highlighted a thorny issue in our troubled polity through Time to End ASUU’s fraud. It would appear as though the political class and ASUU conspired to kill the public school system in Nigeria. I pray for a responsible and committed leadership in Nigeria from 2023. Such a leadership would be expected to deal with the shenanigans of the present order. I maintain that you keep the flame of your passion for exploring our social ills as you try to shed light in the darkness. Thanks.

Michael Olaotan, Kwoi, Kaduna State.

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I read your column with mixed feeling because your view was devoid of investigative journalism. One would expect thorough analysis of the grievances of ASUU and defence of each issue by the government. A visit to any department in any first generation university would have helped your judgment and conclusion that you made in your column: “change your poor attitude to education, proscribe ASUU, and commit more money to the varsities. Let Governing Councils do their jobs and hold their employees accountable. Enforce no-work-no-pay to the letter.” ONE QUESTION YOU SHOULD ASK: HAS ANY VICE-CHANCELLOR condemned THE STRIKE? Please be objective.

Prof C.T Akanbi

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