Fwd: (Ekitipanupo) What does Ortom really want?

[DR SIKIRU ENIOLA]

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Date: Sun, Aug 29, 2021, 6:54 AM
Subject: (Ekitipanupo) What does Ortom really want?
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What does Ortom really want?

August 28

By Tope Ajayi

 

The Cable

The last six years must have been the toughest one for anyone who is of the Fulani ethnic stock in Nigeria. Governor Samuel Ortom has, in words and actions, made being a Fulani a burden on account of the distasteful anti-Fulani sentiments he has been fueling since he became governor of his state arising from the age-long herder/farmer clashes.

To any casual observer, it would appear as if this crisis started in 2015 when Ortom became the chief executive of his state because of the way he has mismanaged the crisis with the manner he usually appeals to the base instincts of his people. Long before Ortom became governor, Benue has been a major hotbed of conflict between farmers and herders on one hand and other intra-ethnic squabbles between the Tiv and Jukun.

His two predecessors, George Akume and Gabriel Suswam, faced the same challenges without stoking ethnic sentiments. But not Governor Ortom, who, unfortunately, is using the farmer/herder clashes to obfuscate the Benue people on his mediocre performance in the past six years.

Without a doubt, the heightened and repeated clashes between herdsmen and farmers and the attendant human carnage should compel any governor to look for a solution to keep his state safe. How Governor Ortom is going about finding a solution to a problem that can be solved with even-handedness to all parties, remains a nagging issue. The state house of assembly passed a politically motivated and apartheid-era type of law that bans open grazing. A cursory look at the law clearly shows that it was targeted at a particular ethnic group with the governor determined to implement it to the letter.

Ordinarily, there should be no problem with a law that seeks to stop an archaic, destructive, and crisis-prone system of rearing cattle if Governor Ortom had not fouled and poisoned the waters himself with the way he created a wedge between the people, thereby endangering peaceful co-existence in the state. It is needless to state that Ortom’s politics of identity and ethnic profiling of the Fulani herdsmen have become his own Achilles heel.

What ordinarily should be dealt with as a pure criminal and law enforcement matter was made to metastasize into ethnic conflagration among the people who are already victims of Ortom’s poor governance.

Sadly, Governor Ortom has pushed his anti-Fulani rhetoric with the anti-open grazing law to a genocidal point. It has reached a stage where all men and women of goodwill in Nigeria should now beg him to roll it back. The governor appears to be dangerously leading the country on the road to Kigali.

Notwithstanding his personal frustration with the security situation of his state, it is very unbecoming of a serving governor to constantly embark on a voyage of hate campaign against a particular ethnic group. There is probably no political figure in Nigeria who, in the last six years, has heightened and sustained a country-wide anti-Fulani sentiments as much as the Benue state governor.

In his recent interview on Sunrise Daily, a programme on Channels TV, Governor Ortom betrayed his oath of office when he threw decency and decorum expected of an occupant of his high office to the wind with the way he poured invectives on the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria just because the president has a ‘misfortune’ of being a Fulani man. I fail to understand how a governor feels using uncouth and gutter language to describe the person and office of the president will bring solution to any problem.

On the subsisting crisis around cattle rearing in Nigeria, we must be honest to admit that open grazing is not the reason for the constant irritation between farmers and herders. The real problem is nomadic herding and the destruction of farmlands. Before politicians like Governor Ortom polluted the waters with toxic tribalism, we had time-tested community-based conflict resolution mechanisms between farmers and herders for compensation that worked well for all parties.

For political survival, Ortom has mined the conflicts in Benue very well as the only elixir since he became governor. In six years, the governor has used the herders/farmers crisis as a tool for political and tribal mobilisation. Seeking refuge under primordial ethnic sentiments has become an easy way to mask his incompetence and failure to lead any meaningful development initiative. Benue, in the hand of a visionary leader, should be one of the most prosperous states in Nigeria as the food basket of the country. Everything we know about peaceful co-habitation changed since Ortom became governor with his deliberate and provocative stand against Fulani herdsmen. The joke on social media is that once it is getting towards the end of the month when workers’ salaries will be due for payment, Ortom will raise the noise level of his imaginary Fulanisation agenda.

Fighting against President Buhari’s ‘Fulanisation agenda’ is enough kool-aid to make the impoverished civil servants in Benue state happy every end of the month. Interestingly, Governor Ortom has challenged the presidency to a debate on his alleged Fulanisation of Nigeria. While we hope the presidency will accept this challenge, Nigerians should also ask the governor when he will challenge himself to a debate on his monumental failure in governance.

It is quite intriguing that in 2021, governors are so much bogged down with the politics of cattle rearing and ignored its vast economic potentials. They are satisfied with just playing to the gallery when they should roll up their sleeves to harnessing the huge revenue and jobs creating opportunities in animal husbandry. When Ortom and southern governors say they don’t have land for grazing reserves, we should ask them what they are doing with the thousands of kilometres of uncultivated land within their states. I think the less emotive we are on this sensitive issue, the quicker for us to find an enduring and sustainable solution to this problem of herdsmen/farmers conflict.

Brazil, the country with the biggest cattle in the world and the largest exporter of beef with a beef industry worth more than $150b, has over 162 million hectares of grazing reserves. The very notion that grazing reserves/routes is an outdated system that cannot be part of the solutions to our peculiar crisis is complete misinformation being peddled by Governor Ortom and those who thrive in conflict. Brazil also exports grazing grass to other parts of the world. Ortom should get down to work and stop being a crying baby.

There is no country in the world where all cattle are ranched. It is not possible because ranching is a very expensive business. Using gubernatorial fiat to tell all Fulani herdsmen to transit from what they know to a new system of ranching is asking for the impossible. Ranching will automatically shoot up the cost of meat, which is a major source of cheap protein for the average family. It is also practically impossible to move thousands of Fulani herdsmen from their cultural nomadic system into ranching all at once except what we seek is total extermination of all herdsmen.

In reality, any practical solution to this problem in the short, medium and long term, one way or the other, will still incorporate grazing reserves. Canada, which is more advanced and much more developed than Nigeria, has grazing reserves.

A Cattle Farm Practices Survey conducted by the United Kingdom’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and published in September 2019, says 87% of farmers in the UK, use a mix of housed and grazing systems for their cattle. The survey also put the percentage of cattle farmers that rented land from other farmers to graze their cattle at 34%. Apart from farmers who own and rent their grazing lands to others, there are also common grazing lands for cattle in the UK.

The falsehood Governor Ortom is promoting about grazing reserves should be rejected by all Nigerians who, genuinely, seek for solution to the herders/farmers conflict.

@The Cable

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[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

Ortom in Benue.

Igboho in the SW.

Danjuma in the Middle Belt.

IPOB/ESN in the SE.

Southern governors.

All these and more are crying out against Nigeria being held to ransom by violent Fulani herdsmen and Fulani militants, one of the world's deadliest terrorist groups, horrors compunded by the ravages of Fulani kidnapping rackets.

When Miyetti Allah, headed by Nigeria's most elite Fulani, escalated Fulani militia terrorism by recurrently justifying massacres in the Middle Belt, most of us were silent.

Ortom is not Danjuma who first cried out against genocide by Fulani herdsmen and their militia, urging people to defend themselves.

He is not OBJ, the first person to warn the President about national fears of a Fulanisation and Islamisation agenda.

He is not Igboho, on the run from the fed govt for daring to protect his people from greedy Fulani herdsmen and their terrorists.

Igangan, where Igboho's campaign began, has since been twice attacked and people massacred by the Fulani militia, who remain untouched by the govt.

I have the utmost contempt for the pretense that Nigeria is not under siege by violent Fulani herdsmen, Fulani militia and Fulani kidnappers, with the aid of the Fed govt, led by supremacist Fulani.

We have come too far in Nigeria being savaged by the orgy of blood at the hands of these creatures for there to be any more doubt about the hell these ethnic supremacist terrorists have plunged the country into.

The UK, which the writer refers to, does not have nomadic cattle herding, which has become a tool of terrorist penetration, destruction of farmlands, rape, murder and massacre in Nigetia at the hands of violent Fulani herdsmen and their terrorist militia. 

Graze your cattle in your native North and transport them down south by trucks, if you must come to the South at all.

People are fed up with the cover of economic activities as a ploy for internal colonisation through terrorism.

We don't have to have Fulani cows. We can breed our own.

Thanks

Toyin

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[Cornelius Hamelberg]

At some point I thought that Omoyele Che Sowore was going to say that this too could also be true about the class thing in Nigeria, that the rich are united by their riches whilst the poor suffering masses continue in their sufferation , exploited by their common enemy and united under the whiplashes of poverty...

The essence of Tope Ajayi's cool-headed analysis is that ideally, in the best interests of Nigeria, the poor & exploited would get together, organise, purposefully unite under the collective spirit of nationalism, and that that irrepressible spirit should transcend the splintered, narrower, selfish, regional, ethnic-territorial, self-interest of each and every individual state that makes up the Nigerian Federation. There is strength in the numbers who understand “United we stand, divided we fall”

“ Sadly, Governor Ortom has pushed his anti-Fulani rhetoric with the anti-open grazing law to a genocidal point. It has reached a stage where all men and women of goodwill in Nigeria should now beg him to roll it back. The governor appears to be dangerously leading the country on the road to Kigali.”

If Nigeria was a fully functioning law and order country, no one should have to “beg him”, and his overbearing arrogance which believes that he is above the law would have been addressed, punished long ago. Unhappily, Governor Samuel Ortom would have either had to pay a very heavy fine or found himself behind bars for the crimes committed against the Fulani under the laws of hate speech, which is also a crime in the Federal Republic of Nigeria...

This other question invites some creative thinking for profitable solutions such as getting unemployed youths into farming, and exports, for the good of the nation :

”When Ortom and southern governors say they don’t have land for grazing reserves, we should ask them what they are doing with the thousands of kilometres of uncultivated land within their states “

[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

I thought someone called Cornelius has agreed that violent Fulani herdsmen are a menace in Nigeria?

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[Cornelius Hamelberg]

Oluwatoyin Vimvent Adepoju,

Of course, “violent Fulani herdsmen are (more than) a menace in Nigeria”. No one in his right senses would deny that.; but do you think that gives people like Governor Samuel Ortom the right to continue to stoke his genocidal Kigali fires against the Fulani people as if  everyone who  happens to be born Fulani is complicit in what Fulani Herdsmen, armed robbers and what you refer to as ransom kidnapping rackets, are doing. By the way, I just read here , that Senator Nelson Effiong has just been kidnapped, but it doesn't say whether or not the “unknown gunmen” who kidnapped him were Fulani Herdsmen or not...

[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

Thanks Cornelius.

What has Ortom done that makes him think he is guilty of what you claim?

How are his assertions on terrorism by violent Fulani different from yours on the same subject?

You could also read the governor of Nasarawa state, a Fulani man, admitting that the kidnap and banditry scourge particularly terrorising the North is run largely by Fulani people, former herdsmen.

A simple Google search will bring it up.

I will also post the report on this group.

What Nigeria is expericing is what is called "state capture" by a criminal class operating through a military, political and civil society network represented by violent Fulani herdsmen, Fulani militia, Fulani kidnappers, Miyetti Allah, led by Nigeria's most eminient Fulani such as the Sultan of Sokoto and former Emir of Kano anf ex-CBN governor Lamido Sanusi and the Fulani President of Nigeria who manipulates organs of state in favour of this criminal enterprise, initiatives further empowered by those people from the same or related enthno-religious demographic who are cavassing for huge payouts to these terrorists to prevent them from continuing their lifestyle in which they impoverish so many of life and sustenance.

Are we all in Nigeria to take up arms so we can be settled by the govt as most people in the country are poor?

How does the huge ransoms these criminals collect transform into poverty alleviation?

What may these vampires learn from the Igbo experience, in which a people made economically comatose by the civil war rebuilt themselves without govt help, without the majority being criminals?

Along with this crazy mindset, this culture of entitlement by criminal Fulani networks and their political sympathisers extends into the horror of violent Fulani herdsmen and their militia which has become another military arm of the Buhari govt, an arm supported by the govt's security forces who collude with them.

Everyday is for the thief, one day is for the owner.

This criminal network is a menace to everyone, of every ethnicity and every religion.

Those whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad- the Greeks.

Toyin

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[Cornelius Hamelberg]

Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju,

Do you think that Tope Ajayi is exaggerating? I'm taking my cue from the tenor of his article that we are responding to, about Benue's Governor Samuel Ortom ,

“the distasteful anti-Fulani sentiments he has been fuelling...the way he has mismanaged the crisis with the manner he usually appeals to the base instincts of his people...stoking ethnic sentiments...targeted at a particular ethnic group...Sadly, Governor Ortom has pushed his anti-Fulani rhetoric with the anti-open grazing law to a genocidal point...The governor appears to be dangerously leading the country on the road to Kigali...constantly embark on a voyage of hate campaign against a particular ethnic group. There is probably no political figure in Nigeria who, in the last six years has heightened and sustained a country-wide anti-Fulani sentiments as much as the Benue state governor...”

You yourself are going beyond the pale when you want to rope in Nigeria's most revered Muslim leaders such as the Sultan of Sokoto in this atrocious diatribe :

“What Nigeria is experiencing is what is called "state capture" by a criminal class operating through a military, political and civil society network represented by violent Fulani herdsmen, Fulani militia, Fulani kidnappers, Miyetti Allah, led by Nigeria's most eminent Fulani such as the Sultan of Sokoto and former Emir of Kano and ex-CBN governor Lamido Sanusi and the Fulani President of Nigeria who manipulates organs of state in favour of this criminal enterprise, initiatives further empowered by those people from the same or related enthno-religious demographic who are canvassing for huge payouts to these terrorists to prevent them from continuing their lifestyle in which they impoverish so many of life and sustenance.” (Oluwatoyin Adepojuy)

I wouldn't be surprised if you were summoned to appear in court to face charges of libel and slander. In Saddam's Iraq, brave Adepoju, what you wrote would have surely cost you your head and finito to enjoying good booty, but, as you know, in Nigeria, no worries, you are free to vilify your president and Islam's religious leaders to you heart's content...

Is it the Fulani that are doing the ransom kidnapping all over the country?

If only Baba Kadiri would step in to straighten you out about these matters one more time...

You and other detractors simply have to start making distinctions between all the alleged “terrorism by violent Fulani “ and the rest of the Fulani people.

( It was reported on the BBC two days ago that the Fulani are the majority ethnic group in Guinea Conakry. Way back in time, Sekou Toure decimated the Fulani, and now in Nigeria, because of the Fulani Herdsmen- farmers conflict and the overheated scapegoating of the Fulani as being responsible for all the ransom kidnappings and armed robberies, Nigeria's innocent ethnic Fulani minority is already being persecuted. There are so-called “ reprisal attacks” and as Tope Ajayi is warning us - God Forbid - the scene is being set for a repeat of the Rwandan Genocide with the Fulani standing in for the Tutsi.

I'm sure that you don't want to see that happen or to shed some crocodile tears either...

The Last Poets: This Is Madness

[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

I wonder if I should respond.

Is that post not going round in circles?

Is any valid point being made in it?

Thanks

Toyin

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[Cornelius Hamelberg]

I shouldn't want to embarrass you, because that would be a sin, but, which post and which circles do you discern in that your very fine mind? Your monomania, one-eyed premise that it's Fulani Herdsman responsible for everything that's wrong in Nigeria, is also your conclusion. So, who is going round in circles like a snake swallowing its own tail?

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[Cornelius Hamelberg]

Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju,

Earlier on, your Parthian shot was, “We don't have to have Fulani cows. We can breed our own.“ But

I doubt that you intend to become a Herdsman or that you know anything about cattle-rearing, but you do know cattle need water...

Nigeria is not the only African country facing myriads of problems. Take the water problem in Sierra Leone, for example, spelt out in this article by my first cousin Joe Hamelberg who was laid to rest in Freetown, yesterday. Joe worked in Nigeria around the time I was there too.

And, by the way, the vice president of Sierra Leone, Mohamed Juldeh Jalloh is Fulani....

[Emeagwali, Gloria (History)]

“The Vice President of Sierra Leone Mohammed

Juldeh Jalloh is Fulani” CH

....... and so was Thomas Sankara.

 It could be that  Buhari  1.0 was not really 

a Fulani  and that the reincarnation and 

transmigoration process took place the 

second time around,  when he became 

Buhari. 2.0.

Will that explanation save Toyin Adepoju’s 

Fulani herdsman theory as it relates to

Buhari?😳

Just kidding this Thursday morning on

September 9, two days before the Ethiopian 

New Year of 2014, if I am not mistaken.

Professor Gloria Emeagwali 

Prof. of History/African Studies, CCSU
africahistory.net; vimeo.com/ gloriaemeagwali
Recipient of the 2014 Distinguished Research
Excellence Award, Univ. of Texas at Austin;
2019 Distinguished Africanist Award
New York African Studies Association

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[Cornelius Hamelberg]

Dear Vincent Adepoju,

Up till now we have not heard from you, causing us to suspect, abi there has been or there is an ongoing blackout/ electric power outage in your neck of the woods, over there in Lagos, rendering you incommunicado?

But take your time. As you probably know,“There is no compulsion in religion: truth has been separated from falsehood.” In fact, if you so like, you don't have to respond at all to anyone else's idiotic tautologies. There's even this old proverb of King Solomon who had so many wives and that's why he was so wise: “ Let the fool speak and the wise give no answer”

I'm also hip with that. What I'm not hip with is that according to you – as far as you're concerned, the three main arms of the current Nigerian Government are the Fulani President, The Fulani Herdsmen and Miyetti Allah, a not so holy trinity and if this be true, then I agree with you, that that ain't right.

In the midst of the madness – the anarchy, ransom kidnapping and all else that's making life a misery in Nigeria, sometimes it's difficult to argue along the logical straight and narrow lines, at other times it could be more convenient to appeal to the opposition's baser instincts, undermine reason, subvert logic and with the permission of the Merciful Falola, to even wax a little satirical and ridicule to much greater effect....

If only this were true