Fwd: [NaijaPolitics] FULANI HERDSMEN GIVE NORTHERN GOVERNORS 11 CONDITIONS TO PEACE & HARMONY IN THE NORTH & NIGERIA [ Part 1] [ Terrorism in Nigeria]
Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju
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In a recent Vanguard News interview, a highly placed Fulani irredentist, Dr. Abdulmalik Mohammed Durunguwa, asked for the granting of amnesty to Fulani kidnappers around the country because they are victims of the status quo. He declared that the only source of livelihood for the archetypal Fulani is cattle herding in the wild and nothing else. Those Fulani who have lost their herds have no other option than to engage in banditry and kidnapping for ransom. Dr. Durunguwa demanded that the kidnappers not only be given amnesty but also rehabilitated economically by restarting their means of livelihood with two cows and a bull each. This list of demands tendered by a Fulani association’s National President, Khalil Mohammed Bello, crystalizes the conditions which must be met by Northern governors before peace and harmony can return to the North, in particular, and entire Nigeria, in general. This sounds very much like a ransom demand. It is going to be mass killings, looting and pillaging under the banner of MACBAN unless the government first accepts to meet a list of ten conditionalities.
A first glance at the list would alert one that these conditions shall be near impossible for anyone to meet in today’s Nigeria. The demands are, therefore, not expected to be fulfilled by those who created the list. One can surmise that the ulterior motive is to shift blame from the lawless terrorists to the ruling class. It is also noteworthy that the Fulani leader’s demands completely preclude the existential needs and interests of the indigenous Christian population of the target area who make up the majority. Do the demands for Special Schools and potable water for the nomadic pastoralists, for example, take into consideration that similar amenities should also be provided to the rest of the population? Since the list of ten impossible demands being made is unlikely to be fulfilled, one can conclude that the rate of kidnapping for ransom shall escalate soon. This is not unlike the N160 billion demand recently made to the Buhari government by the leadership of Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN) as a payoff to make the Fulani herdsmen militia to stop kidnapping innocent citizens for ransom.
The breakdown of law and order in the Arewa North stems from the fact that the Islamists’ foot soldiers, who were promised Paradise on earth by their feudal rulers, have now found themselves disillusioned by the greed and selfishness of their ruling elite. Since infancy, the Almajiris of the Arewa North were reared and brainwashed in the communities’ mosques and madrassas to prepare them for the jihad. The male babies and children of yesteryears are now grown men of today – and millions of these Almajiris are in their youthful years, illiterate, unskilled and violent. Worse still, the Almajiris have little to no parental attachment or identity; their lives revolve around the mosques, the madrassa and the streets of urban centers of the North. Perhaps, these street urchins are learning that the first step in fighting the jihad, for which they have been preparing for all their lives, must start with their state governors who are charged with dispensing the largesse of the Islamic commonwealth (ummah) to the faithful.
This list of demands further buttresses the viewpoint that the nomadic instincts of the Fulani make this ethnic nationality a very difficult partner in a nation-building endeavor that is predicated on law and order as well as reverence for well-established human values and norms. The Fulani must be made to exorcise the nomadic instincts in their worldview before they can live in peace and harmony with the rest of the citizenry of their host country, Nigeria. If this cannot be guaranteed verifiably, then the notion of sequestration shall become an inevitability. Hello, Major Gideon Orkar!
To read the article containing the list of Fulani demands, go to LNC-USA website homepage and scroll down toward the bottom.
Okenwa.
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