Foresight

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Jibrin Ibrahim

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Sep 17, 2021, 9:54:13 AM9/17/21
to 'chidi opara reports' via USA Africa Dialogue Series

Developing Foresight in the Battle against Terrorists and Bandits

Jibrin Ibrahim, Deepening Democracy Column, Daily Trust, 17th September 2021

Indications are that the offensive against the bandits in Zamfara State is making some progress. Hundreds of them have been killed through aerial bombardments and some of those running away are being mopped up by ground forces. We must congratulate our troops for the success so far and urge them to do more. In the Eastern Front, internal fighting within Boko Haram led to the killing of factional leader Abubakar Shekau. There were reports yesterday that the killer of Shekau and leader of the ISWAP faction, Musab Al-Barnawi, has been killed in a revenge attack. These are very positive developments that are bound to create traction in the fight against these terrorists and our troops should seize this opportunity to go for the kill, that is, eliminate the entire movement.

Nonetheless, although the heat is on and the terrorists and bandits are in disarray, the tipping point in the battle against them has not yet arrived. The on-going offensive in Zamfara has resulted in the killing of hundreds of bandits but both the State government and experts believe that there are over 30,000 armed bandits in that State alone so killing a few hundred is not a significant achievement. Close observers have said many of them moved out immediately government announced the offensive and closed down telephone access. There is no doubt about it, they will return when the coast is clear. To remind us all that they are very much alive, they have been attacking villagers in surrounding States such as Katsina and Kaduna. No one is safe as witnessed by the abduction of the Emir of Bungudu a few days ago. Schools, military formations, towns and cities are still being attacked so there has been no significant shift in the dynamics.

The fact of the matter is that they are not really feeling the pinch. They are mobile groups, well-armed, and now, wealthy from the ransom money they have been collecting. When large offensives are announced, they duck. When petrol sales are restricted, they bribe massively to procure necessary supplies. When the GSM network is switched off, the buy Thuraya satellite phones. In other words, the conventional approach our armed forces are using against them have been ineffective. They are ahead of us on the thinking curve. That has been the situation for a long time.

A few days ago, the Katsina State Governor Aminu Masari has said that with the benefit of hindsight, his government should never have negotiated with bandits, let alone grant them amnesty. Today, he has realized that: “They are not pushing for any ideological view; they are not pushing for any religious view. They are simply bandits, criminals and thieves.” Yes indeed and they are making so much money from their criminal activities that State governments simply do not have enough financial resources to compensate them for their proceeds of crime. Analysts have said that from the very beginning but many State governors believed they could placate them. The real question is not why they are discovering this, years after, with hindsight while they refused to listen to those with foresight that had tried to advise them.

Meanwhile, the armed forces are excited that six additional Tucano fighter jets are expected in the country next week to complement the six already on the ground in the fight against insecurity. This would significantly improve both surveillance and bombing capacity of the Air Force. The problem is that bandits and terrorists do live in real fear of air raids and distribute themselves in small groups hidden in thick forests so while a few do get killed in attacks, most of them survive and continue with their destructive attacks on the lives, liberty and property of Nigerians.

The new approach emanating from State governments and community leaders in many parts of the country is to buy guns to fight back. People realise that they have been sitting ducks for too long. They are regularly killed and abducted. Their wives and daughters are raped, their properties and homes destroyed. Increasingly, they are being prevented from engaging in the livelihoods, farming in particular. Many communities are therefore buying weapons for self-help. It seems to be a good idea given the failure of the security forces that have had the monopoly of the means of violence until a few years ago. The problem is with so many arms in circulation and the now widespread knowledge that the Kalashnikov is the fastest path to riches, there is a real risk that rogue elements within communities will turn these arms against the people and loin the looters. In other words, this could be the pathway to Armageddon. For me, the best pathway is for our armed forces to succeed in the battle against terrorism and banditry. Already, reports from communities that have succeeded in killing some bandits indicate that subsequently, the bandits re-organise, return to the community in large numbers, overwhelm them and massacre innocent community members that were only trying to defend themselves. It is difficult for communities to have access to the type and number of sophisticated weapons being used by bandits. There is also a wider risk that if communities have problems with one another in future, they will use the weapons against each other. Currently, there are over six million small arms and light weapons in the hands of private citizens in Nigeria according to former Head of State General Abdulsalam Abubakar. Multiplying the number might just lead to a degeneration of the situation and a move towards anarchy.

The armed forces need to change its approach. Large military operations, announced in advance and focused on one State at a time has not been working and simply cannot work. It requires large budgets which the army command would want to control and the resources simply do not get to the fighting soldiers. Both bandits and terrorists are engaged in a war of movement based on small mobile groups. The armed forces must follow the same tactic. Hundreds of small mobile army units should be established based on the intelligence of where the bands of terrorists and bandits are. There should be a clear definition of success – every attack by bandits and terrorists must be followed by hot pursuit conducted by local units of our armed forces. When they start getting casualties for each and every operation, the fear in them will start to emerge. Currently, they operate with impunity for most of their operations so they have nothing to fear really. They are so confident today that they even steal cattle which they take away on foot with the knowledge that no one will come after them. It would be easy to track their movements by drones and ensure they do not enjoy the booty. That will be the tipping point when the insecurity will start reducing dramatically.

 

Professor Jibrin Ibrahim
Senior Fellow
Centre for Democracy and Development, Abuja
Follow me on twitter @jibrinibrahim17

Oluwatoyin Adepoju

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Sep 17, 2021, 11:07:39 AM9/17/21
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Fantastic.

I wonder why the Buhari govt seems to have suddenly woken up to this challenge.

I'm also puzzled as to why military operations are being announced, and even before they are launched.

Are suprise and classified intelligincre no longer part of milititary strategy?

I also wonder why most people keep referring to unidentified "bandits"  seemingly unwilling to acknowledge the assertions of Masari, governor of Zamfara, El Rufai, governor of Kaduna and Sheikh Gumi, self appointed laison between the terrorists and the populace, prominent figures,  who as Masari and Rufai certainly are, and perhaps Gumi is, are themselves Fulani,   that these criminals are largely Fulani and often herdsmen who have branched into outright criminality.

Where did this esclation of this new brand of terrorism begin?

It began from the audacity of Miyetti Allah, led by Nigeria's most elite Fulani, in suppprting, even openly, the recurrent massacres by Fulani militia, one of the world's deadliest terrorist groups, whose existence the Buhari govt refuses to acknowledge in spite of their international visibility,  in assoiation with Fulani herdsmen in the Middle Belt, openly justifying those horrors, with the connivance of the Buhari govt, who not only did not question, talk less prosecute them,  t
 but  blamed these massacres on the victims rather than the perpetrators, doing everything to satisfy what had become a terrorist movement.

Eventually, this evil spiralled from claims of seeking access to grazing lands for cattle, in the course of which the massacres and land to thefts took place, to kidnapping for huge ransoms in the South and now massive kidnappings in the North, as the Buhari govt watched.

Is the new activity by the Buhari govt a response to the courage of people like Ortom, governor of Benue and others who accuse the  Buhari govt of an ethnically driven terrorist and internal colonisation agenda?

Is that why the operations are announced in advance so the terrorists may escape?

I see Buhari as demonstrating the culture of a terrorist.

Until this terrorist network- between Fulani militia, violent Fiulani herdsmen, Boko Haram and Miyetti Allah- is decimated, I will not allow myself to believe Buhari intends to do anything decisive to dismantle it. 

Thanks

Toyin

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Harrow, Kenneth

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Sep 17, 2021, 12:44:18 PM9/17/21
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dear toyin
i have not commented on this issue since i feel too uninformed to make any intelligent comments. however, i know it is very very hot,and i understand why.
in the following paragraph you emphasized fulani as an identificatory marker. you wrote:
"I also wonder why most people keep referring to unidentified "bandits"  seemingly unwilling to acknowledge the assertions of Masari, governor of Zamfara, El Rufai, governor of Kaduna and Sheikh Gumi, self appointed laison between the terrorists and the populace, prominent figures,  who as Masari and Rufai certainly are, and perhaps Gumi is, are themselves Fulani,   that these criminals are largely Fulani and often herdsmen who have branched into outright criminality."

if there was a segment of the yoruba population practicing depredations on the civilian population, and you used the term "yoruba" or "igbo" or, christian, say, or any other such term, what would you have gained? or lost?
why is it important that the identity as fulani be stressed here, or even mentioned? what other term might be used?

it's obvious why i am asking. the question is, is this whetting the blades or increasing the flames of hatred, which could easily turn against fulanis of any stripe. if you answer, well, they are fulani, my question remains, so what? can't you find another descriptor that doesn't foster hatred of people because they are fulani, rather than because they are predators?
ken


kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Oluwatoyin Adepoju <ovde...@gmail.com>
Sent: Friday, September 17, 2021 10:33 AM
To: usaafricadialogue <USAAfric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Foresight
 

Emeagwali, Gloria (History)

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Sep 17, 2021, 3:08:58 PM9/17/21
to Harrow, Kenneth, usaafricadialogue
Ken, I agree with you entirely. It is time for 
Toyin Adepoju to stop this ethnic baiting.

He has been doing this for years and seems
unable or unwilling to change. Many people 
dubbed Fulani are actually Hausa or may
have one Hausa parent and another Fulani.
They may be actually Kanuri etc.
 This point was clearly made by Farook
 in an earlier post. And what if some of the
 bandits are actually from other regions?

Banditry is an equalizer. The disgruntled,
greedy, homeless, violent, former
cattle rustlers, landless, opportunistic, orphan, 
kidnappers, the mean and the evil - all get 
together to form this lumpen proletariat.


Toyin Adepoju seems to think that the Fulani
have no right to be in Nigeria. That is baloney.
In fact they are the indigenous inhabitants
of seventeen African countries, not one or two.
Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

The moderator must intervene and put an 
end to these posts- unless he, too, wants
to fuel anti-Fulani  hatred.  I know he does not.


Professor Gloria Emeagwali
Prof. of History/African Studies

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Sent: Friday, September 17, 2021 11:50 AM
To: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Foresight
 

Please be cautious: **External Email**

dear toyin
i have not commented on this issue since i feel too uninformed to make any intelligent comments. however, i know it is very very hot,and i unders in tand why.

Oluwatoyin Adepoju

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Sep 17, 2021, 3:09:04 PM9/17/21
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Thanks Ken.

Its impossible for this development to occur in terms of any ethnic group in Nigeria other than the Fulani.

The crisis needs to be understood in terms of its roots in the weaponizatiuon of Fulani ethnicity if the crisis is to be adequately addressed and its recurrence forestalled.

At the core of this descent of Nigeria into terrorist anarchy is Miyetti Allah Fulani Socio-Cultural Organisation, the group that initiated this season of horror by justifying, and doing so openly, recurrent massacres by Fulani militia in tandem with Fulani herdsmen.

Miyetti Allah is a group led by the nation's most elite Fulani, represented particularly by the Sultan of Sokoto and the former Emir of Kano and ex-CBN govenor Sanusi Lamido Sanusi.

These men, patrons of Miyetti Allah, have cultivated a policy of silence as Miyetti Allah transformed itself into a terrorist group through its intiatives.

Sanusi has broken his silence only to ameliorate the horror of a massacre by Fulani militia in the Middle Belt by claiming a previous massacre of Fulani in Plateau, a claim discredited by the Plateau state govt.

He also broke his silence to declare himself and the Sultan of Sokoto as patrons of Miyetti Allah when people were pointing to ex-Presidential aspirant and ex-vice President Atiku Abubukar as a possible sponsor of Miyetti Allah.

The same Atiku Abubakar is the one who provided an ideological framework signifiicant for the 2011 Boko Haram resurgence by threatening the nation  with violent change  in response to his failure to get the nomination of PDP Presidential candidate, which would have got him the Presidency on account of the PDP's centrality at the time in Nigeria's politics.

These are some of the mindsets demonstrated by the radical core of the leadership of Nigeria's Fulani, a dangerous and reckless radical core, characters blinded by their desperation for power so they  can't see beyond their noses.

The rough equivalents to Miyetti Allah in the South are Ohanaeze Ndigbo in the SE and Afenifere in the SW.

The rough equivalent to a miltia force in the SW is  the Odua People's Congress, and the rough equivalent in the SE is the newly formed Eastern Security Network.

Not only are such atrocties as define the Fulani militia and the violent Fulani herdsmen unimaginable from the OPC and possibly ESN, even given the unfolding murders in the SE by what I understand are yet unknown militia forces, its also unthinkable for Afenifere to give any kind of suppport to such horrors  from OPC or Ohanaeze Ndigbo to do so in relation to ESN, in the unlikely event they commited such horrors.

The policy of most Fulani on these massacres has been either silence, equivocation  or suppport, the latter represented by Fulani professor Labdo responding to the Fulani herdsmen miltia massacres in Benue by declaring that Benue belongs to the Fulani by right of conquest.

There was universal silence by his fellow Fulani, talk less his fellow Fulani elite, to such naked inhumanity.

Such scope of solidarity with inhumanity is impossible in the South.

Those who equivocate try to shift the blame for the masssacres to the victims, arguing the Fulani herdsmen were pushed to the wall or provoked. 

I have already described Buhari's identification with his Fulani ethnicity in his handling of the crisis, a strategy pervasive across the armed forces which he has largely placed in the hands of his ethno-religious  affiliates as his first act on assuming office, even as he delayed for weeks, if not more, in forming a cabinet, describing ministers as ''noise makers.'' 

The rule is that violent Fulani herdsmen and Fulani militia are not to be apprehended  by the security forces, even when observed in the midst of their bloody operations. Any civilian who fights them back successfully faces the wrath of the security forces, a narrative reinforced by recurrent accounts since Buhari's  2015 swearing in.

Miyetti Allah is effectively  the civil society arm of the Buhari govt, loudly scorning any calls for its violence and even genocidal policies to be adressed by the police, making its terroristic declarations even in meetings with the leaders of Nigeria's  security forces, threatening  entire states, as it did in defiance of the inauguration of the Benue anti-open grazing law, reinforcing this through  a massacre they carried out in Benue upon which Buhari and his military leadership   blamed the victims; Miyetti Allah going further to declare they will not obey the anti-open grazing laws recently initiated by states in the South and threatening Southern governors with repercussions  for creating those laws.

These characters do all these and are left alone by the Buhari govt. They are  complementary to the govt as they act as the civil society pressure group for Fulani miltia and violent Fulani herdsmen.

Like Boko Haram became a universal scourge after intial support from some members of Northern Muslim society who saw them as championing their cause as fellow Northern Muslims in Nigerian political space, Fulani criminal networks rooted in renegade Fulani herdsmen and their asociated miltia  have now become a universal scourge, all beceause of the enablement by supremacist Fulani.

Cries of Fulanisation  and Islamisation representing the increasing identification of the Buhari govt for many Nigerians  are accurate, ethno-religious initiaves being pursused by a radical core of ethn-religious supremacists.

thanks

toyin



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Oluwatoyin Adepoju

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Sep 18, 2021, 4:07:11 PM9/18/21
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I've responded to Ken.

This is a serious issue of ethnic politics in which a radical core of an ethnicity are ravaging the nation.

It's similar to the fusion of Germanic/Aryan supremacist thought with inhuman policies in the Nazi party.

My response provides a historical map of the crisis.

Such an account can only be countered through a similar historical analysis, based on actual developments across time.

It's not an issue for denialiast liberalism.

Fulani supremacist ideology in harmony with Fulani militia and Fulan herdsmen terrorism, terrorist movements studies by various scholars, is Nigeria's greatest problem.

A simple Google investigation of Nigerian history since 2015 and of global investigations of the subject will show that ignoring it's existence is impossible.

Thanks

Toyin

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Salimonu Kadiri

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Sep 18, 2021, 4:08:41 PM9/18/21
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​Thank you, glorious Gloria for your observation and remarks on Adepoju's constant ethno-religious jingoism on this forum. Normal and honest Nigerians are aware that there is a nationwide organisation in Nigeria since 1979 known as Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN). It is organised in all the 36 states of Nigeria, with each state having a Chairman and a Secretary. The current National Chairman of MACBAN is Alhaji Muhammadu Kiroma while the National Secretary is Usman Baba- Ngelzarma. MACBAN co-operates with both States and Federal government to address problems around nomadic pastoralists in Nigeria. Therefore, they are in support of ranching and ban on open grazing. https://dailypost.ng/2018/06/28/herdsmen-killings-miyetti-allah-speaks-terrorist-organization/  
However, there is another two-men organisation, called Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore, whose Chairman is Bello Abdullahi Bodejo and Secretary General is Saleh Alhassan. The two-men organisation are always in the social media issuing threats of all kinds, on behalf of herders they do not have as members, against  Middle Belt and Southern Nigeria States. For Oluwatoyin Adepoju, Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore is the representative of herdsmen and all Fulani people in Nigeria, although he is always mischieviously exponging Kautal Hore from the name in order to make it look like there is only one Miyetti Allah organisation in Nigeria representing all Fulani herdsmen.
The Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria, MACBAN, has refuted claims of condoning killings carried out by herdsmen across the country.
dailypost.ng
​Oluwatoyin needs to be reminded of the danger of sweeping negative generalisation based on ethno-religious belonging. As of date, 99% of all Nigerian prostitutes and their traffickers caught in Europe are Christians from Edo State, but no sensible person will ever expand that to imply that all Edo people are human traffickers and all Edo female adults are prostitutes.
A Nigerian politician and UK-based Nurse has been sentenced to jail for 14 years after using voodoo magic to force Nigerian ladies to work as prostitutes in Europe so she could fund a lavish lifestyle.
​S. Kadiri

From: 'Emeagwali, Gloria (History)' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: 17 September 2021 20:17
To: Harrow, Kenneth <har...@msu.edu>; usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Oluwatoyin Adepoju

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Sep 19, 2021, 10:12:36 AM9/19/21
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Great thanks, Salimonu.

Is it true that there are two different organisations known as Miyetti Allah?

Is it true that one of these organisations is not belligerent and obeys the rule of law, has nothing to do with  massacres of Nigerians and terrorism and that the belligerent one consists of only two people, a membership scope devaluing the significance of whatever they have to say?

Is it inaccurate to ask questions about the implications of the silence, equivocation and support of most of Nigeria's elite Fulani to the terrorism being committed by Miyetti Allah and the Fulani militia and Fulani herdsmen they represent?

Is it inaccurate to relate Buhari's accomodation of this terrorism to his own Fulani identity particularly in the light of his strong arm tactics with the peaceful activities-undeniably so before the current complexities- of IPOB in the SE?

 Between Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore and Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association 

Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association and Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore are two different organisations, with significant similarities. 

Kunle Adedejo tries to differentiate between both groups: ''Explainer: Drawing A Line Between Nigeria’s Two Miyetti Allah Groups''.


 Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore


Its not true that Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore Fulani Sociocultural Organisation, as they call themselves, is a two member group.

Their Facebook page shows them as  a highly professionalized, well populated group, coordinated in terms of perhaps all regions of Nigeria, seriously empowered financially,  run by various members of the Fulani elite, drawn from various professions and beyond, PhDs, engineers and others,working in tandem with their recognition by Northern Muslim state governors, regularly holding national  and global  press conferences and seminars in advancing their understanding of the welfare of the Fulani, central to which is Fulani cattle nomadism, a strategic aspect of Fulani culture and even its cosmology, as evident from the Fulani creation story, in which, ''at the beginning there was a huge drop of milk'', milk evoking primal sustenance and ultimate generative power, in the context of an understanding of Fulani existence as defined by the cattle in front, the Fulani man following and the Fulani woman coming after, if I recall precisely enough this ordering as described at webpulaaku, a fantastic site on Fulbe (Fulani] history and civilization.

 The Wikipedia page on the Fulani describes their ethnic group as having ''the largest nomadic pastoral community  in the world'' as well as comprising sedentary Fulani, which latter group  includes Presidents, a Prime Minister and Vice-President in  six African countries and apexical and near apexical leadership roles in some of the most prestigious international public organisations, from the UN to OPEC.

An April 2021 Facebook post of their page enumerates the national and regional leadership of Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore across various zones of Nigeria.

An August 2021 post on the same page presents their various chairmen, covering various states, of their North East operations. 

A September 6 post on that page is a video of ''Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore Fulani Socio-Cultural Association World Press Conference, Stakeholder Summit On Peace And Security And Investiture Of Brand Ambassadors.''

The range of activity depicted on their Facebook page, its integration of a broad range of the Fulani elite, people clearly very well off and well socially positioned, very media and operationally astute and media savvy, makes it clear that these are people not to be taken for granted. 

These characteristics makes their clearly lawless belligerence all the more shocking, arrogating to themselves a defining role in the Nigerian polity akin to an independent govt  with sweeping powers across Nigeria, behavior leading people to ask the source of such conviction and why it remains unquestioned by the Buhari govt and why they have received no significant challenge, if any, by other members of the Fulani elite.

A June 2020 Guardian, Nigeria editorial, ''The Miyetti Allah Provocations '',  maps  the ongoing terrorist legacy of Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore in relation to terrorism by violent Fulani herdsmen, enabled by the complicity of the fed govt, which has chosen, in contrast,  to savage the peaceful IPOB separatist movement.

A most intriguing phenomenon, provocative in explorations of the intertwining of Nigerian and Fulani history and social organisation.

Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association

Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN) as described on that linked Wikipedia  page on them, is the group which has the Sultan of Sokoto and ex-Emir of Kano and ex-CBN governor Sanusi Lamido Sanusi as patrons, as stated by Sanusi.

Comparing Both Groups

Is there a fundametal difference between various Fulani groups in relation to terrorism by Fulani militia and violent Fulani herdsmen?

I am not yet able to see these differences. 

I observe these groups, at different times, justifing this terrorism, providing various rationale for this terror culture, all suggesting self defintion as a law unto themselves, using claims of responding to attacks, claims that bear little relationship with the well armed terror network they have established, evidenced through constent attacks over years.

The best they do is make claims of being peace loving, claims contradicted by other pronouncements of theirs and by the actions of the terrorist Fulani militia and violent Fulani herdsmen they speak for.

Most Fulani in Nigeria, particularly the Fulani elite, who on account of their education and social positioning, should be most sensitive to the negativisation of the Fulani name by this crisis, do not go significantly  beyond silence, equivocation or complicity in their responses, the latter attitude represented by Professor Labdo, describing Benue as belonging to the Fulani by right of conquest in a widely publicized claim on social media which I am not aware of any of the Fulani elite countering in response to its imperialistic drive in relation to massacres by Fulani militia associated with Fulani herdsmen in Benue.

''Expect More Bloodshded'' Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association warns after the January 2018  massacre carried out by Fulani militia  in Benue.

Their spokesman justifies the massacre in a BBC report, claiming it was in response to an earlier attack from years ago, their standard line for their genocidal practices. 

Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association warns that rejecting the  fed govt's plan to build cattle colonies for Fulani across Nigeria is tantamount to seeking further crisis, orientations suggesting an internal colonisation drive using cattle nomadism as a penetration tool. 

''Our Members Will Not Obey Anti-Open Grazing Laws'' Miyetti Allah Kauta Hore declares in September 2021. 

Other Fulani organisations, from FUNAM, Fulani Nationality Movement of Nigeria, another openly and particularly vociferous terrorist group  to Gan Allah Fulani Association, an umbrella body of Fulani associations in Nigeria, also take pains to demonstrate to other Nigerians what they understand is their absolute power to take life, even of entire communities, citing spurious provocations to which they claim to be responding.

Saleh Bayeri, the Interim National Secretary of Gan Allah Fulani Association, justified the February 2016 Agatu Massacre ( Wikipedia link with rich reports] that razed ten Agatu villages, killing hundreds, including women, children, elderly and men,  a clear effort at genocide,  population cleansing and occupation,after which these locations were occupied by Fulani settlers and their cows,  claiming it was in vengeance for the killing of a Fulani man years ago, a claim they made after first claiming the massacre was in revenge for the killing of their cows.

''Reign Of Terror In Agatu: The Untold Story'' is a terrible  account of the Fulani militia terrorist dominance of that region through recurrent massacres, a story similar to their horrors in such places as Igangan in the SW in defense of which place from these terrorists Sunday Igboho has been driven into exile by the fed govt as the terrorists remain untouched. 

''Fulani Herdsmen’s Mindless Agatu Killings'' by the PUNCH is equally heart rending. That 2016 report was followed by another, broader based one, in 2018, covering the scope of these horrors beyond Agatu, ''Fulani Herdsmen and the Killing Fields of Benue''.

Earlier summations of mine on this subject include Partial Timeline of Self Declarations of Responsibility for and Justification of Massacres in Nigeria by Right Wing Fulani Groups Including Miyetti Allah From 2016-2018

Seek Justice, Not Fiction

Salimonu began his career as a whitewasher of Fulani militia and Fulani herdsmen terrorism and of their Miyetti Allah spokesmen through  claims of the non-existence of such terrorism. He at last acknowledges the violence of a Miyetti Allah group but tries to mitigate their destructive character, the fictional nature of which effort at rewriting history  which I have here demonstrated.

An earlier effort of his along those whitewashing lines can be read here.

As for Gloria, who never engages the issues, demonstrates no knowledge of the relevant history, never makes any reference to historical incidents in the unfolding carnage as a platform for enquiry but is happy to conduct herself  as if Adepoju's  analyses are  based on fabrications and have no resonance with the growing horror in Nigeria that has ignited declarations from such prominent stakeholders as OBJ on Fulanisation and Islamisation, from TY Danjuma on ethnic cleansing, the collusion of the army and the need for Nigerians to defend themselves, from Ortom, governor of Benue on the terrorist activities of Miyetti Allah groups in tandem with the Buhari govt, to the National Democratic Coalition on Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association that ''Miyetti Allah Has Terrorised Nigerians For Too Long, Declare It A Terrorist Group, NADECO USA Tells Buhari'',  I invoke the principle of responsibility to human life, the need to avoid being a denier of historical fact, refusing to examine history in the name of an uncritical liberalism, playing into the hands of genocidal orientations. 

Examine the facts and draw conclusions. Don't pull conclusions out of the air.

thanks

toyin



 










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