"BUHARI AND THE TERRORIST RADIO" : Debate on Historical Contexts and Implications of Insurgency Management in Nigeria in Relation to Fulani Speaking Radio Station Dedicated to Fulani Herdsmen

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Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju

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May 23, 2019, 3:30:24 PM5/23/19

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Abdussalam Amoo

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May 24, 2019, 8:23:22 AM5/24/19

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Doses of fake news and hate inspired messages like this aren't worth
spreading.

First, the purported N100 billion is a misleading news that never came from
the current government. It was under Jonathan that such an amount was
approved for building ranches and nothing was ever done. It is also
mischievous to make the killings look like an all Fulani affair to suit
some mischievous narratives as that has been largely false. There are cases
of Fulani crime involvement but that is not all.

When it was in Benue-Taraba initially, the media spread that Fulani
herdsmen narrative even as Jukun and Tiv were always killing one another.
When it was in Zamfara-Katsina, it was largely people of the same tribe
(Fulani) but media created the name 'armed bandits' for the killers.
Killings happening in Rivers, Ebonyi and Cross River communities are also
there that involve no Fulani. All these point to man's inhumanity to man in
Nigeria.

Rather, we should be looking at the measures taken to stem the spread of
the carnage. Gun control is a relevant measure. Close to 100 criminals
terrorising the Abuja-Kaduna axis were paraded last week with their
weapons. People have been travelling on the road without new incidents of
attacks. But those in Katsina and Zamfara are still under attack. It is not
in anyone's interest that people continuously get killed unnecessarily.
Addressing the root of providing good governance to prevent incidents like
that is important. But I don't see any need for the special radio station
anyway.

> Ajayi <https://www.facebook.com/michael.a...

Ashafa Abdullahi

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May 24, 2019, 9:30:45 AM5/24/19

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Abdulsalam,

You can virtually do nothing to reverse the narrative. Am not saying you are wasting your time. But note that it's a product of mindset and predetermined agenda being pursuit through media & intellectual terrorism. Remove Buhari from Aso Rock the narrative changes. No more, no less.

Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju

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May 24, 2019, 10:51:08 AM5/24/19

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Response to Amoo-

The Buhari govt representatives are quoted in various news publications as offering 100BN to MACBAN, representatives of Nigeria's Fulani herdsmen.

The govt is yet to deny those reports.

I have posted, on this group, recent news reports detailing the names of the members of the government team that negotiated with MACBAN as well as names of the MACBAN team, where they held the meeting and comments of various members of these teams, where the govt of a sovereign nation bargained with what is in effect a terrorist group to offer them a huge junk of the nation's money so their members may stop terrorizing the nation through kidnapping and banditry.

In giving [ I assume they have given the money until conclusively proved otherwise] 100BN to the terrorist group, they did not address the core activity of the terrorist scheme, mass murders, almost wiping out entire communities in the Middle Belt and massacres as far as Nimbo in the South East.

They did not mention that because they are hiding under the cover of the amnesty agreement with the Niger Delta militants whose operational method was kidnapping to claim they are gving MACBAN that money to stop its members from kidnapping, while the central terrorist activity of this group, massacre and occupation of lands of communities, is kept silent about, so as not to negate their gains in this primary area of internal colonization scheme of Nigeria which they are pursuing at the coordinated levels of militia action, political coordination through govt policy and the use of the Nigerian armed forces, if only to make the latter inactive where the terrorists are concerned.

GEJ contended primarily with Boko Haram terrorism. Fulani herdsmen militia existed but were not operating at the level of coordinated destructiveness they have emerged into with the ascent of Nigeria's Fulani national ruler Muhammadu Buhari.

Fulani herdsmen terrorism escalated into a systemic terrorist activity, going beyond sporadic killings, to massacres directed at entire communities and moving into their land with their cattle, superseding Boko Haram Islamic terrorism in national spread and enjoying open, vocal coordination from the elite Fulani groups Miyetti Allah and MACBAN, with the emergence of Buhari, whose government protects the terrorists through policy initiatives that seek to surrender Nigerian's lands to them in the form of cattle colonies, trying to carve grazing routes across the nation in disregard of population and economic growth, making sure that they and their public representatives are never questioned as they openly justify massacre after massacre of innocent and defenseless Nigerians and defy the laws of entire states, such as Benue, with the govt acting as spokesmen for them, as demonstrated by Femi Adesina, the national ruler's spokesman, the Minister of Defense and the Inspector General of Police, their proclamations running from demands on Nigerians to surrender their lands to Fulani herdsmen or face death, to blaming the Benue state for massacres committed by Fulani herdsmen, to using Nigeria's money in pacifying them as they enact repeated massacres, such as importing grass for them from Brazil and lately, giving them 100BN, ostensibly for dealing with kidnapping by ther members, better understood as enablement of the terrorists.

Have I written anything in terms of historical occurrences, as different from my interpretation of them, that is not verifiable by widespread, accurate news reporting since 2015, making this information public knowledge?

The same govt was able to proscribe unarmed IPOB, which did not harm anyone, declaring it a terrorist group, attacking the IPOB leader in his home town using tanks and troops, torturing and killing IPOB members, while the various Miyetti Allah leaders who have been justifying massacres of Nigerians from the hundreds killed at Agatu to the present, from the Middle Belt to Nimbo in the SE, are never questioned.

They are able to make these declarations in meetings with Nigeria's high ranking security operatives, are able to declare openly that they have no case to answer with the police, and walk free till today.

The Emir of Kano, ex-central bank governor Sanusi Lamido Sanusi is able to declare publicly that the Sultan of Sokoto and himself are patrons of Miyetti Allah, even as neither of these most elite Fulani have ever distanced themselves from the justification of massacres carried out by Miyetti Allah militia as declared by Miyetti Allah field membership.

With the demonstration of this level of highest level political, civil society and military coordination by a terrorist group, are we not accurate in describing Nigeria as under siege by Nigeria's most prominent Fulani leadership, using traditional Fulani cattle nomadism as a launching pad, in pursuing a national colonization scheme, centred for now in the Middle Belt but tested in massacres in other parts of Nigeria, even as their operatives are active beyond systemic terrorism in terms of banditry, kidnapping and individual murders and rapes across the nation, Fulani herdsmen generally constituting themselves into terrors to communities across the country ?

Toyin

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Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju

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May 24, 2019, 2:57:25 PM5/24/19

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In my membership of such Northern Muslim centred listserves as Yan Arewa and Dandalin Sisaya, and from my observations on Facebook, interactions enabling access to Muslim Northerners outside the more prominent elite groups, comparing these observations with the pronouncements and conduct of prominent Northern Muslim elite, I have concluded that, in relation to collective living with Southerners within Nigeria, most Northern Nigerian Muslims see the world very differently from people from the South.

Here we are, confronted with bare faced, ethnically centred terrorism by people who have publicly identified themselves in terms of their ethnicity and their ethnically centred goals, and some others from the same demographic are claiming that recognition of that ethnic identity and self stated ethnically inspired destructiveness- Miyetti Allah and its militia bathing in the blood of Nigerians- is an illusion, " false, mischievous narratives", a " predetermined mindset and agenda being pursued through media and intellectual terrorism" directed agst the govt.

Some people respond to such issues by declaring their friendships with Muslim Northerners. That does not invalidate the fact that the majority of people in this demographic enable, in various ways, the culture of relegating other Nigerians to subhuman status that too often defines the attitudes of that region, dominated by right wing extremists, to other Nigerians.

Individual friendships do not negate the fact, as Pius Adesanmi once observed on this group, that the Northern Muslim intelligentsia and political elite are not known to have done anything strategic, such as public protests, policy initiatives or sensitization campaigns, to stem the culture of recurrent massacres of Southerners that has defined that region since the 1950s, peaking in the anti-South/anti-Igbo massacres of the mid 60s and continuing to massacres carried out in response to various self defined provocations by the Muslim populace, all dealing with such innocuous issues as the Danish anti-Muhammed cartoons controversy to individual murders and beheadings of Southerners in Buhari's time, directed agst Southerners and Christians for such offenses as preaching or asking a Muslim not to perform ablutions in front of their shop.

As Boko Haram Islamic terrorism re-emerged following GEJ's entry into the Presidency,a terrorist return coming on the heels of Atiku Abubakar's declaration of the inevitability of violent change in response to a Muslim Northerner, himself, not being granted the PDP Presidential platform, no less a personage than PDP chairman Bamanga Tukur, the President's own party, described Boko Haram as freedom fighters, while there was no outcry from Northern Muslims as the group operated a strategy of bombing churches and attacking govt establishments, scrupulously avoiding attacks on mosques and the general populace, killing informants agst them as leaked to them by their allies in the security services and killing rival clerics, even as they declared all Southerners must leave the North or face the consequences, presenting themselves as Muslim warriors fighting an infidel govt, thus the group dug in successfully for years, only being dislodged from population centres through a state of emergency opposed by no less a person than Buhari, the most prominent Northern Muslim politician, describing the war agst Boko Haram as war agst the North.

By the time a significant no of people in the Muslim North woke up to the destruction of the fabric of their society by Boko Haram, the group was solidly established, and began mass attacks agst the general populace which had turned agst them.

This dynamic is a central problem with Nigeria's Muslim North.

I am convinced it will continually rear its head, as it is currently doing with Fulani herdsmen's terrorism which I am yet to see or read any Muslim Northerner unequivocally acknowledge its brazen impunity, its relentless bloodletting, the implications of its coordination by Miyetti Allah led by the country's most elite Fulani and the support it gets from the Fulani led Buhari govt, the responses of Muslim Northerners being either silence, justification or highly qualified analyses placing the blame on others, presenting the terrorists as victims, while in relation to non-violent IPOB, many Southerners, including fellow Igbos whose interests the group sees itself as advancing, castigated IPOB and celebrated its suppression by the Nigerian army using tanks and troops agst the unarmed, non-violent group, torturing and killing its members and declaring it a terrorist group, all for seeking a referendum for the SE to decide if it wants to remain within Nigeria, the greatest violence they engaged in being verbal rhetoric having nothing to do with inciting killing anyone talk less actually killing anybody.

Aspirations to national unity with the Muslim North, in my view, are based on fiction. It is unlikely to work, almost impossible.

The extremist mentalities generated by the feudalist jihad of Usman dan Fodio are making sure of that.

I expect attempts at continued co-existence with the Muslim North will be marked by struggles for dominance by those to whom that jihad mentality assumes superiority over others while the South does not share any such ethno-religious cohesion, its politicians confused.

It is not racist to squarely face the dominance of a region by a particular mindset as demonstrated by recurrent actions and expressions in different but related contexts over decades. That does not mean exceptions to that rule do not exist. It does not imply that mindset is operative at all times. It does not preclude the recognition of humane qualities, of positive attitudes, among members of that population. It does not prevent one from recognizing alliances existing in the past or present between politicians from the South and the Muslim North. It does not invalidate the possibility of friendship between members of that population and others whom the region's dominant mindset sees as an "Other".

It simply implies recognizing that the ultimate outcomes of these alliances never feature equality between the Muslim North and the South, do not lead to Southerners not being killed in the North as Northerners are not killed in the South, nor to freedom of Southerners from the attitude of holding the power of life and death over them demonstrated by the right wing Northern Muslim elite.

Such a pragmatic and realistic recognition prevents one from insisting on a union that consistently breeds inhuman outcomes and retardation.

thanks

toyin

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