The Federal government recently,
through the minister for Agriculture Chief Audu Ogbe, said they will create
grazing lands in the south to feed the cattle from the north.
Do you know what that means?
It means if you do evil so well and
you are very good at doing evil, and you do it so much as to attract national attention,
you will be rewarded.
Creating grazing lands for Fulanis
in the south is another way of rubbing shit on our faces. Another way of telling
us that this country is the inheritance of some elect and select who can do
what they want, kill who they want and take what they want.
So, a group of marauders, trained
mercenary in the veil of Fulani herdsmen, who most probably are not even
Nigerians, attack, slaughter and massacre a people, in their own homeland,
including women and children, pregnant women in a carnage of barbaric gruesomeness
and our government wants to do what? Give them grazing lands in other people ancestral
home? Probably the land of a man that was cut down like weed with his entire
family by the so called Fulani herdsmen, just to make room for cows to feed on
his planted crop. These same people that should be facing the firing squads and
gallows will instead be rewarded with grazing lands? In another man's land? Is it like a
certificate for graduating from the school of animalistic propensity. How preposterous.
Let's bring this issue home for some
of us still finding it difficult to assimilate and understand the gravity and
enormousity of the absurdity of this situation.
You are in your house, living in
peace and going about your business. Suddenly you were attack, the attackers
killed one or more of your children, took some of your belongings and left.
After a while they came back, killed more of your brothers, took some properties
from your house and left. Then they keep coming back, killing more of your
children, until one day, they chased you out of your house and occupied your
home like it's theirs .Now, here comes someone who has being
given the authority, responsibility and mandate of safe guarding your life and
property. This person now comes and say, "in order for peace to reign, you
will have to give a portion of your house to the assailants". Can you
fathom that reasoning? I mean, it's totally ridiculous. It's disturbing to the
sensibility. It is embarrassing to say the least. Devoid of any form of
rationality. My mind can't even grapple the rationality of such reasoning.
Such reasoning can only be conjured
and accommodated in the minds of tyrant
and marauders and raiders. Maybe I would have found this easier to swallow many
centuries ago. When the primitive lifestyle of men was centered on "raid
and take". Invade others people land / territories and take what you want.
And if they want peace, they negotiate. Either they keep paying you royalties,
or they offer you an instant price of money or land or whatever you wish to
demand or you can even annex the land. But the baffling thing is, even in those
primordial days, a community or an organized group of people do not attack
themselves. They do not. They only organize themselves to raid other
territories while protecting theirs with their life.
One will begin to wonder, why then do
we attack ourselves now (that we are supposed to be more civilized) without
blinking? Why do Nigerians raid other Nigerians in Nigeria? Does this go way to
buttress the suggestion that we are truly not one entity? Does it cement the
allegations that many so called Nigerians, including those in places of
governmental authority are actually truly not Nigerians if their origin is well
traced? No need stressing the fact that the so called "fulani herdsmen"
directly involved in these heinous acts are mostly foreigners from Chad, Niger,
Cameroon, Mali and other bordering countries who has taken and continue to take
advantage of our highly porous borders to increase our population each year. That of course is an open secret. But
the people behind the mask of "herdsmen". The real owners of these
cattle. The ones buying the automatic and assault rifles. The ones employing
and paying for the services of these killing machinery. Many of them the so
called high and mighty in the society. What about them? Why do they feel no
remorse, no empathy nor sympathy, no qualms, no feeling whatsoever in taking
the lives of other Nigerians? Why are they comfortable raiding their own
territory if the territory is truly theirs. If they truly feel belonging to the
territory? if they even truly belong to the territory?
These are questions we need to
hold in a corner of our minds as we
fight against insidious and treacherous elements in high places sponsoring,
supporting and encouraging these crimes against humanity as witnessed in Agatu
land and several other places in Nigeria.
Creation of grazing land for
murderers who should be hung in gallows is an insult to those who were brutally
murdered by them. It's spitting on the decaying bodies of women and children
hacked, macheted and shot down in their own homeland and left to slowly drown
in the pool of their own blood.
Creation of graze land for fulani
herdsmen and their bosses in another man's land is a spite on us all. It's
handing cold blooded murderers a golden trophy for a job well done. It's
encouraging such acts of brazen, reprehensible and nauseating callousness and
wickedness. It is desecrating graves and rottening corpse of men, women and
children whose lives has been violently snatched from them in this systematic
genocide.
If ever there was a way of
identifying these herdsmen what should be the most appropriate course of
action? Handing them large expanse of land? Or making them see the brutal face
of justice met with the same measure of mercy they showed to their victims as
they hacked, slaughtered and gunned them down.
As much as I admit that identifying
and fishing out the culprits and sponsors of this herdsmen menace is not a
stroll in the park, I am also aware that is neither a rocket science. There is
the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN). They are cattle
breeders, it is their industry and hence they are conversant with the nitty gritty
and privy to certain information that can prove valuable in apprehending the
culprits and their sponsors. What we are witnessing is an organized crime. And such crimes are usually a chain. Crime investigators will tell you that in such crimes, there is usually somebody that knows somebody that knows something . And as providence will have it, words are, that our
distinguish president, His Excellency President Muhammedu Buhari is an influential
figure and member of MACBAN. So it is my believe that, if there is
truly a will to act, and if those responsible and bound by oath to the
protection of lives and properties of the citizens will put their words to
work, getting to the root of this matter will not require so much digging. It still
come as a shock to me that up until yesterday that I checked, no troop nor
police, nor any form of help has come the way of the locals of the affecting
areas. As Fulani herdsmen are still seen confidently walking around with their
cattle, brandishing sophisticated weapons and bringing mayhem on survivors of
the previous attacks. Recently it was even rumored that they are moving to
claim more grounds. All these continues as the government continue to”
investigate”.
My people be the judge of this
matter. Open your eyes oh people of the southern lands. Awake from your sleep
and slumber, shake off any spell that is cast upon you and stand for what is
right and just. Stand for something or fall all the time. Instead of the government doing the right and sensible thing, in placing and enforcing a ban on open grazing in the country, in the face of this repeated and incessant attacks by suspected herdsmen, they want to defile common sense by awarding grazing lands to them. If the Fulanis and
their ogas that owns the cattle wants to raise their cattle, they should do so in their own land and
farms. Just as I raise my fishes in my own farm and not in another man's farm
or space. They have made enough money from our rapacious appetite for beef.
They should do like other cattle breeders in other sane countries does. They should
ranch their cattle. They should raise their cattle in a ranch. Not grazing them
on peoples crops in peoples land. The able minister for Agriculture said, the creation of grazing lands in the south to feed cattle from the north will be done as it is DONE IN OTHER COUNTRIES. Then I ask, which other country? Tell me in which sane country will you find herdsmen roaming around with their cattle openly in towns and cities as we usually find them here even right in the heart of Abuja the capital city of Nigeria? When in such countries you can easily get sanctioned for letting your cat stray into another man's property let alone cattle. In sane countries cattle are raised in ranches.
Let us, with one united voice, unequivocally
send this message to the government. Creating grazing land in the south for fulani herdsmen and their bosses is like
as described in a song by the legendary 2Baba Idibia, “creating excuse to use
excuse to buy chance”. But the excuse they create is in the blood of an
innocent infant macheted as he cries for a help that will never come until he
slowly and painfully pass away, it is in the scattered pieces of flesh of one
heavily pregnant woman butchered like "namma". It is in burnt houses and destroyed farm barns.It is in the gruesome murder of you and I.
NO TO GRAZING LANDS, YES TO
RANCHING.
#NoToGrazingLands
#RanchYourCattle
#DisarmFulani
#UnmaskTheRealHerdsmen
#ProtectAgatuAndOtherAffectedLandsNow
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