Penchant for Inconsistency

Davidson Iriekpen writes that the recent accusation by The Presidency that the opposition is responsible for the widespread killings in the country may have exposed its contradiction.

The Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Mr. Femi Adesina recently accused some faceless persons in opposition political parties of sponsoring the widespread killings in the country. Speaking on Arise TV, Adesina said the president’s enemies resorted to the “bestial act” to discredit his scorecard on security. He said the killings were being instigated to weaken the incumbent government. He added that security agencies were investigating those behind the killings, and that they would be dealt with once they are identified.

“You have the true herders and farmers who are clashing and you have hidden hostile hands that have crept in under that umbrella to play what the president has described as irresponsible politics. This farmers/herders’ clash has been going on for a long time. When I say long time, I mean before this administration. Like the president said, the issue is even older than anybody living today. What you have today are being sponsored because they know security is one of the strongest points of the administration.

“The president said so in a national broadcast. He also said the security agencies are investigating and has warned that once they are identified, they will be dealt with. The intention of the opposition in any democracy is to weaken the incumbent as much as possible and the opposition in Nigeria has identified security as one of the strong points of the Buhari administration. They decided to go to that soft under belly and stuck a knife into it,” he said.

Since the incidence of widespread killings by suspected Fulani herdsmen became frequent across the country under the President Muhammadu Buhari administration, the government has attributed it to many factors. For instance, while President Buhari blamed the attacks on invaders from Libya, his Director General of the Department of State Services (DSS) blamed it on herdsmen from neighbouring countries. Even the Minister of Defence, Dan-Ali and Inspector General of Police (IG), Ibrahim Idris, at different times blamed the enactment of the anti-open grazing law for the dastardly act.

However, putting the blame for the killings on the opposition is a new angle that has never been played up before now. At some point, the IG accused the Benue State government of arming vigilante in the state to wreak havoc on the people.

The accusation by Adesina is totally strange. Apart from Taraba State, the killings are mostly recorded in All Progressives Congress, APC-controlled states. Incidentally, none of the governors in these states accused elements in the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP or any member of the opposition of sponsoring killings in their states. Besides, none of the herdsmen arrested by the police confessed to being sponsored by the opposition. Those being killed and their governors know who are responsible.

At the peak of the horrendous destruction of lives and property in southern Kaduna by Fulani herdsmen, Kaduna State Governor Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, while fielding questions from journalists in his office in 2016, said the nefarious activities were carried out by foreign herdsmen from neighbouring countries. The governor disclosed that his government had traced some violent, aggrieved Fulani to their countries and paid them to stop the killings of southern Kaduna natives and the destruction of their communities.  He said the foreign herdsmen have been carrying out revenge attacks over losses incurred and lives lost in 2011, adding that the state government negotiated with the foreign herdsmen and paid them compensation to stop the killings.

He said: “For southern Kaduna, we didn’t understand what was going on and we decided to set up a committee under Gen. Martin Luther Agwai (rtd) to find out what was going on there. What was established was that the root of the problem has a history starting from the 2011. Fulani herdsmen from across Africa bring their cattle down towards Middle Belt and Southern Nigeria. The moment the rains start around March, they start moving them up to go back to their various communities and countries. Unfortunately, it was when they were moving up with their cattle across southern Kaduna that the elections of 2011 took place and the crisis trapped some of them. Some of them were from Niger, Cameroon, Chad, Mali and Senegal. Fulanis are in 14 African countries and they traverse this country with the cattle. Many of these people were killed, cattle lost and they organised themselves and came back to revenge. A lot of what was happening in southern Kaduna was actually from outside Nigeria. We got a hint that the late Governor Patrick Yakowa got this information and he sent someone to go round some of these Fulani communities, but of course after he died, the whole thing stopped. That is what we inherited. The Agwai committee established that.

“We took certain steps. We got a group of people that were going round trying to trace some of these people in Cameroon, Niger Republic and so on to tell them that there is a new governor who is Fulani like them and has no problem paying compensations for lives lost and he is begging them to stop killing. In most of the communities, once that appeal was made to them, they said they have forgiven. There are one or two that asked for monetary compensation. They said they have forgiven the death of human beings, but want compensation for cattle. We said no problem, and we paid some. As recently as two weeks ago, the team went to Niger Republic to attend one Fulani gathering that they hold every year with a message from me.”
Appeals by many Nigerians that the federal government should compel el-Rufai, to produce Fulani herdsmen to whom money was paid proved abortive. They stated that the failure to compel the governor to produce the herdsmen was an indication of the insincerity of the Buhari administration.
While the killings continued unabated, the worry of many Nigerians was not only about the inability of the government to stop the dastardly act taking place in mainly Christian-dominated areas, but also to show empathy to the victims. For instance, on the day when 73 persons were being buried in Benue State, there was not a single delegation from the federal government, neither was there a declaration or commitment to deal decisively with the perpetrators of the evil act.

This set tongues wagging, with a cross-section of Nigerians believing that because the President is a Fulani, he was backing his tribesmen to kill others.

Perhaps, this emboldened the former Minister of Defence, General Theophilus Danjuma (rtd), to accuse the military of docility and collusion, calling on Nigerians to wake up and defend themselves against the frequent attacks by suspected Fulani herdsmen.

Against the known history of killings, the opposition is at a loss to situate Adesina’s allegation that they are responsible for the killings to weaken the Buhari’s government. They believe that the new allegation is a ploy by the federal government to clamp some of them into detention, especially with the elections around the corner. Already, former governor of Benue State, Gabriel Suswam, who has been helpless over the killings of his people has been arrested by operatives of the DSS.

The PDP has described the accusation by Adesina as an act of desperation by the APC-led administration to clamp its leading figures into detention and to keep them out of circulation till after the next general election. The party particularly expressed concern over the arrest and continued detention of Suswan, adding that his arrest was meant to prevent him from attending a PDP rally for the north central region.
Its National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, said the party, “had earlier alerted the nation and the international community that the enemies of our democratic process and adversaries of our unity and harmonious living as a nation have commenced a desperate clampdown on opposition leaders and perceived opponents of the President Buhari administration. Today, our dear nation, Nigeria, has finally fallen into perilous times. There is fears and trepidation everywhere. The safety, personal freedom and wellbeing of Nigerians, particularly, opposition members are no longer guaranteed.
“Having realised that they stand no chance in the 2019 general elections, the APC is now deploying every wicked machination to cause confusion, heighten political tension, hounding and arrest of opposition leaders, making spurious allegations and attacking influential Nigerians, including former heads of state, all to instill fear on the polity. Having failed in their corruption smear campaign against the PDP and many notable Nigerians, the APC and the presidency cabal have now devised a devious machination to rope in, frame up, implicate and ultimately incarcerate marked opposition leaders and other dissenting voices over fabricated security charges.”
Ologbondiyan said part of grand design, as already exposed by Adesina, is to link such opposition leaders and dissenting voices with the widespread killings in various parts of the country. He added that Adesina had forgotten that President Buhari had earlier blamed the attacks on invaders from Libya, while the Director General of DSS blamed it on herdsmen from neighbouring countries.
“The PDP wants the APC and the Buhari presidency to know that despite their machinations, the 2019 general elections must hold as scheduled, as Nigerians will never be cowed into allowing them to stay a day beyond May 29, 2019, no matter the intimidation, threats and harassment,” he said.