A CREDIBLE VOICE ON HERDER’S CRISIS

Sade Fubunmi writes the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila is focused on reconciling the nation

The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Rt. Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila has never sat on the fence when threatening national issues rear their ugly heads.

It will be recalled that at the nick of time, he intervened when lives and livelihood were under risk during the COVID-19 pandemic. Gbaja rallied his colleagues in the Green Chamber to donate generously to the cause of the poor. He didn’t stop there, he advocated two months free electricity to ameliorate the pangs of the pandemic on the strained earnings of the poor.

When the interests of Nigerian traders and Nigeria were threatened in faraway Ghana, he got the permission of President Muhammadu Buhari to pacify frayed nerves. He succeeded. When the #EndSARS protest was raging, the speaker spoke and acted like a leader. He assured them that their 5-for-5 demands will be accommodated in the 2021 budget otherwise his chamber won’t approve the appropriation bill.

So, when banditry and kidnapping by suspected Fulani herdsmen was threatening to shatter corporate co-existence, he went to seek an audience with the president and came out with a far-reaching panacea to the nagging problem of ethnic strife. Gbajabiamila declared that no ethnic group should lord it over another. It is revealing that what the president should have done exerting his presidential powers was what Gbajabiamila has done.

He declared, “Everybody just has to come to the table and discuss and come to an amicable resolution, which I’m sure we will. I don’t think any ethnic group should lord it over any other ethnic group; the south-west should not lord it over the north, the north should not lord it over the south.

“We should respect each other’s trade, geographical space, history, culture and more importantly the issues of crime, murder, all those things should be completely jettisoned, but more importantly, we all have to sit on the table and discuss this matter and look for the way forward. I think everybody is willing to do that.

“From the National Assembly, solutions will come from talking. I believe that now that we are about to start work, I know these issues will come up and adequate and proper legislation will address the issue frontally and in the best interest of the country, and all nations that make up the nation such legislation will be put in place”.

Garba Shehu, Special Assistant on media too often makes and issues statements capable of escalating the tense situation. The actions and utterances of these spokespersons could be interpreted to be serving the interest of the Fulani clan. Statements from the presidency and Miyetti Allah bear much similarities that people often wonder if MACBAN is a unit under the executive. The presidency violated the constitution by warning the Ondo State Governor not to order illegal occupants out of the forest reserves.

In January 2018, over 72 locals who were mostly farmers died in deadly attacks in Benue. The state governor, Samuel Ortom fumed as trucks moved dead bodies for mass burial. The president’s lukewarm response to the calamity sparked outrage across the land. When the Benue elders protested to the Villa, President Buhari was reported to have admonished them to live peacefully with their neighbours.

The utterances of the president’s media aides are also vexatious and most often reckless. When the people of Benue opposed the proposed ranching and cattle colony, Femi Adesina, the president’s media adviser during a live interview on national television reportedly said it was better to live with cattle than counting dead bodies arising from farmer/herder clashes.

The body language of the Villa and pronouncements from the seat of power appear that the president who is a Fulani is backing his people to the detriment of other ethnic interests. That is a perception that the president’s handlers have struggled to dismiss.

When the former Secretary to the Federal Government (SGF) and ex-presidential candidate, Chief Olu Falae was kidnapped on his farm twice in Ondo State, aside from the usual press statements condemning the attacks the Buhari presidency did little to forestall future attacks.

Recounting his ordeal, the elder statesman had complained about the ravaging of his farms by herders before he was abducted. In Ibarapa, Oke-Ogun axis of Oyo State herdsmen had been on the rampage killing and maiming without the government’s intervention. The lack of political will to rein in the killer herders by those in power created a space for the likes of Sunday Igboho who many of the oppressed locals and others in the Southwest see as a messiah.

The implication of ethnic fighters rising in defence of their people is a huge threat to the corporate existence of Nigeria. It is an indictment on the security forces and the political leadership of the country.

The report in The Nation where soldiers escorted herdsmen back to Ogun community where they were rejected by the locals and intimidated the people also fuelled complicity of the security forces which further deepens the distrust between the people of other ethnic extractions who are not Fulani. The speaker has become a credible voice of reasoning in the ensuing confusion over the herder imbroglio.

The president should leverage the solutions Gbajabiamila has enumerated. The executive arm of government should be truly executive in this matter. Killer herders who have sent many to early graves should be brought to justice and the rights of farmers over their ancestral lands should be enforced.

We hardly hear in the media of arrested killer herders being committed to trial and convicted. Trial of hardened criminals should be given wide publicity to serve as deterrent to others who might be nursing kidnapping, murder and allied heinous ventures. When suspected killers who are of Fulani extraction walk free without any punitive action for crimes they committed, it further weakens the trust of other ethnic groups in the leadership.

Geographical spaces that providence have endowed each region should be respected and protected. Rather than the presidency being quick to wade into the knotty matter of herder/farmer clashes in a manner that suggests bias and special interest, the government should play an unbiased role in forging peaceful co-existence.

The business and methods of cattle rearing should conform with the reality of the times.

Fabunmi wrote from Kano