The National
President of the Middle Belt Forum, Dr Bitrus Pogu, in this interview with
James Abraham, published in The Punch explains consequences of the rising
insecurity in the country.
Goes thus;
Are you
comfortable with the security situation in the country?
Nobody in his
right mind is comfortable with the security situation in this country,
particularly somebody like me who is from Chibok community ,Borno State,
North-East where killings, kidnapping for ransom ,destruction of people’s homes
and their farms have become a daily occurrence. This thing(insecurity) started
in the North-East and it has spread to the whole country and nobody is
comfortable. Even people in Abuja where I am at the moment are not sleeping
with their two eyes closed because nobody knows what is going to happen in the
next minutes since Nasarawa State where
Boko Haram insurgents are regrouping as confirmed recently by the state governor is just next door to Abuja.
The Southern
Kaduna is also next door to Abuja. Travelling to Kogi State by is not safe.If
you travel from Kaduna,the same thing. Everywhere has been infested with
insecurity and knowing what is now happening in the South-West, unless the
person is not a Nigerian, he cannot be comfortable with the security situation in Nigeria because
nowhere is safe for the citizens.
Has
government addressed the menace of the herdsmen sufficiently?
The
government has always pampered the herdsmen from one attack after the other
.Since the present administration came in, it appears the victims of these
attacks are the ones the government goes after. When these things were
happening on a regular basis in Plateau State which then came to Benue State
and then to Taraba and back to Plateau, Southern Kaduna besides similar
happenings in the North East which have become normal issues the people had
lived with, the response of the government and the Presidency have always been
nothing affirmative with regard to the herdsmen. For instance, when people were
killed in large numbers in Benue State in 2018,we were surprised to hear the
President making a statement telling the state governor and the people of Benue
to learn to live with their neighbours. How do you live with your killers?. So,
this situation has continued even as the victims are usually arrested and
no aggressors are not arrested. So,the
whole thing is even skewed against the victims. People are killed by the
herdsmen. They are chased out of their
houses, compounds, settlements, farms and forced to stay in IDP camps
while the aggressors, the herdsmen move around freely . You will see some with
their cattle and others without them, but with weapons and nobody apprehends
them.So,the government is seen by observers as actually creating the existence
of the criminality of the herdsmen .But when crime is committed and is not
punished ,it surely continues and that is what is happening in the country
because the herdsmen have not been punished nor the culprits arrested .From the
north, they have now gone to the South. So, the attitude of government has to
change otherwise, the situation will continue unabated.
All over the
country, herdsmen destroyed people’s farm, raped women and kidnapped. If all
these are not checked, what are the likely implications?
Certainly, we
are moving towards a scenario that played out in the Central African Republic
when the indigenous people got fed up and rose up to the situation and dealt a
blow to the Fulani. The CAR experience is similar to the one in Nigeria. In
CAR, the Fulani took over all key positions in government the military and in
other places and started doing what is happening now in Nigeria .Indigenous
people got fed up, organised themselves and unleashed vengeance on the
Fulani.The story is now history but the Fulani were defeated and kicked out.
The CAR is a small place compared with
Nigeria in terms of population and the indigenes. If these things get to a
level when Nigerians are totally fed up be it Hausa,Igbo,Yoruba and as it
happening in Zamfara, Kastina; Middle Belt areas, the South South and the
South-West, it will reach a stage where there will be a spontaneous response to
the aggression and Fulani domination will be history. I would have loved them
to reason and know that this the direction we are heading to .But
unfortunately, they think erroneously that they can achieve whatever they have
set for themselves to achieve. It is rather unfortunate but what I can tell
them is to listen to wise counsel because I can assure the Fulani and those who
are herdsmen and unfortunate ones who are peace loving among them that the
killer herdsmen are going to lead them to destruction .When that happens, they will lose
everything. I only pray that they will listen to wise counsel and stop the
ongoing criminality in the country.
In Ogun
State, soldiers supervised herdsmen, from other countries whose animals were
destroying people’s farms. And farmers that voiced opposition were beaten. Is
this not an indication that the herdsmen have the backing of the Federal Government?
We in the
Middle Belt have always cried and said that when they introduced the cattle
colony or ruga or whatever the policy is called when Audu Ogbeh was the
Minister of Agriculture, we have always said that these herdsmen moving across
our land are foreigners and not Nigerians. At that time, we kicked against the
whole exercise be it colony or ruga because we know our indigenous Fulani and
if there has to be such a policy, it has to involve the people. And we made it
clear that the best policy is ranching rather than practising some kind of 17th
and 18th century mode of rearing cattle which creates conflicts. The Federal
Government continued to push these policies that are not acceptable; that
create conflicts and continue to be a thorn in the flesh of every other
Nigerian. We believe that everything is being done to favour the Fulani and we
continued telling the government that this thing will not work in the 21st
century because the modern way of animal husbandry is ranching. The government
refused and allowed these people to be roaming everywhere to create problems.
Interestingly, the majority of those who roam around don’t even have cows.
Those found in the forest, how many of them were found with herds of cattle?
They come around and attack people, kill them and disappear into the bush
.Thereafter, the ones who have cattle now surface and occupy the place .So it is a premeditated attack which they
carry out. We have said it before that it land grabbing and nothing else. If
the government is not giving them backing, they wouldn’t be doing what they are
doing successfully without getting apprehended all these while.
Other West
African countries particularly Ghana, Togo and Benin have banned open grazing.
Why is the Federal Government unwilling to do this?
It is because
they have an agenda. The agenda is not just allowing cattle to move around
freely and graze in the old traditional way, to me and we within the Middle
Belt, they have an agenda of land grabbing, changing of demography because all
these foreign Fulani moving around under the guise of West African protocols is
deliberate. They are trooping in from all other parts of West Africa and even
Central Africa to come and occupy our land using Federal Government policy and
then increasing their population for political purposes and domination.
Has Nigeria
handled ECOWAS protocols well particularly as far as security of the country is
concerned.
If the
Federal Government has handled it well, there would not have been the problem we
are in now. Ghana is part of ECOWAS.
Togo and others are parts of ECOWAS and they know
that that freedom of people is guaranteed under the protocol but seeing the security of their countries
being threatened, they had to rise up to the situation and deal decisively with
what is happening. The kind of thing happening in Nigeria would not happen in
Ghana because they will not tolerate it. Unfortunately, we have a government
that is not only tolerating it but encouraging it as well.
You mentioned
that Ghana wouldn’t tolerate what is happening in Nigeria. Why did you say so?
There was a
time the President (of Ghana) stopped that. The issue here is that for this
country to be tolerating this kind of thing, it means that government (Nigerian
government) is in active support of what Ghanaian President said he would not
tolerate: Cows moving on the streets like Nigeria. It was widely reported even
by our local media. What do you make out of that? But the situation is
different here in Nigeria. Even in the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja,
sometimes you will see cows on the roads blocking free movement of people. That
kind of thing happening in Nigeria would not happen in Ghana because they will
not tolerate it. Unfortunately, we have a government that is not only
tolerating it but encouraging it as well.
Why are
Fulani herdsmen from other countries are trooping into the country? Is it
because a Fulani man is the President?
There must be
an incentive because for somebody to argue that desertification is chasing
Fulani southward of Sahara is not an adequate statement to explain the
situation. There must be an incentive from the government encouraging these
Fulani to troop into the country. Like I
told you earlier, many of these Fulani trooping into the country don’t even
have cattle. Some of them when they come in even try to intimidate the local
Fulani by rustling their cattle. The agenda is to change demography, populating
Nigeria with their people in areas where they have little influence with the
intention to subjugate the natives and take over their lands and making Nigeria
their colony in the 21st century .Let them see the danger of what they are
doing because the people will one day resist such a move across board because
it will not work. Nobody has the monopoly of violence and violence can only
beget violence. Before now we used to hear like in Plateau State that the
Fulani cows have been rustled and that is why they were killing the people. But
are cows still being rustled now? and yet the killings have continued.
So the issue
is that the government has been encouraging them to do what they are doing with
the conviction that the presidency which is under the control of a Fulani will
help them with the wherewithal to make it easy for them to achieve their aim
.Otherwise, they wouldn’t come from outside the country to attack the natives
with impunity. So, there must be an encouragement from the government.
Do you believe
in the statement of some people that Buhari views other parts of the country as
conquered territories
I would want
to take issue with people who make such statements but one thing I do know is
that if they are conquered, they wouldn’t want to try conquer them again.
Conquered people are captives. What is happening is that the current
administration as we have it in Nigeria is the most nepotism and is bent of
favouring the Fulani more than any other group in the country. And whether the President considers other
sections of the country as equal is to be judged by the indices of what he is
doing .Let me give you an example.
In Taraba State where the Fulani are in the minority
with less than ten per cent population, all the federal appointments due for
that state were all given to the Fulani. I don’t know of anyone that is not
given to Fualni. What does that indicate? It means that this government is for
Fulani and to be enjoyed by the Fulani while others are considered as second
class citizen. If one who being is considered as a second class citizen is seen
as the same with a conquered person, then it left for those who make such a
statement to explain. But as far as I am concerned, I wouldn’t say people are
conquered but I will say that the President is ‘nepotism’ and only favours his
people who are Fulani more than others in the scheme of affairs in Nigeria.
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