Soyinka: Fulani herdsmen new territorial aspirants

Professor Wole Soyinka has criticised the Federal Government for not doing enough to stem the tide of Fulani herdsmen murders. He reacted angrily to this situation in an address to the National Conference on Culture and Tourism on 27 April 2016, entitled “The Killing Culture of the Neo-nomadic.

“When I read a short while ago, the Presidential assurance to this nation that the current homicidal escalation between the cattle prowlers and farming communities would soon be over, I felt mortified. He had the solution, he said. Cattle ranches were being set up, and in another 18 months, rustlings, destruction of livelihood and killings from herdsmen would be ‘a thing of the past’. Eighteen months, he assured the nation. I believe his Minister of Agriculture echoed that later, but with a less dispiriting time schema. Neither, however, could be considered a message of solace and reassurance for the ordinary Nigerian farmer and the lengthening cast of victims…”

Soyinka expressed his disappointment that it was now close to a year since he attempted to utilize the Open Forum platform of the Centre for Culture and International Understanding, Oshogbo, to launch a national debate on the topic – SACRED COWS OR SACRED RIGHTS. The signs, according to him, were already clear and the rampage of impunity was already manifesting a cultic intensity of alarming proportions. He said: “For reasons which are too distasteful to go into here, the forum did not take place. We were already agreed that General Muhammadu Buhari be invited to give a keynote address, based on his long experience in such matters as former head of state, and as a cattle rearer himself who might be be able to penetrate the mentality of this ‘post-Boko Haram’ pestilence’”

He observed a change of quality in forest encounters with cattle herdsmen over the years. These changes, according to Soyinka, had become sufficiently alarming for him to arrange meetings with a few governors and, later, with the late National Security Adviser General O. Azazi. “At the time, we thought that they were Boko Haram, infiltrating into the south under guise of cattle herding. That was then, and of course that surmise has never been firmly proven or disproved.”

“For reasons which are too distasteful to go into here, the forum did not take place. We were already agreed that General Muhammadu Buhari be invited to give a keynote address, based on his long experience in such matters as former head of state, and as a cattle rearer himself who might be be able to penetrate the mentality of this ‘post-Boko Haram’ pestilence’”

Soyinka narrated a personal experience: Cattle were reared through his country home in Abeokuta, Ogun State, a home that nestles among trees. He was actually not around when the guests pounded his property. He narrated: “Recently however, I returned from a trip outside the country about to find that my home ground had been invaded, and a brand-new “Appian way” sliced through my sanctuary. That ‘motorable’ path was made by the hoofed invaders. Both the improvised entry and exit are now blocked, but interested journalists are invited to visit.”

In over two decades of living in that ecological preserve, Soyinka said no such intrusion had ever occurred. “I have no idea whether they were Fulani or Futa Jalon herdsmen but, they were cattle herders, and they had cut a crude swathe through my private grounds. I made enquiries and sent alerts around, including through the Baale of our neighbourhood village. There has been no repeat, and hopefully it will remain the first and last of such invasion. What it portends however is for all thinking citizens to reflect upon, and take concerted measures against.”

After Boko Haram, what next? Soyinka asked, adding: “In fact, at this moment, Boko Haram has no ‘after’ since it is by no means ended, no matter what technical expressions such as “militarily degraded’ means. But let us assume indeed that we are already in the past of Boko Haram. It is now clear that the succession is already decided, the ‘vacated’ space is already conceded, and that the new territorial aspirants are already securely positioned. The entire nation appears to be theirs without a struggle, and the continuity of an established Nigerian necropolis north to south and east to west is being consolidated.”