Gov. Fayose

By Bola Bolawole

Governor of Ekiti state, Ayodele Fayose, has trod where angels would fear to tread: he has banned the medieval practice of grazing cattle all over the place in Ekiti state. He has promised to send draft legislation to this effect to the state House of Assembly to be passed into law. When this is done, both cattle and herdsmen caught on the wrong side of the law will be sanctioned. The beasts will be confiscated while the herdsmen will cool their heels in gaol.

Not only is the practice of itinerant rearing of cattle archaic, it also negates the giant strides that Mankind has made from the Stone Age. Grazing cattle in an unruly and unorganised manner over farmlands, destroying the means of livelihood of law-abiding citizens and trampling their inalienable rights is an affront to the legal order and an unwarranted assault on those at the receiving end of the bestiality of both beast and herdsman. All over the country are strident cries against the callousness of the herdsmen who not only feed their cattle on, and as a result destroy, farmlands, thereby complicating the problem of skyrocketing prices of foodstuffs in the land; they also main, rape, and kill innocent indigenes of the communities they traduce to the bargain.

They kidnap and torture, they demand and collect ransoms before releasing their victims. Most times, the victims still get killed even after ransoms have been paid. Cattles have been known to cause fatal accidents on the highways. The increasing wave of armed robbery attacks in many of the rural communities has also been traced to herdsmen who wield AK-47 in broad daylight in flagrant violation of the laws of the land which frown at the proliferation of small arms. The authorities look the other way while these atrocities are perpetrated across the country.

A herds boy fully armed

The latest bus stop of the audacious bestiality of the herdsmen was Ekiti state, at a community called Oke-Ako in Ikole local government area of the state. Not less than two residents lost their lives instantly while scores of others suffered varying degrees of injuries and the community as a whole was sacked. Reports said it was reprisal attack or vengeance mission by the herdsmen, in that earlier; the community had repelled a similar attack and got some of the assailants arrested by law-enforcement agents; even though they were reportedly left to go scot-free soon after.

As if they expected the community to simply fold its arms and do nothing, the herdsmen returned penultimate week to teach the Oke-Ako people “a lesson”. The community got wind of it and alerted the security agencies but for reasons which bother on complicity, duplicity, and dereliction of duty, the appropriate authorities failed to act. A government that is pouring troops into the Niger Delta to “crush” Niger Delta Avengers looked the other way while Fulani herdsmen avengers swarmed and over-awed Oke-Ako. Whether in the cities or in the rural areas, the security agencies appear the same: They wait until the deed is done before showing face! This is one reason to support the clamour for state police. It is also another reason why each state government must endeavour to act outside the strait-jacket of the FG-controlled security apparatus. Until reason prevails and the security architecture is decentralised, each state must find ways and means to circumnavigate the current strictures of a centrally-controlled security force, such as arming vigilante groups.

Fayose deserves commendation for blazing the trail in his resolve to compel cattle owners to do the right thing: Look after their cattle in ranches as is done in other parts of the world. Seizing lands to create grazing routes all over the country as some nit-wits are contemplating in the National Assembly is not the right way to proceed. This is private business and should be privately organised and financed. The decision of the Muhammadu Buhari administration to use tax-payers money for this purpose is not only superfluous but also an act of corruption. For one, Buhari is said to be patron of the cattle owners’ association. For another, he is the owner of herds of cattle and, in that respect, an employer of herdsmen, be they Fulani or otherwise.

So, there are two very serious issues involved here: Conflict of interest and compromised conduct leading to deliberate dereliction of duty and or failure to activate his Oath of Office. The president wants to use tax-payers’ money to improve his stock; this is not acceptable. It is akin to what President Jacob Zuma is facing more than a hundred corruption charges over in a South African law court. The president’s tardiness; nay, lack of interest, in threatening hails and brimstones against the Fulani herdsmen in the same manner he has repeatedly done against neo-Biafra and neo-Niger Delta militants has been put down to the twin evils of selfish interest and tribalism.

This president must not only act as the president of the whole country in an even-handed manner, he must also be manifestly seen to be so. So far, this has not been the case. In his appointments – from the beginning to the latest ones that he made last week, he has left no one in doubt that he, a Fulani man, is the president of the Fulani and not of the entire country. He has marginalised the other ethnic groups to the consternation of his most ardent supporters. I have begun, myself, to regret voting for this man. Only crumbs have come the way of the South-west, for example. The president’s statements have also done very little to conceal his unbridled sense of partiality; for instance, the “us” (Fulani\North) and “they” (other tribes\South) that he made at the emir’s palace in Katsina recently.

In the event that the president is not at all minded to be the father of all, the onus lies with everyone to take his or her own destiny in his or her own hands. It is imperative for other governors to follow the example of Fayose and enact laws that will outlaw cattle rearing in their respective states. The president must also be prevailed upon not to spend a dime of tax-payers’ money – or oyel (oil) money – on any grazing route of trouble and acrimony. Then, all men and women of conscience must get ready to defend and protect Fayose because he is already being attacked for his courageous act of protecting the interests of his own people.

Anti- Fulani charges and the badge of an ethnic jingoist are already being pinned on him. But I am disappointed that Fayose appears to be falling for it. He had no business denying that he is not an ethnic jingoist. Most Nigerian leaders are ethnic jingoes! In fact, those making the allegations are themselves the worst culprits. What is President Buhari himself if not an ethnic jingoist by all his appointments, statements, preferences, and body language so far? We all knew him to be one before he became president. Since he became president he has been even more so. In Nigeria, only the Yoruba belabour themselves unnecessarily not to be seen as tribalists.

The other tribes are the same – only the Yoruba are not. We are always talking fair play; we are the nationalists while the others are very proud tribalists. This way, we have suffered. Is that not why Olusegun Obasanjo, in his eight years as president, handed over the presidency to people from other tribes while the Yoruba, whose turn it was, got nothing? Even the Yoruba in Obasanjo’s cabinet suffered in the hands of other tribes. Ask Borishade. Ask Adeniran. Since the Otta farmer left the presidency, which other president has towed his line of fair play to tribes other than their own?

BOLAWOLE, one-time editor of The PUNCH, is a Lagos-based media consultant ( [email protected] 0705 263 1058).