There are people that are sending a message, defend yourselves. We will get them. Defend yourself is hate speech. You can’t defend yourself if there is a government. We are going to arrest and prosecute all those that pass that message”. This widely publicised and yet to be disclaimed statement has been credited to the Kaduna State Governor, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, apparently reacting to the multiple calls by leaders and spokesmen of the indigenous, largely Christian, communities of the Southern region of the state to defend themselves against the persistent attacks of suspected Fulani herdsmen. The attacks had led to the sacking and razing of entire villages, gruesome murder of hundreds of innocent citizens and large-scale destruction of property.
Ordinarily, Governor el-Rufai’s statement would have been justified and understandable in a situation where the state is effective, efficient and alive to its prime responsibility of protecting the lives and property of all residents within its territorial jurisdiction. That certainly cannot be said to be the case in Southern Kaduna, which has become a veritable boiling cauldron of ethnic, religious, cultural and sheer criminal upheaval. Nothing can be more illustrative of the insecurity of lives and property in this troubled area than the horrendous attack on Goska village by suspected Fulani herdsmen on December 24 and 25, last year.
In the words of a spokesman of the community: “There is a large presence of police operatives in Goska now. But as far as we are concern (sic), it means nothing to us. They have burnt the whole town and destroyed what we have. This morning (December 26), we counted 11 corpses and 15 other injured persons. We are still looking for four boys and two women. So, it does not matter whether the police are here or not. They have done their worse (sic)”. Ironically, this attack took place despite a curfew imposed by the state government in three local government areas – Zagon Kataf, Kaura and Jema’a – within which Goska community is located.
The curfew was justified by what the state government described as credible intelligence about risk to lives and property in the areas. How then were the suspected Fulani herdsmen able to move about freely to commit mayhem despite the heavy presence of security agents to enforce the curfew? How can the indigenous Christian communities be logically expected to trust either the sincerity or the capacity of the state to protect them, and why shouldn’t they in that case justifiably resort to self defence?
Governor el-Rufai apparently meant well when on December 20, he decided to hold the state security council meeting in Kafanchan, the largest town in Southern Kaduna. The protest against the governor’s entourage on that occasion was a function of how badly nerves had frayed and trust devalued over years of ever deteriorating relationships among the diverse ethno-cultural and religious groups in the area. What the scenario in Southern Kaduna calls for is utmost imperturbability, restraint and maturity on the part of el-Rufai. An already highly combustible situation can only be worsened by a leader’s tempestuous temperament.
The unfortunate truth is that the governor, a Fulani himself, has not exhibited the requisite detachment and dispassionate disposition to be a credible and acceptable arbiter in the crisis. He has petulantly held to the implausible thesis that the perpetrators of the atrocities in Southern Kaduna are not Nigerians but Fulani herdsmen from across West Africa, including Niger, Cameroon, Chad, Mali and Senegal. This was also the conclusion reached by the General Martin Luther Agwai Peace and Resolution Committee earlier set up to trace the root causes of, and propose solutions to the protracted violence. Those who peddle this view contend that the foreign Fulani herdsmen have been avenging the loss of lives and property, including cattle they suffered in the post-2011 election violence that occurred when they were migrating back to their countries.
This is, of course, a tenuous and unconvincing rationalisation. For one, the violence in the aftermath of the 2011 elections was not limited to Southern Kaduna. It took place across a large swathe of the far North. How come that the ethno-religious carnage has continued only in Southern Kaduna, even at a time that the murderous Boko Haram insurgency in the North East has been largely contained? Beyond this, neither the General Agwai committee nor Governor el-Rufai has been able to apprehend and present to the public even one of this alleged foreign Fulani herdsmen. Even more ridiculously, el-Rufai has publicly admitted that he paid ‘compensation’ to some of these foreign Fulani herdsmen to stop their murderous activities in Southern Kaduna. Thus, we have a governor playing the role of foreign minister and appeasing aliens who callously snuff out the lives of his own people even as they pauperise them. This can only happen in Nigeria.
No less insensitive has been the intemperate vituperation of the Minister of the Interior, Lt-General Abdulrahman Dambazzau (retd), against the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) for legitimately and vehemently denouncing the atrocities committed against their members. Dambazzau claims that the conflagration in the region has no religious connotation. He must be living on the moon. It is bad enough, as CAN noted, that as the Minister of the Interior, Gen. Dambazzau has not even once taken a trip to Southern Kaduna to personally appraise the situation.
For the Inspector-General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, semantics appears to be more important than life. He quibbles with CAN over the latter’s assertion that 808 people died in the crisis. For Idris, what is happening in Southern Kaduna cannot be appropriately described as genocide. It does not occur to him that his prime responsibility is to do everything to ensure that not even one life is lost.
The gravest and most inexcusable dereliction of responsibility, however, is that of President Muhammadu Buhari. He has remained mute even as hundreds of lives as well as invaluable property continue to be lost in Southern Kaduna. He sees nothing. He hears nothing. He says nothing. Not for the marauding Fulani herdsmen the fiery warnings Buhari reserves for Biafra agitators or Niger Delta militants, for instance. Buhari is Fulani. It is so sad. Even sadder is the attempt by his spokesman, Femi Adeshina, to rationalise his boss’s inexplicable speechlessness on the matter. Adeshina claims that President Buhari is only adhering to the principle of federalism by allowing the governor to handle the matter. He forgets that under our constitution, all security agencies are under the control of the Federal Government and, by implication, the presidency. In this case, the president’s silence is not golden.
The military announces that it has “fully deployed” troops to Southern Kaduna to halt the killings and address the security challenges in the area. Gov. el-Rufai had earlier announced a plan to set up two new military formations in Southern Kaduna to “help in securing lives and property and provide rapid response to any act of criminality and the maintenance of law and order”. This may be a right step. But the problem in the region is not just about law and order. It is crucially about fairness, equity and justice for all groups. It is the latter that can provide an enduring basis for the former and make it unnecessary for endangered groups (real or perceived) to resort to the imperative of self defence.
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