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| Abubakar Tsav. |
Abubakar Tsav, former
Commissioner of Police in Lagos State, had this to say in an interview he gave
to Sunday Punch of April 30, 2016 on the killings by Fulani herdsmen: “The
issue is that the Fulani have lived peacefully with their hosts for many years
in the past and there was no communal violence between them. The question to
ask is why is the violence happening now? The best the Federal Government can
do is hold an inquiry involving the whole country to find out why this is
happening and proffer solution.
“But if you just say
create ranches and prevent Fulani herdsmen from going about, this may not work
because moving about has become part and parcel of their lives. The government
should find out why this was not happening before and why it is happening now.
It is when we know the causes of this problem that we can proffer solution to
it.
“For now, if you send
soldiers and the police to kill them, it will also not work because the Fulani
people are united and assuming that one of them is killed and the rest organise
a reprisal, what do you think will happen? The Fulani have the right to rear
their cattle, but they have no right to destroy people’s farms and they have no
right to kill anybody”
...Nigeria is a
wonderful, strange, magical and hypnotic land whose development is arrested by
myths perpetuated by short-sighted leaders. They think they could earn plaudits
by the volume of platitudes and wandering illogicality churned out, and
peppered by fabricated outrage aimed at nothing but the protection of their
tribesmen. Unfortunately, Abubakar Tsav falls squarely into this category.
He says the Fulani are
united and capable of organising a reprisal if anyone of them is killed by
soldiers and police sent by the government. The hidden import of this
condescending threat is that the rest of us, Nigerians are disunited, weak
and defenceless against a better
organised, vengeful Fulani. As far as Abubakar Tsav is concerned, he has
foreclosed on the suggestion of Fulani herdsmen creating ranches for themselves
within their own land, a solution which he considers untenable. He says the
country should find out the root of this terror and proffer solution but he
offers none himself, though he was presumptuous enough to tell us areas that
are not negotiable and sacrosanct for the Fulani.
From Tsav’s view-point,
it is not negotiable to prevent Fulani herdsmen from going about. Not even when
their moving about – now part and parcel of their lives – is not only posing to
be a clear and present danger to their host communities, but has proved to be
murderous. What this ex-law enforcement officer never said plainly, but
implied, is that the Fulani herdsmen should be appeased since they cannot be
punished.
But a myth that should
be punctured before the likes of Abubakar Tsav get carried away is that the
Fulani herdsmen are not above the law. If the Fulani herdsmen have not been
punished so far for their atrocities, it is because there is a diabolical
conspiracy by governmental forces to enable them get away with their crimes.
To Tsav and his
backers, we send this message: GRAZING RESERVE AREAS in the South should be
removed from the list of items to appease the Fulani. That’s not negotiable.
Cattle-rearing is a
business. Nobody is going to tell the Fulani herdsmen how they run their
business. If they don’t like ranching, that’s their business. But if they want
to impose their way of life on the rest of us Nigerians, we have to draw the
line in the sand.
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