Sunday 1 May 2016

The Strange, Apocalyptic Myths of Abubakar Tsav Unraveled. By Felix N. Jarikre.

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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