Saturday 4 June 2016

Between Fulani Herdsmen And Niger Delta Militants



                                                                                 
                            Niger Delta Militants                                                                                                           
It is heartsore the way and manner President Muhammadu Buhari is handling the massacres of innocent Nigerians by the Fulani herdsmen and the Niger Delta Militants who are vandalising oil pipelines. Obviously, the attention given so far to the activities of the Niger Delta militants  by the federal government far outweighed that accorded the brutish Fulani herdsmen. The serious attention given to the Niger Delta militants hitherto is a clear indication that the Buhari’s administration accord more value to oil than the lives of innocent Nigerians that are being killed like flies.
If it is not so how does one reconcile a situation where the military has been given stern directives at different times to crush the Niger Delta militants that have not killed a single soul whereas the Fulani herdsmen that have killed about 300 persons since the latest upsurge of clashes between them and farmers have not received such attention from the Presidency?
Various communities in Benue, Taraba, Delta, Enugu, Oyo, Ekiti, Nasarawa and Kaduna States have not known peace since the first quarter of the year till date owing solely to the heinous activities of the Fulani herdsmen. Incontestably, in hierarchy, the Fulani herdsmen are next to the Boko Haram insurgents and are a great threat to the corporate coexistence of Nigerians. Unambiguously, the activities of the Fulani herdsmen, if not checkmated timely could spell a greater doom for the country than the Boko Haram insurgents. The reason being that why the latter is conspicuously restricted to the North-East of the country, the former crisscrossed the entire country! This is why the Buhari’s administration needs to accord it the attention it deserves in order to nip it in the bud before it metamorphose into a full-fledge terrorism. But the government is treating it with levity and directing its entire energy and the military to the Niger Delta militants that are bursting oil pipelines as if oil is more important than human lives.
The Acting Director of Defence Information, Brig-Gen. Rabe Abubakar confirmed the President’s directive as he noted thus: “We have the order from the President and we are monitoring the activities of the new group. All efforts will be made to bring out those behind it. The suspects who perpetrated the first vandalism were apprehended and paraded the day before yesterday (Thursday). These ones are not going to be different. We are going out on our operation to stop and apprehend them in accordance with the presidential directive.” Many Nigerians are worried by this position taken by the government. While the Niger Delta militants are being smoked out of their hideouts, the Fulani herdsmen are having a field day perpetrating their dastardly acts across the country! While reacting to the killings by the Fulani herdsmen, Minister of Information, Alhaji Lai Muhammed noted: “The president did speak immediately these things happened to the extent of setting up a panel of enquiry but the government is going to do more than that. These communal clashes are very delicate issues, very emotional and what the government is doing is working very silently to ensure that people who use to live together before without any conflict will go back to that, in very weeks from now, we will begin to see the result of that.” The questions on the minds of Nigerians are: if the government can set up a panel of enquiry on the massacred of innocent Nigerians by the Fulani herdsmen why can’t the same government set up a panel of enquiry to look into the activities of the Niger Delta militants? Or, is the government saying that oil is more important than the lives of Nigerians that are being wasted by the Fulani herdsmen? This ambivalent manner Buhari is handling national issues in the country can never guarantee peaceful coexistence. At the present, there are heavy military onslaughts in the Niger Delta region but the Fulani herdsmen are moving freely.
It is inconceivable that the Fulani herdsmen that are killing innocent Nigerians don’t deserve military operations but the Niger Delta militants who vandalise oil pipes are being hunted by the military. It would have been more appropriate if the military actions being taken against the Niger Delta militants are directed at the Fulani herdsmen to contain the incessant killings of Nigerians. The lives of Nigerians are more important than oil!

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