FELIX OBOAGWINA
State’s Right to Make Laws: Partly, you blamed these killings on the anti-grazing laws. Let us assume, without necessarily agreeing, that the states did provoke these attacks through enacting livestock regulating laws.
For your information, sir, states DO have a constitutional right (duty, in fact) to make laws for themselves. Believe it or not, despite the unitary bastardisation of our Republican Constitution, it still allots that kind of power to the states. In the specific, the Constitution, the grundnorm of all laws, and the parameter against which all laws must be tested, in Section 4(7) concerning the responsibility of states, posits that: “The House of Assembly of a State shall have power to make laws for the peace, order and good government of the State or any part thereof ….” I guess this provision formed the peg upon which some states in the North adopted Sharia law.
General, have you studied these laws to see if they are totally loaded against the Fulani? They are not anti-Fulani but anti-open grazing, open grazing that has resulted in preventable losses of lives. For example, not only do the Ekiti and the Taraba statutes forbid open grazing in favour of ranching, they went further to protect herders by specifically forbidding cattle rustling. By the way, people who are not Fulani also own cattle; and they do not graze openly.
Feudalism of over federalism: Your address to the Aso Rock Press corps ignored the urgency this issue deserves. This was the same way that the Boko Haram issue was politicised and allowed to fester until it mushroomed into the global dimension it has assumed today. What is most troubling for people like me is the fact that all key government functionaries are speaking one language, a language that belittles this festering genocide but fires blames in the direction of every stakeholder except the parasitic Fulani herdsman and his cowherds. It makes it sound like you are endorsing Fulani feudalism over national Federalism. Are you not in essence saying that the shepherd is lord over the farmer?
The Fulani have their roots and their homes. If the global climate change and desertification have combined to push the herdsmen to seek greener pastures Southward, they must approach the host communities with decorum and civility. But the Fulani are not the only victims of climate change.
South-East and South-South Nigeria suffer flooding, erosion, mudslides, ocean surge and coastline erosions, all of which unleash harsh effects on people and property. Those displaced do not go on the rampage against their new hosts. If Fulani cannot graze on grasses without destroying farmers’ crops and killing farmers, they should be compelled to stay back home in their native lands.
Or do you also subscribe to the 97-5 percent formula of the President? Like him, do you too believe that those who gave him the most votes should be satisfied at the expense of areas who gave him fewer votes? Or does your stance reflect the lopsided arrangement in the Security Council? Like many other Nigerians, I wonder if this problem would not have received its deserved urgency were the Security Council otherwise constituted.
Today, we have a council composed of a preponderance of Muslim Northerners, a composition that is a clear affront on Section 14(3), which demands that, “The composition of the Government of the Federation or any of its agencies and the conduct of its affairs shall be carried out in such a manner as to reflect the federal character of Nigeria… ensuring that there shall be no predominance of persons from a few States or from a few ethnic or other sectional groups in that Government or in any of its agencies”
Where are our real Fulani? But, are these the real Fulani of my childhood? I remember growing up between Lagos and Ibadan. Those days, the sight of the Fulani herder with his cattle sent us kids into frenzied singing: “Malu gongo, labalaba gongo.” The Fulani man, with his wide-brim hat, sheathed dagger and amulets strapped to his arm, would smile and wave at us, directing the cows from doing us harm, as we kept a safe distance from their huge horns and hoofs. Their women came, hawking wara and fura.
Those were the Fulani we knew! Who are these ones armed with AK47 rifles? Did the DSS not say the other day that these are foreigners and mercenaries from the wars in Mali and Chad and Libya? They are ISIS and ISIL. And yet they are being allowed to dig in, take root and turn Nigeria into the next theatre of war.
General Dan Alli, you must speak up and act tough. God forbid the heavens to fall, sir, people will always remember you as the Minister of Defence who provided neither defence nor security. Israel invaded Lebanon in 2006 to recover two slain soldiers whose bodies were abducted by Hezbollah. This feat mirrored 1976 when Israel invaded Uganda to liberate a hijacked airplane forced to land at Entebbe Airport with Israelites on board. Israel demonstrated that Jewish lives mattered. Such is the stuff that breeds patriotism! Oppositely, your posture and the Commander-in-Chief’s insinuate that non-Nigerian Fulani in Nigeria rate above non-Fulani Minorities Nigerians.
This posturing (and your posture on the Cameroon agitators, by the way) contradicts not only our Constitution but international laws like the 1993 “Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious or Linguistic Minorities.” Its Article 1 proclaims: “States shall protect the existence and the national or ethnic, cultural, religious and linguistic identity of minorities within their respective territories and shall encourage conditions for the promotion of that identity.”
Violation is enforceable by the International Criminal Court, ICC’s prerogative of detection, arresting, extradition and punishment of persons guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity, as adopted by the General Assembly Resolution 3074 (XXVIII) of 3rd December 1973. This statute can be invoked not only against the herdsmen and the Cameroonians, but against you and the President –anytime, for time never runs against crime.
What is the way out? Government must construct a paradigm shift that not only makes these demons realise that they no longer have official backing but that they will be confronted OFFICIALLY! This, Mr. Defence Minister, is the change that must begin with you and your Commander-in-Chief. I wish you well.
Oboagwina writes from Lagos.
FELIX OBOAGWINA, A JOURNALIST, WRITES FROM LAGOS