Opinion: The need to stop Fulani National Movement (FUNAM)’s threat to peaceful elections in Benue State

By: M.T. Nyiutsa Esq.

As a Nigerian (of course any resident should be at liberty to feel same), I deeply find it necessary out of a responsible sense of constitutional civic duty and patriotism to draw your attention, in case those in positions of duty to so inform fail, for whatever reasons, to probable threat by Fulani Nationality Movement and other sister herdsmen associations to peaceful elections in Benue State as disclosed by media reports, particularly Saturday Vanguard dated 20/10/2018 titled “Herdsmen vow to sack Governor Ortom in 2019.” Sir, is there any hope or chance that your image launderers, Femi Adesina, Lai Mohammed and, to a lesser extent, Adams will not deceptively brand this correspondence as hate speech? I pray they should not, but if otherwise, they should not prevail.

1. As a victim of recent and/or ongoing herdsmen attacks on communities in Benue State supported with benefit of hindsight, I find the said story credited to Fulani Nationality Movement as so disturbing, threatening and deadly. I understand Fulani Nationality Movement as one of those various Fulani socio-cultural organizations that have emerged into public limelight following national outcry against unending murderous attacks on rural communities by heavily armed Fulani herdsmen. I remember the likes of Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore, Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria and Gan-Allah Fulani Development Association. There is a general consensus that Buhari Federal Government has, for reasons close to it chest, wrongfully ceded other Nigerians’ rights and privileges to the said Fulani Herdsmen Association and/or their members. Painfully, Samuel Adesanya lamented in The Nation (Online) dated 18/1/2018 titled “Fulani Herdsmen, sponsors or patrons” that “with such robust defence and backing of Fulani Herdsmen by their principals, we need not ask the source of their sophisticated weapons, what embolden them to act with impunity and why no one has been brought to book to date.” The Herdsmen freely kill and thereafter hold televised press briefings/talk shops to justify the killings of unarmed innocent civilians! What does the Federal Government do other than look the other way? The armed herdsmen have serially attacked soldiers, police and other law enforcement/security personnel on deployment to the affected areas. See Daily Independent dated 21/8/2018 at P.5, The Nation dated 12/2/2018 at pp. 1 and 6. Even though the Buhari Federal Government has been aware of the culpability of the herdsmen in the armed attacks on communities in Benue State (also The Nation dated 7/2/2018 at P.7), the most the Federal Government did or has done is to call for donation of ancestral lands to killer herdsmen by victim-communities. These herdsmen organisations also appear to serve, accidentally or coincidentally, as resource points/pool for the Federal Government particularly on issues that concern herdsmen killings, as senior federal administration officials subsequently adopt hook, line and sinker such suggestions or position of any such Fulani herdsmen group(s) no matter how detrimental such suggestions/proposals are to peace and rights of other Nigerians. That is where we are now and how it has become!

2. Moving forward, and returning to the matrix of the reason for this correspondence but at the risk of repetition, Your Excellency, the security implication and significance of the said story is worrisome. Let me be emphatic that what genuine Benue voters will do in 2019 general elections concerning Governor Samuel Ortom is popularly comforting as the good people of Benue State have recognised the Governor as their only hope and defender of their ancestral heritage! Sir, on a careful scrutiny of the said news report and same supported by benefit of hindsight. I find the said piece as veiled threat by Fulani Nationality Movement and its sister organizations to peaceful elections in Benue State.

3. First and foremost, the name “Fulani Nationality Movement” suggests an organization with a clear vicious mandate to conquer, overthrow, capture and dominate or subjugate other persons with a view of establishing a nation of their own with well-defined territory. It seems more of an attempt at the revival of old empires and expansion of same. That name, Fulani Nationality Movement, refuses to symbolise simply an association for the welfare of the members but it puts forward a crusade for a nation of the Fulanis with territorial inheritance as well as political power control and domination. The herdsmen associations have boasted that the Benue Valley is theirs and theirs to stay, own, occupy and ply their trade. See the Nation dated 31/05/2017 @ P.41; Daily Trust dated 23/10/2017 @ P.10.

4. Secondly, the group vowed to “mobilise its members” across the country to unseat Governor Samuel Ortom in the coming 2019 general election. But what is the geographical extent of the Benue State Governorship Constituency? Will eligible member-voters of the Fulani Nationality Movement be entitled to vote in the said elections regardless of where they had registered to vote in Nigeria? Who are the members of this organization? Are all persons of Fulani extraction members of the said movement? With respect, Your Excellency being a Fulani man, a member? Are there members of the said movement within the rank and file of the Independent National Electoral Commission? Are their members in the Police, the State Security Service, the Economic Financial Crimes Commission? What strategies do the members of the Fulani Nationality Movement (if there are and I suppose there are) in the various establishment and occupying privileged positions in this government to deploy in execution of the group’s VOW? What percentage of Fulani herdsmen constitute voters in Benue State (if not all these are) on the INEC voters’ registers known to the public? Or are there polling units created for exclusive use of the members of Fulani Nationality Movement without the knowledge of the Benue electorate that could be utilized to actualise the VOW? Your Excellency, has INEC cleared its name of allegations making rounds in the media of having created unknown polling booths as well as removing the time, place and name of officer concerned components from its electronic results transmission systems?

5. Mr. President from hindsight I and every law abiding and rational voter in Benue State should feel concerned by the masked word “mobilise” in the vocabulary of any Fulani socio-cultural organization. I humbly note that on the 30/5/2017 the same phrase “mobilise our members” to oppose the Open Grazing Prohibition and Ranches Establishment Law was used by Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore see the Nation dated 31/5/2017. And through Daily Trust dated 23/10/2017 Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore clarified that by “mobilise our members” meant that “Fulanis from other parts of the country and beyond were expected to converge on the Benue valley”. Was it not a well-co-ordinated deadly armed attacks by Fulani herdsmen using sophisticated weapons on various communities in Benue State that resulted into over 300 deaths and 400 injured persons that were treated at Benue State Teaching Hospital Makurdi that followed such mobilization? What powers has Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore or any such herdsmen associations to freely bring into Nigeria foreigners, armed foreigners? Who has been responsible for letting such armed herdsmen or mercenaries into Nigeria with a publicly declared mandate to take over other citizens ancestral lands through the use of sophisticated weapons? What did the government do to stop or prevent the illegal influx of the aliens? Take a look at Article 3 of ECOWAS Protocol on free movement of citizens of member states! Is it correct to say that free movement of citizens of ECOWAS member state across the international boundary of that of another must be with valid documents and at official entry points after such documents have been duly scrutinized by relevant officials of the Federal Government of Nigeria, in this case? Sir, it is correct that you admitted and informed us that the armed killer herdsmen had among them foreign mercenaries! Assuming your intelligence officials failed you, but you needed no soothsayer to find the leadership of Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore as their importers!

6. Also, the said media report states (in part) that “the group accused the Governor of conniving with personnel of Operation Whirl Stroke to chase them out of Benue State.” Your Excellency, let’s consider the following questions: What instructions or rules of engagement were handed down to Operation Whirl Stroke? How did these instructions or rules become known to the Fulani Nationality Movement? How is self-defending by personnel of Operation Whirl Stroke from armed attacks by Fulani herdsmen become unlawful and unofficial to be so branded as conniving or act of connivance? Is this not credibly confirming earlier allegations by Governor Samuel Ortom of Benue State that the Federal Government had abandoned him in the efforts of repelling and containing the vicious herdsmen attacks on Benue Communities? (See Vanguard 8/1/2018). Is it correct to say that the security personnel who had lost their lives did so not in the line of official duties? Or is this a suggestion that the fallen soldiers were not given befitting burials? And so, the defensive attacks by Nigerian security personnel that sometimes had, according to media reports, required air support to be called in as reinforcements are to be believed as having been unlawfully carried out? Is it not a clear pointer to the probable truth that the Fulani herdsmen associations were aware that the Buhari led-Federal Government was not prepared to support the military operation, financially and logistically? From the foregoing, is it correct to say that Governor Samuel Ortom judiciously applied any security votes and other finances of Benue State in meeting both the financial and logistic needs of the Operation Whirl Stroke in order to protect the lives and property of the people of Benue State? Is it not correct and fair to conclude that the purported investigation by the Federal Government through the Economic Financial Crime Commission concerning security votes utilization by Governor Samuel Ortom was simply to harass Governor Ortom for using the security votes and other finances of the Benue State to defend the Benue people against the Fulani herdsmen invasion following abandonment by the Federal Government? Is it now clear that the Federal Government other than the mere deployment of security personnel abandoned the people of Benue State in the face of the onslaught against the armed Fulani herdsmen after being fully aware of the state’s scarce resources vis-à-vis the huge financial and logistical requirements for the prosecution of the Ayem Kpatema and Operation Whirl Stroke?

7. Your Excellency, I am still confident that, if you so seek to achieve, you can allow Benue people to freely choose their leaders at various levels in the forthcoming 2019 general elections by preventing this imminent danger to peaceful elections planned and orchestrated by Fulani Nationality Movement or any other herdsmen association or group of herdsmen that may seek the same path.

Thanks, and May the Almighty God lead Your Excellency. Amen