Herdsmen: Removal of the head spirits

By Clement Udegbe

Accept the challenges, so that you may feel the exhilaration of victory.

— General George .S. Patton.

A DESPERATE situation they say, often demands for desperate action to be resolved, but Nigeria has continued to avoid the desperation of the challenges of the Fulani herdsmen, which in 2014 was named the fourth deadliest terrorist group in the world by the Global Terrorism Index.

What started initially as sporadic crises or clashes between farmers and the Fulani cattle rearers continued to develop in style and spread, and even though this crisis is getting worse, there’s almost no coverage in the international media, or it’s misattributed “clashes” between farmers and herders for scarce resources.

The Fulani herdsmen, a predominantly Muslim group, have no green lands, and green grasses for their cattle. Thus, they chose to fight, kill and take over farm lands through violence.While our government looked the other way. Herdsmen metamorphosed from arrow and machete carrying people to sophisticated guns wielding people in a just few years.

So far the Nigerian government has failed to address the issue with the seriousness it deserves and the world’s indifference allows this situation to continue, to this stage where it appears obvious that the ranks of the Fulani herdsmen, may have been infiltrated by religious terrorists of all sorts, encouraged by the deliberate oversight by our government that chose to propose grazing Bills rather than ranching of cattle, thereby preferring  to spray perfumes instead of insecticides on an invading horde of virulent insects!

The Fulani herdsmen have become more organised, more brazen in their attacks, more political, more deadly religious, more violent, and more terrorist as an  arm of the now accepted islamisation agenda in Nigeria.

The recent Christian cleansing in Southern Kaduna, the annihilation of thousands of homes and families in Benue State, the continued threat to peace of rural communities in Enugu, Ebonyi, Abia, Delta, Oyo, Osun, Ogun states underscores the need for the Western world to ask serious questions of the Nigerian leaders and government.

So far, Islamist violence and terrorism has killed more than 12,000 Christians in Nigeria, destroying some 2,000 churches, mostly by  Boko Haram, but in the past two years a new source of Islamist terror has hit the country in the form of the Fulani Herdsmen Terrorists, FHT.

According to a Christian Cleric  who described the Southern Kaduna situation alone, since September 2016  as many as “53 villages burned down, 808 people murdered and 57 wounded, 1,422 houses and 16 churches destroyed.”  After visiting an area attacked by them, the representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, UNHCR, and the Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS, to Nigeria, said that in 20 years of working as a humanitarian, she had “never seen such a level of destruction.”

Yet, not very known and followed in the Western world,FHT is becoming a huge menace to Christians and moderate Muslims alike, even as the Fulani aggression, has turned into religious persecution, targeting small businesses owned by Christians as well as churches. It cannot be said that the violence is directed against a particular ethnic group, since the Christians belong to various different ethnic groups.

The dismay of this writer and many Christians in Nigeria and diaspora is that the persecution of Christians in Nigeria is not given anything like the same level of international attention as the plight of Christians in the Middle East or elsewhere.

Who then is tampering with the destiny of Christians in Nigeria? Who is using FHT to champion the growth of Islamic fundamentalism in Nigeria, in particular the imposition of sharia law, which has now been introduced into 12 of the 36 states of Nigeria, including Kaduna State,Sharia law, which in essence is the source of “inequality and discrimination”. For example, Islamic courts frequently set free Muslims who have committed crimes, such as the murder of Christians whom they have accused of blasphemy.

Islamic fundamentalism is championed in Nigeria, through the three main  barrels , namely; The proclamation of Anti-Religion and Christinity Laws and policies in the northern States; Fulani herdsmen , including FHT, supported by the most obnoxious Grazing Bills across the nation;

And  the newly introduced Islamic Banking. Of these, the Herdsmen are perceived as  the ground fighting forces of Islamisation in Nigeria, hence the deliberate weakness and reluctance by government law enforcement agencies to arrest and prosecute these killers and suckers of blood.

Last week, as reported by Vanguard, Delta State Governor announced that the FTH are behind the kidnappings in his State,but his Commissioner of Police quickly differed arguing with facts at his disposal to wit, that of the 112 kidnappers in the state, 80 are from Delta,8 Anambra, 3 Taraba,3 from Niger, 2 Imo,1 Edo, I Bayelsa,1 Rivers, 1 Akawa Ibom, 1 Enugu,2 Sokoto, 1 Plateau, 1 Kaduna, totaling 19 from the North which is significant.

Soon after this altercation, the Governor’s convoy was attacked. Yet they are gerrymandering in political language summersaults, that will lead them nowhere than into the hands of FHT!

Of greater concern is the announcement by the CP Delta State, that they would use undercover operations to unmask the Fulani herdsmen, because it speaks volumes against their will and competence to arrest the development of the killings!

Like Boko Haram, FHT is developing under their noses. Soon Nigeria will be a nation of terrorists if nothing desperate is done , to stem the brewing ugly, dangerous and wicked likely marriage of Boko Haram and Fulani terrorists.

If anybody told Governor Otom of Benue State, in 2015, that Fulani herdsmen would within one month this year, destroy and displace thousands of homes and hundreds of communities in his state he would argue it. But actions of the herdsmen have spoken and he is the one advocating laws against grazing on Benue Soil. All Southern Governors should learn from Otom’s experience especially, the Igbo Governors who are the ultimate target of the wicked and blood thirsty FHT !

The spiritual controls the physical and it is high time, the territorial space of Nigeria is cleansed of the Herdsman’s Head Spirits, and let them go away!

 

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