Is Buhari presiding over the last united Nigeria?

After the Fulani Herdsmen crisis nearly snowballed into a consuming inferno in Oyo State, there has been no ease of tension in Nigeria. The palpable fear can be felt in the air with such choking toxicity. And at such moments of critical danger to our federation, a time you would expect Nigerian elders across the federation to come together for the unity of the nation, there have been the usual discordant tunes, each of them pitching tents and some of them keeping uneasily quiet from devious political calculations.

There are actually no good people and there are no bad people. I have close friends all across the nation and still wrote my experience of a beautiful, memorable Nigeria in a memoir recently. It was titled, “The Nigeria I knew” and resonated with a lot of people from our ethnic divide. In fact, the Fulani I knew as a child were good neighbors who sell fresh congealed milk we call “wara”.

No one has a superior opinion of how the nation should move forward. We can only align with strategies and tactics premised on constructive engagement and strengthening the capacity of our security institutions for effective performance. This is what makes us patriots.

But patriotism must be clearly defined within a noble premise and enthusiasm to critically interrogate issues when our sailing ship is seeming to become rudderless. It is recognizing that we do not owe allegiance to a leader, but to the country…Not only to the country but also to justice and humanity.

I am Yoruba, born here, and made friends across the divide and still believes in the beauty of our diversity.   Truth be spoken, however, if we situate Nigeria within the concept of Thomas Hobbes Theory of a “nasty, brutish and short life”, then it is safe to say Nigeria is already headed in the direction of total chaos and of course, anarchy.

This anarchy and seeming oppression of a people by another set of people within the same nation, in a country already overwhelmed by hunger, unequal distribution of wealth and impoverishment, threw up the symbolism of resistance that Sunday Igboho represents. Sunday Igboho is a systemic creation of anger against the gruesome murder of Mrs. Olakunri, the daughter of Yoruba leader, Pa Reuben Fasoranti. He represents anger against the gunning down of a first-class monarch in Yoruba land, the Olufon of Ifon and of late, Dr. Fatai Aborode, an accomplished Yoruba man who relocated to Nigeria to create employment for his people in Igangan, Ibarapa North local government, all from the hands of Fulani Herdsmen.

We are also not unaware that all across the federation, many families have lost loved ones to this same domestic terrorism from supposed fellow countrymen. Many families will never recover from the emotional turmoil of untimely death, rape, or financial setbacks of those who paid the heavy ransom to rescue loved ones. Many families will not recover from the agonizing shock of paying the ransom to a relative that will never come home, because the Herdsmen took the money and still slaughtered the victim. I write as someone who has participated in the contribution of ransom before, for two kidnapped victims.

So, how did the crime of kidnapping by herdsmen become such a notoriously enduring industry in Nigeria? Each time we hear “ransoms have been paid”, shouldn’t we ask, “paid to who?”. People have paid multi-millions for ransom. Into whose Bank accounts do these ransoms flow? Is it these same ragtag –looking kidnappers that are paraded that own the Kidnapping empire? Why has it been a challenge for security Agencies to FOLLOW THE MONEY? These are begging questions requiring urgent answers.

And in all of these, where is leadership?

On the 23^rd of October, 2011, after ethnic clashes that led to the death of 27 people in Lagos in Nigeria, the INDEPENDENT Daily, United Kingdom and our local newspapers reported that the then President of Nigeria, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo ordered rioters to be shot at sight. Obasanjo was literally ordering the shooting at sight of his own tribesmen, the Oodua People’s Congress who were alleged to be stimulating the riots. Obasanjo was actually quoted as saying “The Police have instructions that anyone who calls himself OPC should be arrested and if he doesn’t agree, he will be shot on sight. We cannot allow this country to be overtaken by hoodlums and criminals”.  THAT WAS LEADERSHIP!

November 26, 2020, after the Olufon of Ifon in Ondo state was kidnapped and eventually murdered, this after Chief Olu Falae, a prominent national and Yoruba leader had suffered in the hands of kidnappers till he died. The Governor of Ondo State must have been concerned about a possible attack on Ondo state by Herdsmen hiding in the forests, and as Chief Security Officer of his State, issued a quit order on criminal Herdsmen to vacate Ondo state on the 18^th of January.

19^th of January, typically, Mallam Garba Shehu, representing the Presidency countered Aketi and rejected the Quit order! Are citizens not curious to ask: whose purpose was this Presidency serving? Why is Mallam Garba Shehu combining the job of speaking for the President with speaking for Herdsmen? And as the President did not disown Garba Shehu by saying, “No, I am President for all”, shall we conclude Garba Shehu was playing the piper of a tune dictated by the President? Does the President feel gracious to dictate a divisive, ethnic tune?

On the 15 of July 2012, the Twitter handle of Mallam Nasir El Rufai, a Fulani leader states as follows: “We will write this for all to read. Anyone, soldier or not that kills the Fulani takes a loan repayable one day no matter how long it takes”. El Rufai, as contemptuous as he sounded, stood for something: He sent a signal that he would not cower and watch his people decimated. He spared no words. He was not diplomatic. So, what rights guarantee El Rufai’s threats but deny Akeredolu’s frustrated response to the annihilation of his people?

When Miyetti Allah leaders rascally issue threats against their host communities, this Presidency plays deaf. But the moment anyone pokes at the Herdsmen, this Presidency abandons everyone that voted it and embarks on a vocal hemorrhage. How suddenly did President Buhari forget that for three consecutive periods, he contested Nigeria’s Presidency through the CPC platform but lost, until he forged an alliance with the South West? Why is the same President now carrying on like a President of the Fulanis instead of President of Nigeria? Why does a President that never speaks to the nation except we literally drag him to do so in moments of national crisis, always find a swift voice to ward off justified salvos against cow herders who are jeopardizing other races’ right to existence and he actually does so, characteristically within 24 hours? Are we really citizens of the same country?

This is why Sunday Igboho is a symbolic depiction of leadership failure in a suggestive, and almost deliberate complicit abdication of responsibility! And that is why now, Igboho represents many things part of which is the emboldening of many other community resisters of oppression. This resistance is building and this government does not seem to be aware, or is aware but stranded within its myopic cocoon of ethnic prejudice. There’s a thick dark cloud of calamity around us but we are also being gaslighted into alternative realities. Perhaps we should ask then, that how many of our government leaders can travel to their villages any time of the day, unescorted and pass nights there? And while they enjoy state protection, what happens to the poor? The poor who cannot even go to the farm.

In all of these, where are the Southwest Leaders? Apart from the Governor of Ondo State, Rotimi Akeredolu, SAN, and now, Sunday Igboho who is fast becoming a phenomenon of circumstance, many southwest leaders have always been reactive than proactive. They must go to the drawing board and work out a strategy of containment, not against Herdsmen alone but also to ensure Southwest Youths are gainfully and meaningfully employed through creative unlocking of technological opportunities. The Youth in South West are not immune from criminality. During the ENDSARS protest, a notorious group called One Million Boys terrorized Lagos. Those were not Fulani Herdsmen.

What have we done to rein in these ones? Or we are keeping them for the next election? The money we are stockpiling for this election, how much of it are we prepared to invest in the youths who are so resilient, so creative, so docile, that they’ve accommodated leadership failure this much?  South West leaders cannot continue to pretend to be protégés of Awolowo but lack his non-perfect integrity. You cannot claim to be an Awolowo Apostle but lack his character and ingenuity. The Southwest is limping because hijackers of great ideals have become burdensome liabilities of counterfeit morality. SW leaders must recognize that ambition for office must never consume them to such extent they throw this momentum away, because, if on the altar of ambition, they keep mute while their region burns, by 2023, they would have no nation left to govern.

In all of these, where lies genuine and constructive criticism? 

As we continue to embrace unity in diversity, candor must never depart the lips of true patriots. There is a distinct line we must never cross out of misguided love for politicians and that includes the President. Certain nations are classified as fragile states with the complexities therein to demand accountability from leadership, or to demand qualitative living, healthcare, infrastructure and especially peace. Amongst fragile states are Yemen, Afghanistan, Syria, Somalia and South Sudan. And with over 400 billion dollars frittered away in oil revenue and poverty staring down citizens and now compounded by clear bias in the management of herdsmen crisis, it is heartbreaking to spot Nigeria amongst the listed fragile states index, occupying the 14^th position in the world and 9^th position in Africa far back as 2019 and 2020.

With this grim picture, those who call the President “Baba” and lack the temerity to call him out are not doing him any good. Misguided loyalty is cancerous because it gradually eats into the consciousness of the self-acclaimed “loyalist” as he keeps imagining himself a patriot. Patriotism is not reckless imprudence. It is measured by a heart that loves the nation but that also recognizes its responsibility and that of other citizens, rich or poor, as rights holders within a social contract that binds leadership as Duty Bearers that must be held to accountability. If by your standard, everything the leader does is right and you must each time hurl expletives at those who find it insensitive and repugnant, then you are enslaved to primitive patriotism, which is the type that shouts, that glares, that denigrates, that threatens and that call others names. You are numb to the deaths and pogrom around you, because your political idol must not be hurt. This is a conscious bondage where your indiscreet respect for your chosen leader is the greatest enemy of truth. This is why you seek diversion away from every disorder and would rather shift it to political camp disunion rather than enter a coalition of honour to move the nation forward.  This is why, instead of holding government to answer certain questions, some of us have elected to divorce answerable leadership from the leader. When you brand a worship idol out of a nation’s Power holder, you have burnt patriotism and embraced servility.  What we’re seeing today is the effect of not just bad governance, but also that of enabling AYE-SAYERS.

This is why the government’s spin Doctors are quick to demonize and incriminate the Media and civil societies as “heating up the polity”. Isn’t it sardonic that this same administration that rose to power through a well-orchestrated Media machinery and propaganda and that consistently solicited Civil Society’s support to call out bad governance of the past is now tagging the Media as the enemy of the nation by the duplicitous estimation of an intolerant administration? This gaslighting is disingenuous conduct of a government that circumvents the truth, fails to take responsibility for its errors, and must attempt to steer you away from questioning facts is completely alien to its mouthed integrity!

The President must face a fact here today: There has been a sweeping and systematic liquidation of other people’s territories by unhinged suspected Fulani Herdsmen.  The President’s own people.

The President must ask a question too?  How do Foreign nations who lead the pack in the global cow-ranching business get on with this business without slaughtering their own people?

On the 13^th April 2011, when you wept over the state of the nation in your quest for power at the International Conference Centre, Abuja, will you say you have turned the country around and made it safer after power was granted to you for the past 6 years till date?

What are you making of your legacy? Are you capable of rising over ethnic sentiments now and protect all Nigerians?

After voting you, and handing over to you, the constitutional mandate to be the leader of all, do you recognize that the Presidency you hold is more dignifying and it is beneath you to still carry on with a now hazy perception of you with the people struggling to resist pointing to you as a Fulani Leader?

As a Muslim who is nearer the valedictory stage of your life, I shall step into this faith to remind you, Mr. President, that for each time you know what to do, to rescue Nigerians from Fulani Herdsmen slaughter, but you fail to do so, you will struggle to shake off an inaudible complicity in the murdering of innocent souls all in a bid to fulfill what is beginning to look like a well-orchestrated expansion agenda scheme. Your supporters of today will not stand in judgement with you.

Finally, good leaders take personal responsibility in a crisis, no matter how much of these lie outside their control. Good leaders align team focus and establish periodically evaluated metrics to monitor their own performance. Good leaders create a culture of accountability, and stay alert and aligned on an effective dashboard of priorities. A good leader will unite this nation and not divide it. President Buhari should jettison his conscious or unconscious bias and demonstrate leadership now before he goes into history as the last leader to preside over the affairs of a united Nigeria!

Akin Fadeyi can be reached via Twitter: @AppFlagit