Fulani Herdsmen Jihadists and Imperative of State Police By Polycarp Onwubiko

It is abundantly clear that insecurity of lives and property has assumed a frightening and pervasive proportion in all parts of the country.

Violent armed banditry reared its horrid head after the Nigeria- Biafra war in the 1970s. As a result of deliberate centralization of the government structures and public institutions contrary to the sacred principles of federal system of government, a patently unitary system of government was foisted on the country by the military regimes largely headed by the northerners.

          The natural outcomes were retardation of the earlier fast growing socio-economic development of the eastern, western, and mid-western  regions of the southern part of the country and short-changing  in terms of sharing the resources of the country. Creation of the states,  local government councils and federal constituencies were tilted in favour of the northern part of the country. Citing of strategic public institutions,  critical infrastructural facilities, urban renewal and appointments in key positions were skewed in favour  of the north leaving  the  south marginalized. The grotesque state of affairs ignited intense infuriation, agitation and resentment from the people of the south- south geo-political zone. The unabated inequity and taunts from the northern elements left the people with no other option than to resort to militancy and subsequent kidnapping of expatriates working in the oil companies in the Niger Delta.

          The Niger Delta militancy was rooted in justifiable cause as over 90 percent of revenues in the running the country is derived from the crude oil exploration which earns stupendous foreign exchange while the environment was devastated and lacked basic infrastructural facilities and amenities in addition to pervasive poverty and penury of the people. These militants never hid their faces, identities and objectives since they believed that their cause was as clear as crystal and morally outrageous to be ignored by the federal government.

          The frightening fall-out of the militants’ violent outrage was the genesis of kidnapping and accompanied forceful demands for ransom. This violent criminality gradually spread to other parts of the southern part of the country. While armed banditry and kidnappings were raging in the south, sponsored and contrived religious, massacre due to religious extremism born out of hatred and  sadistic intolerance of  Christian religion were claiming thousands of lives and property of southerners especially the Igbos  in the north. As sadistic and extremist groups like Maitatsine  surfaced, Boko Haram came like a bolt from  the blue  and their objectives and  target was the  same which is destruction of Christian places of worship and the adherents. The political and traditional sponsors of the overtly terrorist and extremist blood hounds rationalized their devilish exploits as grievance against the Federal government for corruption, evils of western values, injustice and unemployment What a balderdash!

The painful dimension on these monstrous criminalities is the woeful failure of institutions of government viz: police, army and the justice administrative system to carry out their statutory duties and responsibilities. This gross aberration is due to the deliberate violation of the principles of federal system of government hence the clarion call for   True Federalism with inherent state police and prisons.  

In federal system of government the world over, the federating units establish, fund, and control their respective security architectures. The former regions of Nigeria had their respective police and criminal justice system and  prisons; the primary aim of government which is security of lives and property was in perfect condition. The centralization of the police by the northerners in the military regime and sustained by their apologists in the civilian administrations of Alhaji Shagari Shagari and Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, had  embolded the Fulani herdsmen Jihadist to turn into monstrous and heartless murderers  propelled by a hidden agenda. They have unrepentantly continued to slaughter non Muslims and Christians in the southern Kaduna, Kogi, Plateau, Benue and Nasarawa states. They created the impression that they are above the law as police have never dared to arrest them, even as they do not have the license to carry arms. But in the south people’s houses are searched for arms simply because Nigerian laws are enforced in the south and not in the north; one Nigeria indeed!    The Fulani herdsmen Jihadists boldly invade villages and communities in these states and destroy their farm land, burn houses, and rape women; even in the southern part of the country. Now, they have sacked people   in Benue State where over three local government areas have been colonized with gun wielding Fulani terrorists in the guise of being cattle rearers; while the indigenes are languishing in refuge camps. The question is: why has the federal government closed its eyes and pay lip service to the deluge of   media reports on the rampages of these murderous hordes from the pit of hell? Why can’t the federal government deploy and permanently station  the police and the army to drive away these sponsored jihadists masquerading as herdsmen so that the owners of the land will go back to their houses and engage in their farming and sundry economic activities for their livelihood. What sort of country is this? The fact remains that state police is a desideratum, to curb this sponsored sadism and wickedness, in addition to sundry criminalities all over the country.  

          Therefore, the  two presidential candidates,  Dr. Goodluck Jonathan of PDP and General Muhammadu Buhari of APC  must assure Nigerians that the country must revert to True Federalism because Nigeria cannot continue to wobble under  a different version of federal system of government (federal-unitary contraption)  which has been the primary source of pervasive corruption, monstrous, bad governance and tardy pace of socio-economic growth and  development in spite of the abundant natural resources. Nigeria should elect a presidential candidate who espouses and confesses   true federalism with state police because there can never be any realistic  solution for insecurity in Nigeria other than state police as observed in countries operating federal system on government.  The recommendations of the National conference fell short of true functional and fiscal federalism and has to be implemented with additional provisions that will berth realistic federal system of government to enable the federating units (or geo-political zones as regions) to articulate their peculiar needs and advance according to their resources and perspectives in world view.

     

Mr. Onwubiko, an author and commentator on public affairs, wrote Awka, Anambra State.