FULANI HERDSMEN, ANIMALS AND TERRORISTS.

There is a low grade economic war going on in Nigeria, And we all pretend it's not happening.

The menace of the AK47 wielding Fulani Herdsmen throughout the savannah belt, has now assumed epidemic proportion as they now move into the rain forests of southern Nigeria.
While the battle between grazers and farmers over land has been on for centuries, it has reached a stage now, especially in Nigeria, when something must give.

Incidentally, most of the governors in the middle belt and the South, whose people and economic crops suffer most under the invasion of these Fulani locusts, prefer to hide their heads in the sand, by bending over backwards to accommodate this criminality in the interest of peace and national unity.

But what they failed to realise is that these animals and their animals cannot be reasoned with, their 18th century ideas of mobile animal husbandry is only as outdated as their mind set that they are above the law.

Don't get me wrong, there has always been Fulani settlements in the fringe communities of the Yoruba country, and while there were always skirmishes between farmers and grazers, these only happen on the farms, using cutlasses and arrows,and at most times would be resolved by meeting between their Seriki and the kings in the communities.

But these sets of gun wielding herdsmen and not the local Fulanis. They are more like mercenaries on hire, moving from settlement to settlement, killing, maiming and destroying lives and properties worth millions.

And the worst part is that it escalates only during administrations headed by Northerners, because they must think that nothing would happen to them, since most of the security apparatus are either headed, or heavily populated, by their kinsmen.

And so far, they are right.

The only time there was a retaliation, which led to heavy Fulani losses during the Obasanjo years, the Fulani elite, who usually pretend that the attacks were exaggerated, suddenly find their voice when the shoe moved to the other foot, and promptly despatched their most famous son, one chap called Muhamadu Buhari, to Ibadan, to register their displeasure about the killings.

The then Governor of Oyo State, the late Alhaji Lam Adeshina, was so incensed that people who normally masquerade as nationalists, would descend so low as to come and make a case about the killing of people who had been killing others with impunity, that he gave the delegation, comprising some of the greatest beneficiaries of the skewered Nigerian federation, the now famous tongue lashing, and send them away with their tails between their legs.

My piece of advise is for the security forces to take the threat posed by these marauders seriously, and not to start muscle flexing when and if the Southern boys too start walking around with AK47s, solely to protect their farms, their land, and their heritage.

My Ten Kobo.