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I interviewed residents in Birnin Gwari which is located in the northern and Muslim-populated section of Kaduna State. They said they experienced more violent attacks but because they didn’t have access to the media like the activists in southern parts of Kaduna State the attacks were mostly unreported. In Gombe State, North-East, resident Fulani in the northern parts of the state told me that herders from Niger Republic made cattle eat their crops and occasionally killed farmers. When these foreign herders moved to the southern section of Gombe State (that has other tribes and Christians) and the same thing happened, the claim was that the Fulani came to take their land.
Meanwhile, the narrative of herder-farmer headlined attacks in southern parts of Kaduna State for years. Later it degenerated in some areas into setting up of militias on either side. It’s an area I’ve visited and I hear the experiences of resident Fulani and non-Fulani people. Kaduna State Government said attacks post-2011 were reprisals for some earlier herder-farmer incidents and that both sides were involved. Some media houses reported “unknown gunmen” as attackers when people of Fulani origin were killed, but “suspected Fulani herdsmen” whenever non-Fulani people were victims.
Beyond Kaduna State, the collaboration between insurgents from the North-East and local bandits began to show results in Katsina, Kebbi, Sokoto and Zamfara. In Jigawa State, resident Fulani complained about herders who sometimes formed attacking forces against them too. Wherever attacks happened locals sometimes said attackers spoke a foreign version of Fulfulde, and that local criminals from different tribes were involved in some attacks. Attacks took different forms in different communities—cattle rustling, sacking of communities, collection of tributes, kidnapping.
As attacks increased in the North-West some gloatingly said “it serves them right.” This comment was made because attacks that initially happened outside the North-West and attributed to “suspected Fulani herdsmen” began to happen in Muslim, Hausa and Fulani-populated parts of the North-West. By making this heartless comment those responsible inadvertently admitted that the attacks were a manifestation of the general security challenges the nation faced, rather than the ‘persecution’ or ‘conquest’ that they claimed.
Attacks often have local contexts. Sometimes each community has local bandits that torment it as demonstrated in Niger, Benue, and Taraba states where non-Fulani criminal elements have been prosecuted. In northern parts of Kaduna State, attacks by bandits on residents, including Fulani residents, happened regularly. This year I was in Giwa LGA to have interviews with local government officials one particular week; mass killings and kidnappings took place a day to the interview.
I was in neighbouring Makarfi LGA to conduct interviews with local government officials and I heard residents, including resident Fulani, discussing the constant feud they had with herders. In all local government council headquarters in northern parts of Kaduna State, official weekly security meetings featured efforts to resolve herder and farmer problems, as well as how to fish out residents (of different tribes) who either spied for attackers or engaged in banditry and kidnapping. In the course of time, what was happening up North was seen across the South of Nigeria. But in the South-West reports have it that criminals from Mali were known to come in, stayed in forests, engaged in kidnapping, collected ransom and returned to their country. This is the general nature of our security challenges, backdrop to the attacks in the South which some southerners have reduced to ‘conquest’ mission by one tribe.
In the interview, rather than discuss and proffer solutions to general security challenges as any elder statesman should, Soyinka focused on the narrative that a tribe wanted to take his “patch of territory.” He said this was happening within a historical context. My view regarding his reference to history is that all tribes that had the capacity did engage in conquest across West Africa, not just the Fulani. My tribe, the Yoruba, were involved in wars of conquest for centuries and my forebears, the Alaafins of Oyo, presided over it. My tribe however appears fixated over conquest as it involved the Fulani in the past and still sees current security challenges from that prism, something Soyinka clearly exhibited in the interview.
My reading of that phase in West Africa’s history is different though. In Oyo Empire, our own people did the sabotage internally and practically threw doors open for outsiders. Oyo was already weakened internally by disloyalty to the Alaafins decades before the Ilorin affair happened. As late as the 1870s, Yoruba elements remained prominent in the Ilorin army and sometimes led it for their own selfish reasons. My tribe engaged in wars of conquest in the past but some among us still have this mortal hatred for others who did the same. The late Alaafin of Oyo, Oba Lamidi Adeyemi, had said no one should demonise the Fulani for the criminality of a few. The Sultan of Sokoto, Saad Abubakar, said any herder caught attacking people should be prosecuted.
When people talk about conquest in the manner they do I wonder if they think conquest of the 17th-19th century could happen now in the manner it did back then. Is it possible in the 21st century when no tribe has monopoly of means of violence, a period when state governments can identify who’s taking over what land and flush aggressors out sooner or later? In any case, I’ve not heard of a case where an attack happened in the South and the attackers resided in the same place believing there wouldn’t be reprisal however long it would take.
The manner public figures in the South talk about conquest makes it seem to me they think those they accuse are stupid. Yes, attacks take place. But do they think those they link to the idea of conquest seriously believe they can settle their population by shooting people dead and taking their lands? I know from History class that tribes that are in the business of conquest don’t deploy just armed attacks and the taking over of land. They engage other subtle means. In the 21st century, seizure of anyone’s land and settling on it can’t be literally what whoever rhetorically threatens conquest has in mind.
Meanwhile, the Miyetti Allah that Soyinka quotes has factions. One faction regularly makes inflammatory statements such as the one he quoted. Another faction has always stated that they want to dwell peacefully with fellow Nigerians. Anyway, every tribe has non-state actors that make inflammatory statements. One group among the Yoruba says they want to separate from Nigeria. A group among Ndigbo says it too. In the South-South, groups threaten to shut down the economy by shutting down oil pipelines. In every nation, there’re non-state actors that make inflammatory statements. But will the state allow them to do what they threaten? If state governors, including Benue’s Samuel Ortom, had power over their own state security outfits would they have allowed anyone attack their people without intervening real-time? Dealing with such lacuna in our security architecture should be our focus rather than be fixated on non-state actors’ narrow objectives as Soyinka did in the interview.
Soyinka reduces a national security challenge to the rhetoric of non-state actors who, according to him, threatened to take his “patch of territory.” His responses imply that every attack in the South is carried out by ‘the other tribe’, a false narrow narrative that I condemn wherever it’s rendered. Soyinka has the right to express his concerns. But by ignoring the general backdrop of our nation’s insecurity to any real or perceived herder attack, by inferring early on that herders engaged in ‘conquest’ in Owo when they weren’t involved, he created the impression that one tribe was responsible for insecurity across the nation. It’s a shockingly simplistic narrative regarding a complex problem.
Young impressionable Nigerians have already run with Soyinka’s narrative. So he’s bred the next generation of tribe haters. He’s validated those who believe ‘the other tribe’ causes all of Nigeria’s problems. His narrative has empowered tribes who love to hate the Fulani. Southerners who love anti-Fulani narratives have added armoury. Rwanda didn’t take more than this to happen. I can’t believe Soyinka is doing this to Nigeria that provided him the haven he needed to write the stuff which made him a household name.
Concluded.
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