By Majeed Dahiru
The rising cases of kidnappings and killings in the southern part of Nigeria, a country that has gained global infamy as the third most terrorized in the world has once again opened a new chapter on the controversial subject matter of the activities of killer herdsmen. In addition to numerous victims accounts of kidnappings for ransom the recent arrest and parading of some suspects by the Enugu state police command in connection with several cases unfortunately led to the killing of some Catholic priests as well as traditional rulers, reveals a consistency in demography by perpetrators of this crime; killer herdsmen of mostly Fulani ethnicity. Among these suspects, which includes Idris Tobe, Suleiman Balarabe, Ibrahim Adamu, Garba Basalugu , Mohammed Luga and Mojunpan Duna was one Ibrahim Adamu who confessed to have come to Enugu ‘’to learn the skill of cow rearing but later joined a gang’’.
Despite these obvious cases of widespread criminality, there has been a concerted effort by certain individuals and interest groups to obfuscate the true identity of these undesirable elements by raising the charge of ethnic profiling Nigeria’s ethnic Fulani. The media has been intimidated by accusations of deliberately profiling the ethnic Fulani for crimes that are not peculiar to their demography by inventing the term ‘’killer herdsmen’’. Unfortunately, the cry of ethnic profiling as a push back mechanism by the concerned majority of individuals of the ethnic Fulani demography is akin to living in denial of an undeniable existential reality of a minority criminal elements. This manner of living in denial does not only render the problem intractable with the unintended consequence of image burden for the entire ethnic demography but feeds into the fulanization conspiracy theory by perceived complacency.
Described as ‘’Le marchand de la mort est mort’’ [the death of the merchant of death] in a premature obituary by a French newspaper in 1888, Alfred Nobel got a rare privileged glimpse at the first rough draft of the history of his life and times. The report emphasized ‘’Dr Alfred Nobel, who became rich by finding ways to kill more people faster than ever before, died yesterday’’. A clear case of mistaken identity, the death of his brother Ludvig in Cannes was widely reported as his at the time. Swedish scientist, inventor, business man and philanthropist whose most famous invention, the dynamite, a powerful explosive, which revolutionized the businesses of mining, quarrying, construction and demolition will unfortunately become very notoriously useful in the destruction of mankind because of its extensive use in warfare.
Determined not to be permanently recorded in history as the merchant of death, Alfred Nobel, a sober and reflective recluse of a genius, who neither married nor fathered any child, eight years before his real death in 1896 at age 63 was enough to redirect his legacies. To redirect the world from the destructive path of the ignorance of warfare, Alfred will dedicate enormous energy and resources to the advancement of knowledge for the advancement and peace of mankind. To this end, in November 1895, Alfred signed his last will wherein 94 per cent of his wealth was set aside to establish the Nobel Prizes in physics, medical sciences, chemistry and literature as well as for peace to be annually awarded to deserving individuals without prejudice to nationality. By taking full responsibility for the misuse of his invention and taking the right steps to curb it, Alfred will no longer be remembered as the merchant of death but his name carved with gold in history and eternally immortalized through the institution of the most prestigious awards in the world for the preservation of mankind, the Nobel Prizes.
Nearer home, the Alfred Nobel example was deployed by Nigeria’s ethnic Igbo when criminality defined the cities of Aba and Onitsha. Determined to change the terrible images of these two important commercial cities that was robbing off negatively on the reputation of the larger members of the Igbo ethnic demography, traditional method of law enforcement was evolved with the formation of the Bakasi Boys security outfit, which will eventually record relative success in ridding these cities of endemic criminal elements to relief of the majority. Similarly, when the issue of human trafficking and prostitution syndicate in Europe was prevalently identified with the Edo ethnic demography, there were no loud cries of ‘’ethnic profiling’’. Rather, ethnic Edo individuals and interest group in partnership with relevant government, non-governmental agencies as well the traditional institutions took full responsibility by working in concert to unravel the socio-cultural factors responsible for the rooted problem among ethnic Edo people of Nigeria.
It is the absence of the Alfred Nobel example that is at the heart of the current controversy surrounding the criminal activities of killer herdsmen of mostly Fulani ethnicity in Nigeria. Nigeria’s ethnic Fulani that are mostly distinguishable by their excellence in educational, professional, administrative and political careers, making them one of the most sophisticated people in Africa, should be concerned more about this endemic problem of criminality among a tiny fraction of their demography and careless about the semantics of ethnic profiling. In addition to being the loudest at condemning their criminal activities, Nigeria’s ethnic Fulani owe it a duty to the rest of Nigeria to expose them by helping to unravel the form, nature, motive as well as other social-cultural factors responsible for the surging crime involving some undesirable elements that are identifiable as ethnic Fulani.
Nomadic animal husbandry, which is primarily characterised by herding cattle from one place to another in search of pasture and clement weather is a cultural economy of Africa’s ethnic Fulani, hence the descriptive ‘’herdsmen’’ for identifiable members of the group. In recent times, armed conflicts between farmers and herders over the struggle for land resources has seen an influx of armed mercenary fighters that came poured into Nigeria from all over west and central Africa ostensibly to help their ethnic Fulani herder brethren in Nigeria. These mercenary fighters whose violent activities resulted in the killings and destruction of farmer communities across Nigeria are themselves skilled herdsmen but in this instance they are not engaged in the business of cattle breeding hence the appellation ‘’killer herdsmen’’.
However, these killer elements are mostly foreigners and have no sentimental attachments to most of Nigeria’s indigenous peoples including their ethnic Fulani kinsmen. When not engaged in terrorizing farmer communities to make way for fellow migrant nomadic ethnic Fulani herdsmen, they turn their energy towards criminality as they now regard the entire Nigerian geographic space as a thoroughfare of limitless criminal economic opportunities. With the government of the day still fixated on farmer/herders clash narrative and obvious reluctance to take appropriate actions against armed groups, killer herdsmen now have a free reign in criminal activities such as kidnapping for ransom and armed robbery across the country.
Tagged as bandits, their natural skill as herdsmen as well as shared ethnic identity with Nigeria’s indigenous Fulani has enabled these killer herdsmen to infiltrate communities in the north west of Nigeria and unleash a wave of criminal activities such as cattle rustling, kidnapping for ransom, armed robbery in addition to the terror of mass killings. Therefore, it will be a collective assault on the sensibilities of thousands of victims of this pattern of crime to question their judgement on the ethnic identification of their criminal tormentors as that will amount to asking the obvious question of why a Donald Trump is identified as White. Such other questions as ‘’where is the cow of the herdsmen’’ smacks of wilful ignorance as not every herdsman is a cattle breeder in the sense that not all auto mechanics own repair shops. Just as some auto mechanics deploy their skills in the criminal activities of auto mobile theft, these killer herdsmen deploy the natural skills of their nomadic animal husbandry to rustle cattle, kidnap people on the high way and herd them deep into the bush in distances covering average of 30 kilometres.
Nigeria is undoubtedly under siege from marauding killer headsmen from continental Africa. In a country that is sharply polarised along ethno-geographic fault lines, the criminal activities of killer herdsmen pose a serious existential threat to the fragile security, peace and stability of the Nigerian state. This is hardly the time to play hide and seek over semantics of ethnic profiling as there should be a concerted effort to tackle a criminal scourge that does not recognizes Nigeria’s ethno-geographic and religious divisions.
There is a clear distinction between profiling a criminal suspect and ethnic profiling of a group.The first investigative step towards solving a problem of crime is to profile the criminal appropriately down to his ethnicity, religion, associations, contacts and evaluation of his thought process through his verifiable interactions. When the media reports the testimonies of victims of crime including the time, location and ethnic identity of their criminal tormentors, it is not ethnic profiling but profiling of a criminal suspect.
Dahiru, a public affairs analyst, writes from Abuja and can be reached through dahirumajeed@gmail.com
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Sky Daily
