Editor’s note: Following the
a spate of deadly attacks
this year blamed on Fulani
herdsmen President
Muhammadu Buhari has
directed a military crackdown on the group.
However, the attacks
continue. A concerned Nigerian
writes to President Buhari,
asking to find the lasting
solution to the problem as
Nigerians live in fear. Nobody is sure where and
when the sudden attacks
will come Dear President Buhari, in the
light of the on-going Fulani
herdsmen’s killings and
destructions in many places in
our country, many of us
Nigerians are living in fear. In most of our rural countryside,
our farmers and their families
are afraid to do their
accustomed work on the
farms. Across our country,
farms, the handwork and means of livelihood of our
farmers and their families, are
being destroyed by roving
cattle. When farmers’ families
go to sleep in the night these
days, they are no longer sure whether their farms will be
there in the morning, or
whether the cattle herds would
have wiped out everything
during the night. They are no
longer sure whether their villages will be allowed to
sleep peacefully through the
night, or whether the killer
herdsmen will come in the
dark, kill villagers, destroy and
burn the houses, and rape the women and girls. Nobody is
sure where and when the
sudden attacks will come, or
what the magnitude of the
killings and devastations will
be. State governments, local governments, and traditional
rulers, all are unsure what to
do to protect their people. One
governor burst into tears when
he saw the scene of rampage
in a village in his state. The call for agricultural
growth The situation is desperate, Mr.
President. As you very well
know, we seriously need to
improve agricultural
productivity in this country. To
that end, most authorities and leaders of our country have
been trying to encourage our
people to return to the land.
Since you became president,
you have repeatedly
contributed your very influential voice to the call for
agricultural growth. And you
have made it a priority in your
policies, plans and
programmes. In many parts of
our country, especially in most of our southern states, the
return to farming is still very
slow and very hesitant. But
now, the Fulani herdsmen are
scaring farmers away from the
farms. A very major disaster is being enacted. READ ALSO: Unbelievable! Read how Nigerian army
justifies the killing of pro-
Biafran supporters In response to the disaster, a
whirlwind of agitated
comments and cries is
sweeping through most of our
country. To allow these fears
and this whirlwind to continue is inimical to the well-being of
this country. It could even
wreck this country – and lead
to its collapse. Mr. President,
you must take steps without
delay to bring this dangerous situation to a satisfactory end.
We need to have a definitive
and lasting solution. Merely
ordering the Nigerian military
and police to stop these
herdsmen from attacking farmers and villagers, as you
have done, is not enough. As
long as these killer herdsmen
remain, and as long as
important questions about
them remain unexplained, the wild and inflammatory
speculations will continue to
shake Nigeria. Who really are these so-
called Fulani herdsmen We Nigerians need, want, and
demand, to have answers to
many questions concerning
this situation. Who really are
these so-called Fulani
herdsmen? From official and non-official sources, we are
getting loads of information
about their identity, about why
they are behaving as they are
now behaving, and about the
sources of their strength. We are told that these people
are ordinary nomadic cattle
herdsmen. We are also told
that the recent civil
commotions in the Maghreb
(especially in Libya) makes it easy to get sophisticated
weapons in the Sahel parts of
West Africa, as a result of
which these herdsmen have
been able to acquire even
such highly sophisticated guns as AK47. But, how do ordinary
nomadic herdsmen afford to
buy expensive things like
AK47 rifles? How are they
able to train to use such
sophisticated weapons? The suspicion is being voiced
in the media that some rich
and influential Nigerian
citizens have been supplying
the herdsmen with these
weapons, and training the herdsmen to use them. If yes,
who are these rich and
influential Nigerian citizens?
What are these rich and
influential Nigerian citizens
trying to achieve? You, Mr. President, were
recently reported to have
revealed in an interview with
CNN in London that some of
these herdsmen are really
Libyan militiamen, trained under Ghadafi, well-armed and
well-trained fighters who fled
southwards to West Africa
after the fall of Ghadafi. If so,
how did these militiamen
become cattle herdsmen in Nigeria? Who gave them
thousands of cattle to herd? READ ALSO: Why President Buhari’s government is the
worst in Nigeria’s history You said in the interview, Sir,
that these militiamen have
become an Africa-wide
problem. Why has the
government of Nigeria never
informed Nigeria about this problem? What steps has the
Nigerian government taken to
prevent the problem from
coming into Nigeria or to expel
it from Nigeria? If no step,
why? Why have some prominent
Fulani leaders been
representing these militiamen
to us as merely Fulani
herdsmen and claiming
Nigerian citizens’ rights for them – even though they must
know that they are, in fact,
extremely dangerous Libyan
killers? Why have some Fulani
spokesmen been threatening
that they would break up Nigeria if these Libyan
militiamen are thrown out of
Nigeria? What does the Nigerian
government intend to do
about that? Do we now have the
president’s word that Nigeria is
under invasion by Libyan
militiamen? And, what does
the Nigerian government
intend to do about that? A highly placed citizen from
the Middle Belt, Governor
Balarabe Musa, warned in
2014 that a new insurgency
was in the offing – a new
insurgency different from Boko Haram, better organized,
better armed and much more
dangerous than Boko Haram,
and planned by some highly
influential Nigerians for the
purpose of achieving some major political objective in
Nigeria. Are we now seeing
part of that insurgency? Some Arewa North citizens
have threatened again and
again in recent years that the
North would go to war rather
than accept certain kinds of
change in Nigeria. And they have also repeatedly assured
us that the North is more
ready for war than the South.
In the background of these
threats, there have been
repeated reports in the media since 2012 that large
quantities of arms are being
illegally imported into Nigeria. Are today’s depredations by
the Fulani herdsmen part of
what these various members
of the Northern elite have been
threatening? Are the Libyan
militiamen part of a mercenary army that some influential
Nigerians have hired to wage
war against some parts and
peoples of Nigeria? READ ALSO: See how Nigerians rate President
Buhari’s first year in office Some Northerners are
frenetically demanding
“grazing reserves” for the
herdsmen. Some are
threatening that we
Southerners will find ourselves in greater danger if we refuse
to grant land for such grazing
reserves. Some say that they
will break up Nigeria if the
herdsmen are refused entry
into Southern Nigeria. We Southerners suspect a hidden
agenda for these grazing
reserves. What are the true
purposes of the grazing
reserves? Are they designed
by some people to house illegal armies of occupation in
the states of the Middle Belt
and the South, for the purpose
of intimidating the peoples of
those places? Are they meant
to be jihadist instruments for forcible Islamization? Are they
designed as weapons of one
ethnic group’s conquest of
Nigeria? Mr. President, you owe Nigeria
clear, truthful, and
statesmanlike answers and
explanations on this situation.
More importantly, you owe
Nigeria policies and actions that will remove this horrible
threat from our country – in the
interest of the peace and
existence of our country. We
Nigerians pledge our strongest
support to such policies and actions when you design and
implement them. But delay is
dangerous.

THIS ONE NA EPISTLE! NOT A LETTER!
LET THE NEXT PERSON SUMMARIZE BIKO

Though the sands will be washed by the sea. Our lands will be not be used for grazing. Plan dead on arrival.