Working towards predetermined answers on Uromi violence, By Ahmed Aminu-Ramatu Yusuf

Edo State Governor Monday Okpebholo announced on 10 April that the State and Federal Governments have decided to investigate the killings in Uromi of sixteen “hunters” from Kano State.

Exactly one week before, he had flown to Kano and paid compensation to the families of the sixteen. This gave the impression that investigations had been conducted and concluded finding the sixteen innocent hunters and not bandits.

The Uromi people are not opposed to any transparent investigation of the 27 March violence. They are telling their stories, insisting they must be heard, demanding that crass generalisation must be avoided, and asserting that any transparent investigation must equally take into consideration the concrete conditions that led to the violence.

Questions must continuously be asked for they are critical tools in understanding, appreciating, tackling, and resolving problems. Besides, questions help promote critical thinking, gain beneficial knowledge, discover gaps, foster meaningful dialogue, encourage collaboration, build trust, take informed decisions, and implement practical programmes, plans, and projects.

But the concrete conditions which lead to problems, including violent ones, must equally be investigated, as they expose the underlying and immediate causes; the forces and actors involved; and what is to be done to avoid violence.

Without these, the outcome of any investigation will be, what the Hausa people call, dogon turanci – ‘groundless, senseless, meaningless, and useless grammar’. Grammar that mystify issues, complicate matters, inflame passion, deepen hatred, and further aggravate the crises by compelling people to take their faith into their hands.

The Uromi people insist that the violence which led to the killing of sixteen “travelling hunters” was only an aspect – the climax – of the physical and psychological violence Fulani bandits/terrorists have subjected them to for years. One told ‘Saturday Vanguard’ of 5 April that bandits/terrorists: “kidnap poor men, they kidnap our women, they rape our women, and they insert sticks in their private parts…”

Another said that the bandits/terrorists: “fed a newborn baby to their dogs in the mother’s presence… She (the mother) is still living with the trauma… After this incident, they still asked for ransom before they (mother and father) were released.”

One Esan king, HRH Solomon Itoya Itoya Iluobe, bitterly complained in January, that: “Our women are raped on their farms, and in some cases, they even set them ablaze. I have paid ransom three times to Fulani herders – they kidnapped my elder sister and two others from this community. Even last month, I paid ransom. We are tired. We can’t sleep peacefully. Travelling on these roads requires security. Whoever supports their stay in our forests must tell them to leave. We need protection before we are all wiped out.”

Where was the Edo State Government (EDSG), the police and other security forces when all these were happening? What did they do? Why did they leave people to their faith?

Uromi indigenes are still insisting that the sixteen people killed were neither “hunters”, nor “travelers”, but bandits/terrorists. They are insisting that huge cash, arms and ammunition were found in the Dangote trailer which carried them. Why were these not displayed for the world to see?

They are still asking why the trailer refused to be checked in Ubiaja by the vigilante squad. Why, even in Uromi, it was a tipper, fully loaded with sand, that was used to stop the trailer?

Some Uromi indigenes kidnapped in the past, who were at the scene of the violence, identified some of the “travelling hunters” as those who kidnapped them. They also asked, if they were hunters, why was any animal not found in the trailer? Another said: “They use the weapons they carry to hunt and kill their fellow human beings, not animals.”

So, where were governments and security agencies in all these crises?

The on-line ‘Daily Excessive’ newspaper quoted the sister of one of the sixteen victims who said: “My brother is not a hunter; he is a terrorist who has been going from village to village, killing people. Before he and his fellow terrorists set out on their last mission… my mother warned him, saying, ‘The South East is not like the North, where people are killed indiscriminately.’ But he refused to listen. Now the truth is out.”

Some have argued that it is not only Fulani that are bandits/terrorists; that other ethnicities participate as informants/collaborators and even kidnappers! Videos to this effect are circulating in the social media. Definitely true. But whether in the north, south, east, west or centre of Nigeria, Fulani constitute over 95 per cent of the people terrorising others.

Fulani bandits/terrorists created the conditions which others are capitalising to kidnap and terrorise their people. Worst still, while other ethnic groups severely punish, ostracise, expel and even inflict jungle justice on their informants/collaborators and kidnappers, some top Fulani aristocrats, politicians, clerics, and even academics, shamelessly rationalise, justify and defend the bandits/terrorists.

Uromi violence was triggered by EDSG lackadaisical attitude and ineptitude towards security. The insecurity that the vigilantes were trying to tackle was what government, in the first instance, should have been doing. If the vigilantes did not do it well, then, EDSG must bear a greater responsibility.

But where was Federal Government of Nigeria when sophisticated weapons flooded Nigeria? What did state governments do when these bandits/terrorists took over their forests? What did governments do when rag-tag, gun-carrying, blood-thirsty, human-hunting, and blood-shedding bandits/terrorists were recklessly terrorising people throughout the federation?

Where was the FGN when bandits/terrorists were destroying farms; burning food granaries; imposing fines and taxes on villages; raping women, children and even men; feeding infants to their dogs; sacking villages; desecrating places of worship; and indiscriminately shooting, injuring, maiming, and massacring people, especially in the rural areas?

Where was Federal Government when Muslim faithful, observing Friday afternoon congregational prayers, were killed and beheaded? When churches were invaded and worshippers mercilessly massacred during Sunday Services? When clerics were adducted, killed and corpses thrown into bushes? When traditional rulers were killed in Kachia and Gobir?

What did Federal Government do when primary, secondary, and Islamic school children were adducted in their hundreds? When students of tertiary institutions were kidnapped and wasted?

Why is it that whenever victims of banditry/terrorism are defending themselves, they are disarmed, but the marauding bandits/terrorists are left with their sophisticated weapons?

Have they seriously taken time to investigate why victims of terrorism are now and then bombed from the air?

What did Federal Government do, when bandits/terrorists caught in the act and, taken to police stations or courts, are released? The bandits/terrorists even boost that they will be released when caught!

Zamfara State Governor Dauda Lawal, confirmed this, when he said, that: “We arrested the bandits, and they confessed to killing people and possessing weapons. They had contacts in Abuja who assured them that they would be released even before being taken to court. However, we received news yesterday that they were granted bail.”

The Edo State Government and Federal Government should take the main blame for the escalating violence in the country. They failed to tackle the psychological and physical violence inflicted on Nigerians and non-Nigerians by the bandits/terrorists.

There would have been no resistance to the various forms of terrorism, if there had not been terrorism in the first place. Whenever and wherever injustice become the norm and the law, resistance naturally becomes an obligatory duty.

Ahmed Aminu-Ramatu Yusuf worked as deputy director, Cabinet Affairs Office, The Presidency, and retired as General Manager (Administration), Nigerian Meteorological Agency, (NiMet). Email: aaramatuyusuf@yahoo.com