STILL ON THE FULANI CARNAGE SAGA!

No fewer than four farmers have reportedly suffered various degrees of injuries from successive fatal attacks launched on poor farmers in the town of Igangan in the last few weeks. This is coming on the heels of the earlier reported attacks, kidnapping and killings by herders in the same town.  

It would be recalled that a news story titled: “Save our People from Herders” was posted on dseapublishers.blogspot.com via this link: http://dseapublishers.blogspot.com/2020/09/save-our-people-from-herders.html on Friday, September 4, 2020 in an effort to cry out loud to the whole world for a possible redress on the mindless and ruthless attacks, and in most cases, slaughtering of unarmed farmers by herders in many farms in Igangan, Ibarapa North-West LCDA, in Oyo State. Following closely was another post on Facebook on the same unattended, yet worsening matter via: https://www.facebook.com/groups/idaigangan/permalink/731769404039188/ on September 28, 2020.

It is quite unfortunate that despite all these clarion calls, in addition to the Punch newspaper’s publication of September 13, 2020 via this link: https://punchng.com/herdsmen-destroyed-n320m-crops-vowed-to-engage-foreign-militias-oyo-agro-park-investors-president/ , the carnage subsisted unchecked and unabated. The Fulani herders, instead of being checked, were left unchecked by the legal resources and apparatus of this country. Consequently, the herders doubled their numbers, spread their deadly tentacles and grow more predatory strength in arms and ammunitions which they did not hesitate to unleash in full capacity on innocent victims – the poor farmers in Igangan farm settlements.  The most recent threat from these notorious herders was that if any of their cows accidentally dies on anybody’s land in Igangan, they will not hesitate to wipe out the entire town!

The police seemed helpless in this era of wanton killings by the Fulani herders. The community leaders are also dumbfounded just as the Kabiesi, the Asigangan of Igangan, seemed to have run out of traditional antidotes to salvage the ravaging menace.

This month of November, 2020 alone, a farmer was attacked on his farm by the ravenous herders using swords. The farmer sustained multiple sword injuries as he managed to escape being murdered. His life is currently hanging on a thin thread. Similarly, a young man’s wrist was rendered dangling on his arm as he was attacked and had his wrist severed by the sword blow of a herder.  As if that was not enough, a young man named Jide Odeyemi, who was assisting his children to do their take-home assignments suddenly had his house surrounded by Fulani herders right there in Igangan town on that fateful evening just this month of November! They were all armed with AK 47 assault rifles which they used to pin him down and got him kidnapped. He, however, managed to escape much later from the clutches of his assailants – the herders.

Another episode was that of Mr Tajudeen Omideyi, who was also attacked by these blood-thirsty herders on his farm. He was almost killed but he too managed to escape with multiple sword wounds.

The question on everybody’s lips right now is how many innocent lives do these herders have to snuff out or brutalize before the government intervenes? The deadly silence and inactions, or so it seemed, of those elected to various political offices on this grievous matter smack of complicity and sheer wickedness.

Like it was emphasized in my last story, one is left to wonder if government isn’t just paying mere lip-service to the back-to-farm agricultural initiative as well as the campaign on government’s initiative to revamp SMEs while these ravaging setbacks constituted by the ravenous herders are freely allowed to flourish unchecked!

If our people keep being hunted by herders like games, hacked down brutally on their farmlands like animals, our women raped by them, while many women are still clubbed to death, even after the Fulani gangs have satisfied their hedonistic quests on the women, our farmers’ motorcycles burnt, their farms destroyed and, at times, set ablaze, then, the people of Igangan should think the power of the Nigerian constitution lies only in the paper and not in practice as justice is flayed to the detriment of the victims!

It must be explicitly stated here that no nation’s economy can thrive in the heat of insecurity. No nation can lay claim to socio-political well-being in the face of wanton destruction of lives and property unleashed by a sect of a nation. Where there is no peace, there cannot be wellness. Where there is no wellness, the continued existence of such a clime hangs on a thin thread. Shall we then ask: are we facing a conspiracy of ethnic cleansing?        

For avoidance of doubt, all the mentioned victims of Fulani attacks are available for interview on request by verifiable and reliable solution provider(s).