They struck again in two different
parts of the country on different turfs. In Plateau, the bloody revenge mission
by Miyetti Allah for the right of passage for cows left at least 100 dead.
In Abuja, it came to light, again,
that lawmakers who have been a thorn in the side of the public had, after seven
months, passed a budget that would feed their greed by N31 million each, and
increase the number of the suicidal and walking dead in multiple folds.
In Plateau and Abuja, there is a
shared assurance among the perpetrators that no matter the number of their
victims or the degree of the brazenness of their actions, they will get away
with murder.
For over a decade now, there has
been a scourge of killings under different banners: militants, Boko Haram,
herdsmen, bandits. Name it.
Turn by turn, these groups have
waged a ruthless war on the Nigerian people, killing tens of hundreds of people
for nothing. The only thing worse than the tragedies that we have witnessed
over the years – including the act of madness in Plateau State – is government
making excuses for the killers.
Whereas Miyetti Allah reportedly
accepted that the killings in Plateau were carried out by its members as part
of “retaliatory killings” for 300 rustled cows and the deadly attacks on a few
of its members, President Muhammadu Buhari’s government appears determined to
look elsewhere for the culprits.
Buhari’s prompt visit to Jos is a
remarkable departure from his aloofness in the past. But he failed to use the
opportunity to go beyond the usual expression of condolences and vague promises
of justice. He shied away from looking directly in the eye of Miyetti Allah and
telling them that “retaliatory justice” is jungle justice.
He should have called out Miyetti
Allah and told them, point blank, that both they and anyone else involved in
the killings on any side, will not go unpunished.
The group obviously thinks it can
kill its way to state-funded grazing ranches for its cattle. With ten states
already earmarked for this expensive indulgence, that time may not be too far
away. But why?
In an extract from a court ruling
on open grazing on April 17, 1969, sent to me recently, Justice Adewale
Thompson of the High Court ruled in suit AB/26/66 at the Abeokuta division: “I
do not accept the contention of defendants that a custom exists which imposes an
obligation on the owner of farm to fence his farm whilst the owner of cattle
allows his cattle to wander like pests and cause damage.
“Such custom, if it exists, is
unreasonable and I hold it repugnant to natural justice, equity and good
conscience and therefore unenforceable…in that it is highly unreasonable to
impose the burden of fencing a farm on the farmer without the corresponding
obligation on the cattle owner to fence in his cattle.
“Sequence to that, I ban open
grazing for it is inimical to peace and tranquillity and cattle owners must
fence or ranch their animals for peace to reign in these communities.”
No group or individual is above
the law. If Miyetti Allah members or their cows were attacked, it is not for
them to take the law into their own hands and to justify self-help so brazenly.
Instead of Buhari calling out
Miyetti Allah, however, he was inviting self-pity, complaining that people were
unfair to him by blaming him for not talking to Miyetti Allah, “because maybe
they say I look like one of them.”
Whatever Buhari thinks people may
say, he is perceived as patron saint of Miyetti Allah and was, in fact, their
advocate in an earlier life. But that’s not a problem nor is it a crime. What
is baffling, is why Buhari will not publicly condemn the group and take steps
to prosecute those that publicly accepted responsibility for the revenge
killings.
Not calling Miyetti Allah by name
even once during that visit to Plateau was not a slight on Buhari, as he
suggested. It was, instead, a slight on the memory of dead and an insult to the
injury of the grieving. It creates serious doubt about where the government’s
sympathy really lies.
It was not different from former
President Goodluck Jonathan excusing MEND from the October 1 bomb blast in
Abuja, even when the group had taken responsibility for its murderous action.
Or as Jonathan did later, blaming the opposition for the deadly attacks by Boko
Haram and wondering aloud like a helpless, stranded child, if his government
had not been infiltrated by the sponsors.
When dozens were killed in Benue
in January, President Buhari seemed incredulous. After a disturbing comparison
of the number of the Taraba dead with those who died in Benue State, he advised
residents to “try and accommodate their neigbhbours”, only for him to say a few
weeks later that he suspected the killers in Benue may have drifted in from
Libya.
Whether they are murderous
neigbhours, strangers from Libya or members of the opposition as the Presidency
now wants us to believe, the question is when would the government stop the
killings?
In Taraba, Benue, Adamawa, Zamfara
and now, Plateau, perpetrators of violent crimes are roaming free, while
government is busy rehashing condolence messages and perhaps waiting for the
triumph of the last cow before shuffling the security services. This is
unacceptable.
Until the government brings the
perpetrators of these crimes to justice, whoever they are, the killings will
not stop, and the impression that the government’s action is borne out of
malicious impotence will continue to fester.
Buhari’s response to the Plateau
killings is in marked contrast with the blow he dealt the National Assembly
over the mess the lawmakers made of the 2018 budget.
If the intention was to ask the
National Assembly to go to hell and still keep them looking forward to the
trip, Buhari’s budget-signing speech did just that.
After listening to him mention
specific allegations of “padding” and other malfeasance, I was eager to hear
what the National Assembly would say.
So far, the National Assembly has
not disappointed. The reasons given for playing games with the budget are the
same reasons why they have a very bad reputation amongst Nigerians.
They didn’t need to tell us that
the National Assembly is not the Executive’s rubber stamp. Bala Na’Allah who
spoke for them didn’t need to tell us that the National Assembly is doing “a
difficult job.” For N13.5 million monthly allowance as “running cost”, most
Nigerians would walk on their heads to get the job done.
The most laughable part of all was
Na’Allah saying that they creamed off N14.5 billion from the budget “in order
to create a balance between (sic) the six geo-political zones in the country.”
Whereas Buhari named specific
projects – across the country – from where the National Assembly had creamed
off money and cited priority projects the funds were meant for, Na’Allah (or
anyone in the National Assembly) has, so far, not mentioned a single project
adjusted for “geo-political balancing.”
There’ll be no meaningful explanation
and no price to pay till the cows come home.
The public is besieged on two
fronts: On the one hand, there is Miyetti Allah, an outlaw group determined to
purchase the right of way for their cattle at any bloody price; and on the
other, there are lawmakers who will rob the public graveyard to line their
pockets.
Both Miyetti Allah and the
lawmakers are linked by one thing: a shared understanding that whatever they do
is completely outside the reach of the Buhari’s promise of change.
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