by Yinka Odumakin
MY teacher and fellow delegate to the 2014 National Conference, Prof. Godini Darah, ruffled not a few Fulani feathers when he stood up during the debate on cattle grazing to speak against the atrocities of Fulani herdsmen against their host communities. He said apart from destroying farmlands, they were also in the habit of robbing people of their possessions and raping innocent women.
All manners of verbal daggers flew in GG’s direction as the real owners of the cattle who were in the conference rose in defence of their legmen and the session was to end in confusion until the chairman asked him to withdraw the statement.
The day after this incident,Thisday Newspaper of May 22,2014 had a screaming headline “Nine Fulani Herdsmen Rape Three Women In Benue”. The story read in part: “Nine Fulani herdsmen yesterday went beyond the frequent attacks on hapless communities when they were alleged to have gang-raped three women, including a teenage girl, in Tse Kyuer, Yandev, Mbagwen in Guma Local Government Area of Benue state.
Sexual demands
The women whose ages range between 18 and 20 years were attending to house chores in their remote settlement when the herdsmen attacked them with machetes and guns and coerced the ladies into submitting to their sexual demands.
Two of the women (names withheld ) while narrating their ordeal wept profusely before the Benue State Governor, Dr. Gabriel Suswan who ordered a full investigation into the matter.”
Ranches for nomadic cattle rearers:
The conference had stormy sessions on the matter as delegates of Fulani stock insisted that if nomadic cattle rearing was to be stopped for ranching, state governments all over Nigeria must build ranches. Delegates from areas at receiving ends disagreed on the premise that the cattle rearers are doing private business and not a social service and as such should be responsible for building their ranches. The issue was put in bracket until some civil society people under Mr. Femi Falana brought a motion to say that the ranches should be built by state governments where they are disposed to such.
Rights of cow to movement:
It was amazing to see our compatriots of Fulani extraction defending the right of cows to free movement as if they were citizens and not animals. If they showed the same feeling for Almajiris when their issue came up for discussion, the conference would have abolished that social malady in a jiffy.
Sixteen months after the cows bill of rights overshadowed that of humans, Chief Olu Falae,Yale graduate, ex-Bank managing director,the traditional ruler of Ilu Abo, former finance minister and Secretary to the Government of the Federation and the unofficial winner of 1999 presidential elections who led the Yoruba delegation to the 2014 National Conference went to his farm on the day he turned 77. If he was one of those who had exclusive rights to Nigerian oil wells for holding the type of positions he has held,his birthday would not be a day to spend on a plantation. He would have been rollicking in an exotic spot in some wonderful Island.
Falae’s running battles with ‘hunters’
He had hardly settled down when he saw six Fulani men with three of them wielding AK 47 walking towards him. “I thought they were hunters who missed their way and asked them what they were looking for. Before I knew what was happening they grabbed me and inflicted machete cuts on me in three places. They took me on a fifteen hours of trekking in the forest non-stop”.
Of course, the Fulani miscreants who stormed his farm were “hunters”, only that their game was not some rodents but Chief Olu Falae. They came sequel to the running battles the chief has had with Fulani herdsmen for two or three years. Every now and then, they destroyed the crops on his farm in the course of their grazing. He always picked issues with them but they told him at a moment of impunity that he should fence the portion where he had crops on his land so their cattle could graze freely on the remainder.
Two months ago,the cattle ate up two hectares of his maize plantation. That was an enough-is-more-than-enough moment.
Chief Falae took audio and video evidence to the police and the Fulani herdsmen were invited. At the end of it all, the herdsmen were asked to compensate him for the loss. They came pleading that they could only afford half of what they agreed to pay and the good natured man accepted.
He thought that was the end, probably because he did not read Mallam Aliyu Gwarzo who wrote in October 2014: “Many say we are behind Boko Haram. My answer is what do you expect? We do not have economic power or intellectual power. All we have is political power and they want to take even that from us.
We must fight and we will fight back in order to keep it. They have brought in the infidels from America and the pigs from Israel to help them but they will fail. The war has just begun, the Mujahadeen are more than ready and by Allah we shall win.
If they don’t want an ISIS in Nigeria then they must give us back the Presidency and our political power. Their soldiers are killing our warriors and our people every day but mark this: even if it takes one hundred years we will have OUR REVENGE.”
Four days of hell: Chief Falae saw hell in the four days he had to sleep on the ground with leaves as his cover cloth. He had only a bottle of coke each day with excruciating pain from the machete cuts on his body. “I did not know where I got the strength to survive in all the time I was with them. It was only when I returned home that the pains hit me,” he said as a delegation from Afenifere visited him in his Akure home on Tuesday.
The strength of course came from God above who loves Nigeria and would not allow the chief to die in the hands of scoundrels which would have caused an eclipse.
There was also the inner strength from nobility. An illustrious Yoruba elder like Chief Falae was waylaid by some criminals on the Lagos-Ibadan expressway years back and dispossessed of all the material valuables on him. They thereafter asked him to prostrate and because they could not rob him of his dignity he looked them in the faces and asked ” Kemi dobale fun eyin? Ibon lowa lowo yin yen e yin! (I should prostrate for you. Are you not carrying guns? Shoot now).
As I looked at the deep cut on Chief Falae’s arm, it occurred to me that the vandals who abducted him were practically living out what their elite demonstrated to us at the conference that they value the lives of cows more than humans.
That the elder statesman would carry scars on his body for the rest of his days because he insisted Fulani cows cannot eat maize Fulani herdsmen did not plant is an open wound on the soul of Nigeria that would not heal until justice is served.
Cows more valuable than humans
The nightmares of Falae which were the climax of Fulani herdsmen afflictions of numerous victims of their rampaging over the years and the fact that ransom had to be taken to somewhere in the North are annoying enough. To cap that with bodily wounds on a septuagenarian is like a message that those who oppose the right of cows to eat up their sweat would pay with their blood the way Ken Saro-Wiwa’s blood was used to flush the pipes.
Those who abducted and cut Chief Falae like ‘nanma’ have just put a knife to something that would be difficult to join together again except Nigeria pays reparation by recognising the autonomous right of the constituent units of Nigeria to live their civilisations. When a community is under affliction in our traditional way, a man is sent to carry the calabash of sacrifice to meet the gods in the forest or rivers. He is called Arugba in Yoruba and may return or perish in the expedition.
That is the kind of assignment Chief Falae just returned from and the herdsmen would wish this never happened as I sense strongly they just put an end to their reign of terror on the Yoruba space.
Yinka Odumakin is the Publicity Secretary of Pan-Yoruba Socio-Cultural group, Afenifere
The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author
