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Opinion

Who is responsible for law enforcement?

I am worried. Deeply worried that the nation’s security agencies with no exception seem to have abandoned their responsibilities of policing the nation and enforcing the law.

If they were working, we would not be in this dire situation that the country now finds itself – kidnappings, banditry, Boko Haram, secessionists, ethnic clashes and so on.

It is in the absence of law enforcement that all the above listed vices manifested. Petty criminals get arrested, while the big ones get protected. Though not a new phenomenon, the level of lawlessness has now reached a crescendo. I wonder how they feel about the daily barrage of criticism meted on the President because of their shortcomings.

Since the return of the agenda of the anti-Fulani campaign on the national scene some few weeks ago, a prelude to 2023 politics, we have seen some southern state governors romancing warlords and assigning them the task of flashing out “Fulani herders.”

Nevermind the constitutional implication, it is really a great dent on the image of our security institutions as can be clearly seen – deliberately abdicating their responsibilty and handing it over to thugs.

As I previously argued on the subject of war against the North, this saga has little or less to do with herdsmen, rather, it is all about fighting the Predident, intimidating him in pursuit of an agenda.

I am Pulloh and has never liked nor supported the roaming of the few Fulani herders that follow the seasonal green pasture to especially in territories south of the Niger where it rains more, but occassionally come into conflict with farmers.

The truth is, it is never about the nomads, but all about the Fulbe that have settled in these lands for over a century and can trace two to three generations of great-grand parents born there. It is just like asking all southerners who settled in major Northern cities and elsewhere to pack and leave because a few of them indulge in criminal activities.

I hope it will never escalate to tit-for-tat situation, but if it comes to that, we know the state chief executives that should be held responsible.

As a matter of fact, in the 1990s when I moved to Abuja, my Yoruba landlord, a retired Director in one of the federal ministries had over 100 heads of cattle that was tended for him by a Fulani herder and his family. They roam between the FCT, Nasarawa and Niger states, following green pasture. He did not have a ranch and was doing open grazing. I am sure he still does, if he is alive. The point here is that, not all the cattle belong to the herders, but merely employees of elite Nigerians, including non-Northerners.

If the ban on open grazing is to be fully embraced through tough enforcement, then the CBN must set aside funds as special intervention to assist the herders to buy land and create ranches, just like it assisted other trades and industries like aviation, shipping, banking, agriculture and etcetera.

It is really shameful that state governors could employ thugs to wreak havoc on fellow citizens for the sake of politics. 2023 is around the corner, we shall see how such tactics would have helped these ambitious governors or their region. We shall see.

Iyawa is a former Nigerian Ambassador to Mexico

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