Bauchi State Governor, Bala Mohammed.
ARMSTRONG ALLAHMAGANI, Bauchi
Following reactions and counter-reactions that have trailed his statement that fulani herders carry Ak-47 for defence, Bauchi State Governor, Bala Mohammed, has told his critics that rather than vilifying him, they should admonish governors fueling the crisis in the country.
The Governor, in a statement, signed by his Senior Special Assistant on Media, Muktar Gidado, and made available to journalists in Bauchi on Sunday night, explained that his primary objective was to douse tension and avert any nationwide backlash.
Recall that governor Mohammed’s speech, at the closing ceremony of the Press Week of the Correspondent’s Chapel of the NUJ in Bauchi State, last Thursday, said that fulani herders carry AK-47 rifles for defence.
“The Fulani man is practicing the tradition of tran-shumans, pastoralism, he has been exposed to the dangers of the forests, the animals, and now, the cattle rustlers, who carry guns, kill him and take away his commonwealth, his cows, he has no option than to carry Ak-47 and defend himself because the society and the government are not protecting him”.
“It is not his fault, it is the fault of the goverment and the people, you don’t criminalize all of them because in every tribe there are criminals. You should be very sensitive,” the governor had said.
The governor’s statements has generated reactions with many, including some governors, particularly in the south, condemning him for “supporting the killer-herders.”
But the statement by his Media Aide read in parts: “The governor would want it placed on record that his statement was intended to caution all stakeholders to guard against escalating the tension, just as many patriotic stakeholders, particularly from the North, have been working round the clock to avert reprisal actions that could throw the entire country into a cauldron of unimaginable proportions”.
“Rather than vilify Governor Bala Mohammed, it is incumbent on all those criticising him to admonish those Governors whose lack of restraint is responsible for the escalation of this crisis”.
“Governor Bala Mohammed’s antecedents, as a bridge-builder, humanist and nationalist are so well known that he will never, under any circumstances, deliberately fuel any national crisis or subvert the Constitution”.
“Nevertheless, he strongly reminds all stakeholders, in the Nigeria project, that the delicate nature of our diversity coupled with the fact that we are interwoven in many respects, calls for reasoned circumspection in handling inter-ethnic hostility of the nature that the ejection of herdsmen, from parts of the country, is degenerating into.”
According to the statement, the Governor, in his speech, used the occasion to weigh in on the contentious issue of clashes between herdsmen and farmers, particularly against the background of the eviction and other forms of restriction orders issued by some state governments and non-governmental entities.
It explained that: “The primary objective of the Governor was to avert the dangerous prospect of nation-wide backlash as tempers were flaring up and given that the phenomenon of inter-ethnic migration, is a national pastime involving all ethnic groups in Nigeria”.
“However, many of the reactions have conveyed the dismay of their authors, to what they erroneously considered, as the Governor’s presumed support for crimes, committed by some Fulani herdsmen.”
The statement stated that the clarification was necessary because the governor was misunderstood and quoted out of context pointing out that the governor never justified criminality.
“For the avoidance of doubt, at no time did the Governor set out to justify criminality by anyone, no matter the person’s ethnic nationality. Rather, he admonished us, in the interest of national unity, to avoid wholesale branding of any ethnic group as it is inconceivable that any one group can be made up of only criminals”.
“By extension, the Governor made it abundantly clear that it will be inappropriate to label any one tribe based on the crimes of a few members of the ethnic group,” the statement read.
The statement explained that to the extent that not every herdsman is a criminal, the governor’s reference to AK47 was simply to put in perspective, the predicament and desperation of those law-abiding Fulani herdsmen who, while carrying out their legitimate cow-rearing business, have become serial victims of cattle rustling, banditry, kidnapping and assassination.
Pointing out that: “These are the people who, in the absence of any protection from the security agencies, are forced to resort to self-help, to defend both their means of livelihood and their lives.”
According to the statement, the governor, as a constitutionalist which he has proved over time all through his political career, will be the last person to advocate a subversion of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, adding that “he did not do so in the past; he will not do so today.”
On his description of forests, as “no man’s land”, the governor’s Media Aide clarified that his Principal was speaking from the position of his own geo-political environment where a pastoralist could set up camp, in any forest, for some few weeks without causing any uproar or opposition.
He stated that “to interpret such a temporary stay as a form of ‘land grab’ by the Fulani herdsmen is completely incorrect.”
Gidado further stated that in actual fact, neither does such temporary habitation of the forest inconvenience anyone nor does the itinerant Fulani sojourner, bother anyone about his plight in the forest characterised by life without assess to electricity, pipe borne water, good roads or hospitals.
“On the contrary, Bala Mohammed is very familiar with the Land Use Act, including the criteria for land acquisition and cannot therefore seek to undermine the statute which, as Governor, he has sworn to uphold,” he said.
He appealed to all stakeholders to work towards re-establishing inter-ethnic trust and harmony that has been so badly dented, within the past few weeks or months stressing that that is his fervent wish.