RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Agatu Massacre by Fulani Herdsmen Terrorists : Post Massacre Eye Witness Report

Emperor Flavius Valerius Aurelius Constantinus Hamelberg or the first Christian Roman Emperor Constantine Hamelberg the Great!! Ethically and culturally, it is impolite to ask anyone in Africa: Who are you? Traditionally, when two persons meet in Africa, interaction is preceded by reciprocity of personal introductions. Tell me who you are and I will reciprocate. Otherwise, I think the intelligent moderator had already defined who am I when, instead of the usual Salimonu Kadiri wrote, he presented the writer as "ogunlakaiye wrote."
S.Kadiri 
 

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Date: Wed, 23 Mar 2016 15:26:47 -0700
From: corneliushamelberg@gmail.com
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Agatu Massacre by Fulani Herdsmen Terrorists : Post Massacre Eye Witness Report

" I am neither a Christian nor a Muslim because I am neither a Hebrew nor an Arab." (Pope Ogbeni Kadiri)

 Answer us plainly : Who / what are you?

We want an honest answer . And please feel free to ask me a similar question or similar questions

On Wednesday, 23 March 2016 23:11:02 UTC+1, ogunlakaiye wrote:

I am neither a pew-hugging nor minaret clinging religionist. I am neither a Christian nor a Muslim because I am neither a Hebrew nor an Arab. But Nigerian self-acclaimed Hebrew cum Arab intellectuals are so mentally lazy to the extent that the only solution they proffer towards resolving Nigeria's 21st century political and economic problems is ethno-religious adherence. Hence the self-made Nigerian Hebrew and Arab intellectuals vie for official positions on ethno-religious ground and from their official positions they incite ordinary Christians and Muslims against one another while on the ethnic front they declare fellow Nigerians as settlers qualified to be subjugated by indigenes. The pretence of the self-acclaimed Nigerian intellectual Hebrews and Arabs to ethno-religious belief is nothing but a big smokescreen to cover their incompetence in office. Thus, after over fifty-five years of Independence, the educated elites both in government and outside it still do not know if Nigeria is a nation of one people and one destiny. If Nigerian intellectuals, both inside and outside government, are industrious, intelligent and enterprising as their counterparts in Europe and America, Fulani herdsmen would not have been pastoral nomads in this 21st century. Instead of being ashamed of their negligence  and dereliction of duties to the Fulani herdsmen and subsistence farmers in Agatu Nigerian intellectuals are accusing Fulani herdsmen of committing arsons, armed robberies, kidnappings and rappings without producing any evidence in support of their accusations. In their accusations they interchanged the alleged perpetrators of the aforementioned crimes between suspected Fulani militias and suspected Fulani herdsmen. At times they said persons believed to be herdsmen. However, one Alhaji Sule Audu was quoted by the Vanguard online as having said, "What I know is that the Fulanis attacking Agatu are not the normal Fulani that we know in our communities. These are hired Fulani who come in from outside the country and from the North east)."  (www.vanguardngr.com/2016/03/agatu-massacre-victims-accuse-buharis-government-insensitivity) While I feel very sorry for the victims of Agatu carnage, the real perpetrators of the carnage should be fished out and brought to justice. Fulani herdsman operates alone or in a pair, that is to say, a herder in the front and one in the rear with the cows in the middle. Thus, it does not make sense that a herder or a pair of herders would be capable of perpetrating the type of crimes credited to them in Agatu and other places. I am not heartless, as it has been assumed by Cornelius, for demanding evidence that Fulani herdsmen committed arsons in Agatu. Rather the heartless  are the pen robbers who have turned Nigeria into Africa's headquarter of failure and capital of hell on earth by killing not only individuals but the entire nation with their robberies.

S. Kadiri

    
 

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Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2016 17:09:47 +0100
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Agatu Massacre by Fulani Herdsmen Terrorists : Post Massacre Eye Witness Report
From: obmai...@gmail.com
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Duke of Stockholm Cornelius,

You have assuaged a bit of my pain. People sit in their comfy little corners in America, Europe or God-knows-where and pontificate in abstracted terms. Human lives presumably -- and as you also infer the lives of the cattle -- mean nothing to them. I was in India -- to the mountains of Rajasthan to attend the wedding of the daughter of my friend Suresh Chellaram and his wife. Udaipur was a marvellous hideout. But I was a bit perplexed when the traffic ground to a hushed halt when a silly cow was crossing the road! I'm all for decent treatment of animals, but for worshipping cows??

As an African growing up in the ancestral savannah of the Middle Belt, I have no business being interested in Jewish things. But you never can tell with destiny. As a teenager I devoured all the novels of Isaac Bashevis Singer, with tears drenching the pages as he recounted haunting tales in the ghettoes of Warsaw.  And then someone introduced me to the philosopher Martin Buber. That interest detoured into Hassidism and the Baalshem Tov. I met the greatest living Hassidim, Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz when I was a student at Oxford. He was then rumoured to be the greatest living genius on this side of God's universe. He certainly did not quite look like a human at all. And I have followed all the great sages from the Rambam Moses Maimonides, to Abaraham Ben Samuel Abulafia, Gershon Scholem , The Zohar and all. The Kabbala remains a closed book to me, though! Asa believer in Yeshua ha Mashiach and Shoshana Kodesh (the Holy Spirit), I do not need any other vehicle to walk with the Great Lord. I admired Rabbi Yosef Kadduri who left behind his revelation.

I lived and worked in Brussels for many years. Even in the innermost sanctums of the EU Commission, I sensed a barely concealed hatred for Israel and the Holy People. Pour moi, jamais!

I believe the time will come when Jews and Christians will unite into One New Man. That will be the end of all prophecy and then Mashiach will come again.

And then my interests diverged into the Jewish poets, one of the greatest in my view being the Russian Jewish poet Osip Mandelstam. Others include Anna Akhmatova, Anton Gumilev -- the lot.

As for the great war poets, Roger Owen is glorious. He was Jewish wasn't he? But for some reason, the one that does it for me is Rupert Brooke. He was the most English of Englishmen, as handsome as a cherub -- a genius to boot. His poem Forever England is one of the most haunting in the English language.

I taught a summer course in International Finance and Banking to some 250 students from Israel during the late nineties. Those 2 and half months were a great eye-opener. A great Rabbi once said that the world has not been redeemed because of the sins of the Jewish people. But it has also been said that the world has been prevented from utter destruction because of the existence of the 36 secret holy ones who are also presumably Jewish -- the Tzadikim Nistarim. Let us all aspire to be counted among the secret holy ones who will redeem Africa!

OM

On Tue, Mar 22, 2016 at 2:13 AM, Cornelius Hamelberg <cornelius...@gmail.com> wrote:

Lord Obadiah Mailafia,
Believe it or not, you have such an uplifting effect on me: Every time I see your name in print, I think of this great teacher :  Abraham Abulafia and his prophetic mysticism
I agree with you:  Sometimes, Ogbeni Kadiri must be lightly rebuked for his Gradgrindian QED type logic although it is never his intention to be a heartless kind of fellow  but  sometimes falling over all kinds of clues,  he may get lost in the fog when like super sleuth Inspector Clouseau  he trips and falls over his own logic.

God dae !

Ogbeni Kadiri and I will have to take care some of the islamophobes  and  Sergeant  Adepoju,  at some other time

For some of us the first introduction was  John Pepper Clark's Fulani Cattle
Another famous line of poetry by Wilfred Owen – the anti-War poet,  the first line of his Anthem for Doomed Youth : What passing bells for those who die as cattle ?
As human beings, our sympathy should reach out  - and not only to "the victims of the Fulani herdsmen"
I thought of them when I read this news item a few days ago. For the vegetarian Hindus the sympathy also reaches out to the innocent cows too .
Benjamin Zephaniah's vegan poems – especially  his Mother Cow Speaks could as well have been addressed to the Nestle people :
"Leave my milk
For my baby
That is our
And you are crazy.
Go and drink your own.
My baby needs this milk
And maybe
Your mind is messed up and hazy
All that milk is ours
Leave it be
Leave our milk alone.
We all make milk
For our
Own kind
That is nature's plan
You'll find,
So leave that milk
For my baby
If you would be
So kind."
Donald Trump  wasn't being a hypocrites when he spoke out strongly against what is common knowledge : the heinous crimes of  Muslim Jihadists slaughtering  Christians. It would be in place for Muslim leaders to be speaking out forcibly against this in Nigeria too.
Your words certainly strikes a chord in the hearts of all but the heatless: "The suffering and pain the peoples of the Middle Belt and their Church -- and our Holy People -- have experienced has reached the ears of the Almighty God. He will confound our enemies. And those who have risen against us with the sword are under the curse and judgement of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob"
Somebody should write to President Buhari about this. The kind of letter that would move him…
Tell him, the word is mightier than the sword
Cornelius
We Sweden


On Saturday, 19 March 2016 13:17:38 UTC+1, Obadiah Mailafia wrote:

Okey Ukaga, well said, thank you.

There is a lot of nauseating confusion all over the place. I have decided that Kadiri's comments are not worth responding to any longer. I thought this forum was for enlightened intellectuals. His infuriating unreasonableness is an insult to all the victims of the Fulani herdsmen. There are some people who feel totally indifferent to the victims -- even sympathetic to the Fulani herdsmen. I am sure of this thing had happened on their home turf they would not be talking with such abstract indifference. It is a judgement on the conscience and collective ethics of our generation.

Let me put it on record: I have absolutely no iota of hatred towards Muslims or Fulanis as a people. My grandfather, whom I loved with all my soul, was a Muslim. He had the fine features of the Fulanis and I suspect that there is a bit of Fulani in my bloodline. I can't afford to hate  Muslims and Fulanis. But I swear an eternal hatred for killers, murderers and all fascists. There is a new form of fascism in the world, says the young French philosopher Bernard Henri-Levy. It cloaks itself in the garbs of religion -- relentless, evil, murderous, hateful, diabolical and totalitarian. "Come and worship us and our god, or we would kill you and your God". This is the spirit that inspires Boko Haram and the so-called 'Fulani herdsmen'. They are part of the avant-garde of Global Jihad in its worldwide bid for conquest and subjugation.

Has anyone ever heard of any Boko Haram or Fulani herdsman being sentenced to death for murder?  Recently we heard that the Government of Cameroon is to sentence 89 BH war criminals to death: http://www.360nobs.com/2016/03/death-verdict-passed-89-boko-haram-fighters-will-spark-reprisal-attacks/.

This would never happen in Nigeria. Each time  they are caught they are soon released again, with no so much as a smack on the knuckles. In the Laws of War as taught my one of my esteemed teachers Sir Adam Roberts, enemy combatants can be executed for war crimes. When enemies cross into your side of the border bearing arms, they are enemy combatants and you have a right to kill them before they kill you. There is no debate about that. I am convinced that 70 percent of the Boko Haramites are not even Nigerians. Whenever we Hausa speakers meet anyone we know from his accent where he comes from. The Hausa that the Boko Haram people speak is rather alien to some of us. It's only in Nigeria that a foreigner can come and kill your citizens and you treat them with kid gloves. Same goes for the Fulani herdsmen. To the best of my knowledge, no single Fulani herdsman has ever been prosecuted for any atrocities in Nigeria. In a civilised country, before you even hear them out, the suspects ought to have been rounded up and locked up, pending the due course of law. They are still there as an occupying army in Agatu. Nigerian soldiers have not gone there to arrest them. They are there with their heavy arms daring anyone to come and approach them.

I humbly submit that a country that cannot enforce the civic peace has failed in its most elementary deontology. And I speak on the authority of all my venerable teachers at the IIAP-Ecole National d'Administration (ENA) of France. It is the first duty of government as we know it since Aristotle and Athenian Greece.

Methinks there is a conspiracy to send the Fulani herdsmen as an advanced guard to conquer and subjugate my people. Nigeria may or may not survive as a single corporate entity. What we are seeing is a jostling for territorial space. But they are grossly mistaken. The Middle Belt will be independent of the core North in the event of the unthinkable happening. Make no mistake whatsoever about it. The suffering and pain the peoples of the Middle Belt and their Church -- and our Holy People -- have experienced has reached the ears of the Almighty God. He will confound our enemies. And those who have risen against us with the sword are under the curse and judgement of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. They are labouring under a curse.

Please let me refer anyone who cares to listen to the talk by Pastor Bosum Emmanuel on the spiritual foundations of what is happening in the Middle Belt and its Global Jihaidst roots:

http://www.360nobs.com/2016/03/death-verdict-passed-89-boko-haram-fighters-will-spark-reprisal-attacks/.

On Wed, Mar 16, 2016 at 3:28 PM, Okechukwu Ukaga <ukag...@umn.edu> wrote:

EDITED.

President Buhari once described Boko Haram as a good example of a small fire not quenched quickly and decisively becoming great fire with devastating consequences. I am afraid that we are watching another small fire get increasing bigger and bolder with potentially more devastating consequences than Boko Haram. And those who are still denying  this problem and/ or defending the perpetrators remind me of the saying that a mind is like a parachute - it only works when it is open. If those of us who supported Buhari during the recent presidential election want him to succeed in the interest of the country, we must avoid the temptation to downplay problems evident under his watch and leadership. Nigerians voted for change (and rightly so in my mind). These senseless killings that are approaching genocide must stop for a change.
Okey Ukaga

On Wed, Mar 16, 2016 at 7:30 AM, Okechukwu Ukaga <ukag...@umn.edu> wrote:

President Buhari once described Boko Haram as a good example of a small fire not quenched quickly and decisively becoming great fire with devastating consequences. I am afraid that we are watching another small fire get increasing bigger and bolder with potentially more devastating consequences than Boko Haram. And those who are still denying  this problem and/ or defending the perpetrators remind me of the saying that a mind is like a parachute - it only works when it is open. If those of us who supported Buhari during the recent presidential election wants him to succeed in the interest of the country, we must avoid the temptation to downplay problems evident under his watch and leadership. Nigerians voted for change (and rightly so in my mind). These senseless killings that is approaching genocide must stop for a change.
Okey Ukaga

On Mar 16, 2016 6:39 AM, "Oluwatoyin Adepoju" <oluwas...@gmail.com> wrote:

Agatu Massacre by Fulani Herdsmen Terrorists
Post Massacre Eye Witness Report
Mgbeke Obi
10 March at 00:41 ·




                                                                                                                                                          FULANI MASSACRE (Final Report)



                                                                                                                                                                       Victor Oladokun



I'm posting the final report from a dear friend who has just returned from a fact-finding mission to Benue State, following the recent Fulani massacre. This is not the first time atrocities will be committed by Fulani militants, but hopefully, the last.
HIGHLIGHTS:
1. Our convoy doubled to 10 cars plus soldiers, police and bikers. We had two-three minute stops. At one, I ventured ahead of the security perimeter and discovered our first decomposing body. A first even for me. I usually count tombstones.
2. Our convoy ran into the Fulani herdsmen and droves of cattle on multiple occasions. Sometimes we stopped to let them cross not knowing if it was an ambush. They were right outside our windows. No one wanted to engage because the outcome was unpredictable. I have never seen free range killers walking free before.
However our security escort did engage when they saw several armed Fulanis on a bike trying to flee. They abandoned one man who was injured and he was taken into our custody. Our captured killer didn't survive the rough terrain drive.
3. In the only village where we saw human survivors, we were told these people had just been attacked and were alerted we were coming so they bolted and ran into us.
(Fulani militants claim local residents killed 10,000 of their cattle).
It is simply inconceivable and logistically improbable to kill 10,000 cows without a major military operation utilizing rocked propelled grenades, attack helicopters etc. such a mass slaughter would take weeks and the skeletal remains of the cows would completely dot the landscape of Agatu and the stench would permeate the air.
What I saw in Agatu:
1. Dead human bodies still on the ground and in homes - decomposed.
2. Cows roaming through empty villages and in one case walking up to a dead human body. We left before the sacrilege of them desecrating the poor dead boy.
3. Thousands and thousands of cattle grazing on people's farms - well over 10,000 live cattle. Several times we had to stop our cars to let the cattle pass. I have never seen that many cattle in my entire life.
4. Burnt crops farmers had harvested and set aside for replanting. They were in charred heaps on the farms.
5. Fulani herdsmen accompanying the cattle. Some ran when they saw us but some just continued as if we didn't exist.
6. Grains of farmers, peppers etc scattered on the ground in the towns and also along the way between the villages. The likely belonged to people on their way back from farms or markets or people fleeing with some food who were ambushed as they ran.
7. Motor bikes and bicycles destroyed in the villages and on the road side in between. Again it appears people who were fleeing on bikes were ambushed as well.
8. Rows and rows of houses destroyed in at least 8 villages visited. It was complete and utter destruction.
9. Freshly lit fires still burning in a couple of villages indicating the arsonist had just left. We saw jerrycans along the way indicating fuel may have been utilized to fuel the fires.
10. Only in one out of 8 towns did we see any live humans - about 4 men.
What we didn't see in Agatu this week:
1. Not a single dead cow
2. Not a single soldier or policeman in the affected communities.
3. Not a single burnt mosque where everything else was razed.
4. Not a single living Agatu person in 7 out of 8 villages.
Conclusion: even if it were true that cattle were killed by the Agatu (there was no supporting evidence of this) the farms, homes and people of Agatu were massacred as well-evidenced by our team.
1.If the claimed casualties of the Fulani are cows and the claimed casualties of the Agatu are humans, then this could not be rightly called an Ethnic conflict.
Cows are not people or an ethnic group.
2. If the loss claimed by the Fulani is livestock i.e. animals, this would be a criminal case of theft or destruction of property and not the basis for a massacre.
3. The Fulani are not indigenes of Benue and are not an ethnic group in Benue state. Their incursion from outside into Benue is more an invasion than an ethnic clash.
Finally, the statement attributed to the Fulani is an admission of guilt and a defense of provocation. The authorities should act accordingly and take the confessed perpetrators into custody for immediate prosecution.
Finally, I recall the State governor telling us the Fulani attacks are worse than Boko Haram - "BH occupies a town, kills some people and recruits some. The Fulanis destroy everything."
This seems not to be an exaggeration. Last year, the Catholic Church reported 70 churches destroyed. This is happening in my home state - the most Christian State in Northern Nigeria!

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Okechukwu Ukaga, MBA, PhD
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Extension Professor, University of Minnesota Extension 

Adjunct Professor, Geography Department, University of Minnesota - Duluth

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"You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete." - Richard Buckminster Fuller

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