With T. Y. Danjuma's explosive outcry abt ethnic cleansing in Nigeria's Middle Belt and responses to his declaration, it is good to see most people, including people from the Middle Belt, the epicenter of this undeclared civil war, at last acknowledging that what is occurring is a systemic campaign of terrorist warfare, not uncoordinated assaults carried out by merely criminal groups, as a no of people, including some from the Middle Belt, once argued, with some in this recent expanded clarity of understanding correctly identifying the herdsmen's association, Miyetti Allah, as a terrorist organization.
It seems the Middle Belt is facing a serious challenge of reality reconfiguration, dramatizing what has become the region's troubled place in Nigerian politics. People from the region have described movingly their closeness, across generations, with nomadic Fulani herders. On a different note, the Middle Belt was particularly significant in the 1966 counter coup that focused the control of the military in the North, thereby reshaping Nigeria's subsequent political history, as well as playing a central role in Nigeria's victory in the ensuing civil war, these being the contexts that enabled T. Y. Danjuma's strategic place in Nigerian political and military history. Yet, the most powerful figures in the [Muslim] Northern establishment now see the Middle Belt as expendable.
The leaders of Miyetti Allah are Nigeria's most elite Fulani, with the Sultan of Sokoto and former central bank governor and now Emir of Kano, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, as the most prominent.
In the various open justifications by Miyetti Allah regional, state and ward leaders of the massacres carried out by their militia in Agatu and other areas of the Middle Belt and their threats to strike agst the Benue anti-open grazing law enacted to protect the state from the Miyetti Allah terrorists' culture of massacre and land theft through ethnic cleansing, declarations which having made, they went scot free, there has never been any response from Miyetti Allah apex leadership, except for the last Benue massacre when Sanusi declared, in defense of the Benue massacre by these terrorists, that a huge no of Fulani were earlier murdered in Taraba, a claim disputed by the Taraba state govt and improbable, since the normally nationally ouspoken Sanusi is not known to have made any public declaration on what would have been such a sensitive and dramatic issue at the time, if it occurred as he claimed.
Note, that Sanusi focused on Fulani. He did not simply say 'herdsmen' as some are insisting we should say in order to avoid false and dangerous ethnic profiling.
The nomadic herdsmen culture is more a Fulani culture than that of any other ethnicity in Nigeria. Without having done a census, I believe it is safe to conclude that the no of non-Fulani herdsmen, if any, must be so negligible as to be practically insignificant. Who are the public ideologues, coordinators and spokespeople for the terrorists- Miyetti Allah, led by elite Fulani, supported by the Hausa-Fulani defense minister, the Hausa-Fulani inspector general of police and the Fulani national ruler. What is the response of most Fulani to this terrorist campaign- silence, dilution of its gravity, or justification.
Yet some claim we should not speak of a terrorist war organized by right wing Fulani elite, supported by Hausa-Fulani politicians using national resources to advance the interests of Fulani herdsmen, such as the attempt at passing a national pro-open grazing law, followed by a cattle colonies law and co-opting the security agencies into either passivity or active connivance with the terrorists, security agencies which the Fulani national ruler has made sure are almost all led by Hausa-Fulani, one of his earliest acts in office though delaying for six months in appointing ministers.
Is such denial of an ethnically organized terrorist war not dangerous escapism?
All Germans, as a commentator reminded readers on this Fulani herdsmen/terrorist army/Hausa-Fulani politicians/Miyetti Allah alliance, were not Nazis. But Germany was dominated by Nazis who mobilized Germany in fighting a cause created by the Nazis. That is the current situation between the Hausa-Fulani, Miyetti Allah, the Fulani national ruler, the Hausa-Fulani led security agencies and Nigeria. That is the fundamental import of Danjuma's crying out.
Danjuma can afford to refuse to fully name the ethnic configuration he is referring to, using the euphemism of 'bandits', perhaps on account of the incendiary potential of his own particularly strategic public role, but can others afford to do so?
If most Germans had fought the Nazis, would they have had such sway over Germany?
If Europe had mobilized decisively agst Hitler before he went to war, and while he was still building his army and his anti-Jewish momentum in the 1930s, the Holocaust would have been averted.
Naming the ethnic character of the leadership and vision and even general support base of this crazy supremacist, land-theft-by-massacre-campaign is not equivalent to demonising innocent Fulani or innocent Hausa-Fulani. Its acknowledging that some fanatics in the Fulani leadership are pursuing a supremacist agenda in the name of Fulani people, using Fulani herdsmen as an advance guard and an associated militia as a terrorist army, backed by a nationally coordinated political and military cover, while most Fulani either pretend not to notice, try to dilute the significance of the campaign or even justify it in various ways, delusional responses demonstrated by most Germans in Nazi Germany.
The immediate and most readily achievable goal of these ethnic supremacist fanatics seems to be to resettle nomadic Fulani in the Middle Belt by wiping out communities in that region and possibly subjugating others.
Their complementary goal seems to be to resettle nomadic Fulani across Nigeria, using intimidation and political manipulation.
Their practical motivation might be problems nomadic Fulani are facing with desertification and Boko Haram as well as a national supremacist vision.
Their ideological motivation seems to be an understanding of themselves as scions of conquerors, as represented by Usman Dan Fodio's successful prosecution of the Fulani jihad that subjugated the Hausa states and penetrated what is now Kwara till they were stopped by the Ibadan military, if I got the progression right.
The facts need to be acknowledged and the international community brought into the picture as blood continues to flow at the hands of these mad people and Nigeria inches closer to anarchy and civil war.
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