Kadria Ahmed’s show, The Core, on Channels TV on Wednesday, February 8, 2018 was arguably the most balanced and most unbiased TV coverage of the herders/farmers crises in Nigeria.
It seems that if fair reportage and hearing is given to both sides, more Nigerians will be educated on this issue and the falsehood will come to an early end. This is evident in Governor Ortom’s embarrassing appearance on the program.
Though the show has been louded as the best the country has seen since this conflict intensified last year, there are still some basic facts on the side of the ‘herdsmen’ that need to be known. I provide some of these points below:
1. The number of (NON HERDSMEN) Fulani people confirmed and published to have been killed in Mambilla alone was 800. This fact needs to be mentioned because the other side of the debate had kept on punching on the number of farmers killed. That is called fair statistics.
2. The Nigerian Army General, Ahonutu, who was posted to curtail the massacre categorically stated that this was a genocide, which he said was worse than Boko Haram’s, the scale of which he has never seen in his life.
3. No one mentioned the 55 Numan children and women murdered by farmers/militia just in November last year. Among these defenceless kids was my 3-day old cousin. This shouldn’t have been omitted.
4. The most recent barbarism in Gboko where 7 Fulani people were burnt to ashes was masked by the Nigerian media as a mob action against “travellers” by “touts”. The fact of the matter is that the killing exposed the reality of Governor Ortom’s militia project.
5. The Mambilla, Numan, Katibu and other Fulani towns massacred by militia are NOT herdsmen or nomads. Just like other ethnicities, they have lived there from time immemorial. So the conflict is NOT just a mere herders/farmers thing.
6. The fact that some local governments dominated by a different ethnic groups in the same Benue state are living in peace with the herders is an indication that there is more to this problem than meets the eye. This should have been pointed out, too.
7. The documentary itself was not fair and balanced enough. While the Tiv victims in Benue were visualized and their comments viewed loudly, the Fulani victims of the same crises were not given the chance, and the true victims of the Mambilla genocide who are now in refugee camps in some parts of Cameroon were nowhere to be found. That is not fair.
8. Finally, no one called out the true nature of the evil image the Nigerian media is painting on the whole Fulani ethnic group. Its nicknames are ethnic stereotyping, profiling or dehumanization. But its real name is GENOCIDE.
Mr Shehu studies PhD at the University of Warsaw, Poland
