Very few Nigerians are as privileged as General T.Y.Danjuma. In fact, if there is any group of extremely privileged Nigerians, Danjuma is at the head. He came at the right time, chanced on an opportunity, grabbed it and made very good use of it. Today, he is not only one of the richest ex-Army officers alive today, but about the healthiest and sadly, just before his most recent gaffe the most respected of them. His call on his ethnic group to arm themselves in order to rise against a perceived enemy is to say the least, the most disgusting, condemnable and loathsome vile to ever come out of a man of his position, pedigree and clout.
It is antithetical to the norms of the institutions he represents and the characteristics and idiom of the northern society he comes from. If the Army which gave him the best of opportunities can be said to be somewhat liberal for a man as old as Danjuma to badmouth, the character trait, inimitability and rare fine culture-carriage of a privileged northerner should have regulated his penchant to overreach himself and act irresponsibly. It is this same character trait that would dissuade a General Gowon or a General Babangida from reacting in the same despicable and ignoble letter-writing balderdash a General Obasanjo would shamelessly resort to, even when a situation is abhorrent to it.
If we interrogate the unfortunate blood-letting situation in Taraba state and if we subject the pendulum of casualties on both sides, we are likely to come out with a damning conclusion that the Fulani herdsmen are more at the receiving end. The number of it, the brutality of it and the loss in property of it are all in conformity with the conclusions of discernible and unbiased umpires. The General Officer Commanding 3rd Division of the Nigerian Army Brigadier General Benjamin Ahanotu who visited Taraba at the peak of an ethnic cleansing operation suspected to be sanctioned by state apparatus and under the suspected support of T.Y. Danjuma had made the most scathing and chilling appraisal of the sheer scale and viciousness of the militia in the way it committed genocide against the elderly, women and children of the Fulani stock. His words, ‘’I was shock with what I saw. Even Boko Haram did not slaughter women and children, but here I have seen young children and pregnant women slaughtered because of hatred. The Fulanis were mercilessly slaughtered along with their cows.’’
Also while presenting a documented list of the over 800 Fulanis killed in the Taraba state government approved mass massacre, Emir of Kano Sanusi Lamido Sanusi gave graphic portrayal of the likely complicity of the Taraba state government and the prodding of the elites of the state under the leadership of General Danjuma. Of course, there is no way the herdsmen would entirely be exonerated from culpability in the killings around Taraba in the same way they are alleged to be responsible in the chaos and violence in Plateau, Zamfara, Benue and Nasarawa states. This write up is also not out to play down the dangerous dimension the relationship between Herdsmen and farmers is taking across the country. But to seek to give it religious interpretation and even go further to urge people of your ethnic stock to obtain arms to go a notch higher in a campaign of extermination, cannot in all honesty be defended.
In any case, the Fulani/farmers restiveness is as old as one can remember. But why is an old conflict facing more politicization now than ever before? What are the factors that gave rise to a respected elder to openly call his people to arms in a country where all the institutions of law are in place and are at work struggling to contain dozens of security challenges that have the potentials to snowball into campaigns of attrition and balkanization of the country along ethnic and religious lines? A number of commentators have expressed divergent views and postulations. Of course, the call to arms has roundly been condemned by virtually all right thinking members of the society. Many have pointed to the uncompromising stance of the Buhari administration which has pitched the President and a group of very powerful people who stand to lose in the event that the anti-corruption policy of the government is sustained and pursued relentlessly.
The open hostility of former President Olusegun Obasanjo towards the Buhari administration and the seeming discomfort of former military president Ibrahim Babangida as well as growing opposition by other notable but compromised individuals who have cases to answer with anti-corruption agencies of government have, at different times in recent past been pointed as the key reason why efforts are being intensified to either blackmail the government or undermine it in order to make it unelectable in 2019. There are also others who have suggested that the recent anti-herdsmen project launched by the Taraba state government is a continuation of a larger objective of ridding the state of some ethnic groups who tend to be in competition for the political and economic jugular of the state. The clashes between the Jukuns and other indigenous ethnic groups in the state in the past which led to huge loss of life and property were fingered as part of the objective to, once and for all settle the question of who, amongst the tribes is indeed in the driver’s seat.
Regardless of which of the scenarios is germane to the truth, there is no way an open call to arms can be helpful in the advancement of frontiers of nation building, development and unity. For a former Chief of Staff of the Army and former Minister of Defense to write off the whole army and condemned it as taking sides when facts on the ground pointed to the contrary is to say the least the greatest disservice a man of such towering credentials could bequeathed. The only soothing balm is the realization that, going by responses, Nigerians have gone beyond being cajoled into doing the bidding of a serial ethnic bigoted and senile individual.
Mr Monguno is a Board member of the Federal Capital Development Authority, FCDA, Abuja.
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