Benue’s ordeals, FG’s ‘enough is enough’ refrain, Mutfwang’s pain, and Ganduje and 2027 vibrations

Nigeria is not at war in the real sense of the word, but mass killings have made the situation in the country seem so. Benue has been thrown into an unending mourning mood.

The federal government’s ‘enough is enough’ refrain has lost its meaning. Abuja seems to be sounding like a broken record. In Plateau State, the governor believes that the security challenge has hampered the quest to produce food to feed not only the people of the state but the entire nation. Last Sunday may remain an unforgettable day for Abdullahi Ganduje, national chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC). He tasted the raw bile of his fellow party men and women. It’s not a laughing matter.

Benue on tenterhooks

Naturally, when a father brings out his red eyes and warns an erring child and says to him, “Enough is enough,” that child needs no further alarm. But the federal government has so much employed this warning statement in such a manner that it has lost its bite. We suggest that Abuja should begin to bite and not just bark.

For many years now, Benue State has been in the news for the wrong and painful reasons. A state blessed with vast arable land and was in the past touted as the food basket of the nation is now struggling to meet the food needs of its indigenes. No thanks to the bloody attacks that have increased in dimension over the years. Since 2015, systematic massacres have been carried out on communities and villages in the state. Thousands of innocent people have been mowed down in their own homes, unprovoked. These killings festered all through the two terms of former governor Samuel Ortom. He repeatedly pointed fingers at the then President Muhammadu Buhari, accusing him of supporting the Fulani herdsmen to carry out what he described then as “ethnic cleansing”. In one day, while Ortom was the state governor, over 70 people were given a mass burial in a sleepy community called Agatu. At that time, Nigerians thought they had seen and heard the worst. Unfortunately, that was not the case. The killing of over 200 people in a single swoop a few days ago clearly showed that the worst may still be ahead. The saddest of it all is that responses from Abuja have remained as feeble as they were in the Buharian era. The usual refrain has been a hiss, condemnation, threats, and visits by government officials and security apparatchiks. Benue is bleeding. Governor Hyacinth Alia, a reverend gentleman who dabbled in politics, may have discovered that religion and politics are incongruous. Today, he runs from pillar to post, pointing fingers at fifth columnists who he says are sponsoring the killings. But Abuja is telling him the same thing the Buhari administration brashly told Ortom: to give land for ranching and colonies or continue being killed.

At the height of the killings in 2018, the then Special Assistant to President Buhari on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, had asked Nigerians who were against the administration’s ranching and colony programmes for herdsmen to have a rethink, stressing that farmers are better off living with the ranches and colonies than dying through the persisting conflicts. But the question people have continued to ask is how invaders would just claim overnight lands that belong to communities. There are reports that some of these attacks are being carried out by so-called “neighbours” who have lived with the natives for decades. Many observers are wondering what the federal government means when it tells governors of the states where these killings take place to reconcile when it has been proven over the years that what is going on is deliberate mischief and unprovoked attacks by the merchants of death. Again, it beats many Nigerians hollow why the Federal Government, with its might, has seemingly failed to end this orgy of senseless massacres. Why has the federal government delighted in mere talks and threats rather than bare its fangs to really tell the perpetrators, and mean it, that enough is enough? Nigerians have heard this “enough is enough” refrain countless times that it no longer makes any sense.

Read also: Peter Obi: Fanfare during Tinubu’s visit to Benue dishonours victims

A few days ago, the Chief of Defence Staff (CDF), General Christopher Musa, was in Benue, where he convened a meeting with traditional rulers. He charged them to maintain the peace. An uncountable number of such meetings have been held in the past. Yet, they did not produce any outcome. These are monarchs who are so scared that they are no longer free to speak the truth openly for fear of attack. Is it not shocking that no arrests have been made after over one hundred people were killed a few days ago? This has been the pattern. The perpetrators will kill and retreat, and when it seems that the blood is beginning to dry from their dangerous weapons, they launch yet a fresh and more deadly one. We are talking about human lives here, not animals! The perpetrators have continued to enjoy slap-on-the-wrist treatment by the powers that be, and each time they strike, they go Scott-free. President Bola Ahmed Tinubu was in Benue yesterday (Wednesday). Fingers are crossed on the magic the visit will engender. Very sad indeed!

Ganduje and the Gombe episode

Abdullahi Ganduje, national chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), had a taste of the raw bile of some members of the party in Gombe State last Sunday. His convoy was pelted and his car was besieged by angry party men. It was a bedlam.

The race to the Aso Rock Villa may have begun in earnest. Ganduje is leading the charge as the chairman of the party. But what may have been a concern to some party faithful is the manner of endorsements. Ganduje reportedly escaped by a whisker on Sunday as angry party men and women attacked his convoy. He had to be escorted out of the venue of the event by security operatives.

It was a meeting of party stakeholders in the North-East held in Gombe State. Trouble began when Mustapha Salihu, national vice chairman of the party in the North-East, failed to mention the name of Vice President Kashim Shettima while endorsing President Bola Tinubu for a second term.

Salihu had endorsed Tinubu to emerge as an unopposed candidate of the APC but was silent on Shettima as the running mate. Even when the Deputy National Chairman of the party, Bukar Dalori, tried to douse the tension by endorsing both Tinubu and Shettima for a second term, Ganduje was said to have also aggravated the situation when in his speech he straight-facedly endorsed Tinubu without mentioning Shettima.

In what participants described as bizarre, Ganduje did not mention Shettima’s name throughout his speech that lasted about 10 minutes.

Ganduje, as the leader of the party, is the father of all. He holds the responsibility of keeping the party intact. The thinking of many people is that even if the president would not be running with Shettima in 2027, there should be a better way to pass such a message across without unnecessarily tearing the party apart.

What the Gombe episode may have succeeded in doing was to create deeper bad blood in the party. Again, the vice president might be tempted to think that there is no smoke without fire.

Nigeria is struggling on all fronts, needing the government’s total attention to address the issues; anything that could pose a distraction to President Tinubu and Shettima must be avoided like a plague. I hope Ganduje and his ilk will do well to keep the peace.

Mutfwang’s pain

The Governor of Plateau State, Caleb Mutfwang, is a sad man today because of the activities of criminals who have disrupted farming activities in the state.

Recounting the negative impact of the security challenge in his state, the governor said that Plateau is one of the most blessed lands in the country.

“Our advantage in agriculture is God-given. 90 percent of what we used to call Irish potatoes are produced here. We have renamed it Plateau Potatoes because I think we deserve the exclusive rights to the propagation and production of potatoes. We are making plans to really revolutionise the farming, production and processing of those potatoes in the next three to five years. We’ve begun to lay the foundation, the secret of which is really about getting the right seeds, which we haven’t had until we came on board,” he told BusinessDay.

When asked about how he feels about the insecurity situation, he said, “It will interest you to know that Mangu, which today is one of the areas that is being challenged security-wise, is one of the largest producers and is perhaps the biggest food market in Plateau State. So, I’m trying to put this in context, you know, that the challenges of insecurity that we’re battling with today, to a large extent, are economic. I have challenged the traditional narrative of farmers-farmers clash.”

He described what is going on as an “organised criminality” and “a deliberate attempt to make sure that people do not go farm. And if they don’t go to farm, which is their main economic activity, invariably, you have pushed them into poverty.”

He also observed that “it is not a coincidence that the insecurity gets heightened at the onset of the farming season. People try to claim that maybe cattle were rustled and all of that stuff. But, you know, even in law, provocation has to be commensurate with retaliation; you don’t go and deliberately wipe out a whole settlement, a whole village, or a whole community because three cattle were rustled. It doesn’t make sense. But, like I said earlier, our main focus is on building a plateau economy that is resilient, and we believe that we can build an economy here that runs into billions of dollars if it is well organised.” Is anybody listening to this narrative? This is the “koko”.