Nigeria do not deserve President Muhammadu Buhari. He should leave us to our fate. Nigerians do not seem to realise when someone is doing a lot for them, and to top the list of the many heinous sins of Nigerians is our impatience…very impatient set of humans.
The impatience is so conspicuous that even the President was forced to call us out on national television during his new year broadcast. Poor Buhari, he has been bludgeoned left, right and centre, even by his Mrs.
As regards the matter with this Fulani Hell’s men…sorry. I mean to write herdsmen, this cranky antiquated computer sometimes seem to have a mind of its own and I have no control over it, just like ‘some’ people are accusing the Commander in Chief of the federal republic of Nigeria of not having any control over his gun-totting kinsmen.
Some even called him out for not ensuring the arrest of the spokesman for the Miyetti Allah who admitted that the 74 souls that were snatched in their sleep were in retaliation for 800 stolen cows.
Nigerians sha. Very funny people. How dare them! Of course, he has control over them. He is General Buhari, remember? Go and ask IPOB and everybody ‘unfortunate’ enough to be in their vicinity, as the military spared nothing to trample, subdue and suppress them without sparing any life in the onslaught.
Some argue that they were armless citizens exercising their freedom of expression and right to self determination as espoused by the UN charter on self determination…story story…Baba says they are terrorists and so it is, they are a threat to our compulsory concatenation as a “united” country.
However, the Fulani herdsmen cannot be terrorists, far from it. How can you call someone trying to feed his cow a terrorist, even if it involves obliterating an entire village to do that! Cows are a special creation of God, much more special than human beings. What’s a human life compared to a cow? A cow! Do we even realise the sanctity of their existence? Ask Indians. A cow has every right to eat your crops and could even take a stroll into your sitting and excrete on your expensive centre rug. Every farmer should realise that the volume of their harvest is at the mercy of the mighty cow.
A herdsman could decide to allow his cattle decimate an entire farm land and anybody who as much raise their voices in protest should be gunned with an Ak47 or hacked to death or better still roasted and allowed to serve as manure for the crops the cattle would come back to eat.
This is why the herders, from Benue to Kaduna to Oyo to Delta State are out with their one million naira Ak47 rifles (Don’t ask where they are getting those expensive weapons from, must you know everything? Aproko) are terminating the continuation of an entire lineage, killing, maiming, burning and matcheting humans…those lowly humans.
And now some mischievous folks – because of Buhari’s ascendancy to the hallowed position  as Nigeria’s number one citizen with a no-where-to-be-found certificate while they, with all their doctorates degrees and endless sojourn at the ivory towers are not anywhere near the seat – are criticising Buhari for not taking a decisive step against these herders like he did to IPOB. They are accusing the GCFR of ethnic solipsism, refusing to factor in the fact that the president himself, like his gun totting kinsmen appreciates the value of a cow. He understands the actions of the herders and empthasizes with them: their travails and their ideology.
He has over a hundred cows in his hometown…and well, I know some merchants of mischief would say that he has had those cows ever since the days of the Great Flood, claiming these cattle never seem to increase or decrease in number; but then Buhari does not owe anybody any explanation for the state of his pastoral enterprise now, does he?
These same Nigerians accusing the GCFR of ethnic solipsism even expected him to visit Benue to commiserate with the victims and families of those who died from the tragic New Year massacre. Will his visit bring them back? How many funerals can he attend? Must he copy presidents of other countries in the world? Moreover, he was busy receiving the seven northern wise men who, out of their love for Nigeria, decided to pay him a visit to encourage their ‘brother’ to contest again in 2019: very deep thinking, sagacious and introspective men.
These ungrateful Nigerians calling on the president to address this contentious issue are still the ones rejecting the idea for a cattle colony, arguing that it is a way of purloining their land and advertently establishing a Fulani empire in guise. What a conspiracy theory! The Fulanis would never do that! That Ottman Dan Fudio repeatedly did does not mean they would.
You just have to trust them. Is mutual trust not one of the pillars of our unity anymore? They even went further in their inscrutable sojourn of obstinacy that the herders should instead set up ranches; investing like every other businesses instead of herding their cows to gnaw and chew away at crops across the country. Imagine, just imagine that. Why would anybody make such outrageous demands?
It is good that, as reported by The Guardian on Monday, January 22, 2018, the Jamatul Nasir Islam (JNI), through its Secretary General, Sheikh Khalid Abubakar that ‘the whole Fulani herdsmen debacle is a coinage “mischievously” invented by the Christian Association of Nigeria in order to heat up the polity in preparation for 2019.
The group even warned the Christian leaders not to take the Nigerian Muslim’s patience for foolishness. Add that to the fact that no major northern leader has expressly condemned the activities of the Fulani herdsmen. Does this not show that these ‘disgruntled’ Nigerians mainly from some sections of the country are merely crying wolf?
As mentioned earlier, Nigerians do not deserve Buhari. This fact is now succinct and clear enough. Buhari should leave Nigerians with our ‘impatience’ and simply return to Daura to fend for his 150 cows. I am pretty sure those poor cows have sorely missed him and would appreciate him more than the impatient 180 million Nigerians. I alongside other true lovers of Buhari will help him make that decision at the polls next year.
Olorunfemi lives in Lagos.
