By Opeyemi Daramola
Our beloved country which longed for civil rule by way of democracy has evolved through a process of concern in over fifteen years of its democratic process. Albeit the fact that Nigerians have agonised under the economic hardship that has always burdened it, painful strokes have added to its wounds of economic agony by the way of the incessant insecurities that have resulted to countless carnages and loss of properties.
I have personally taken the turmoil of Nigerians as my concern in all of my career as a lawyer since the poor and vulnerable Nigerians have suffered the pangs of all the tragedies that have bedevilled Nigeria before and after the present democratic dispensation which we have today and which we have longed to enjoy before now. I think the comfort which we thought this democracy would give to us had since become an irony to which the political class never prospered in resolving. The killing of the innocent Nigerians has come to a free stay by an indirect popular extermination of my people by way of economic dis-empowerment which indirectly leads to untimely deaths and by a way of open terrorism which had led to bitter deaths.
I am curious of these killings because throughout the military regimes in Nigeria, human rights were denied Nigerians and killing the innocents were very legitimate and common place. If we now receive democracy as the hope of restoring a proper society where human rights would be guaranteed and we still witness these killings, I would want to ask every stake holder in the political class where they think Nigerians should seek security if they cannot live in peace in their destined home. In a report gathered by Charlotte Alfred for Huffington post of 6th January 2017, it was evinced that Boko Haram has killed in Nigeria more than the Islamic state group (ISIS) who prioritised killing all over the world. I think this reality is disheartening and it could only remind one of the words of Salman Rushdie who said ‘But there’s one thing we must all be clear about: terrorism is not the pursuit of legitimate goals by some sort of illegitimate means.
Whatever the murderers may be trying to achieve, creating a better world certainly isn’t one of their goals. Instead they are out to murder innocent people.’ Shall the government fold hands while these abominable killings go on? This was my question until recently when what was considered a security problem limited to the northern part of Nigeria suddenly evolved another dimension that now wakes my brothers and sisters in Ekiti state of Nigeria to fear as it has done in other parts of the south which were relatively safe from killing weapons before.
These new killings traced to the Fulani herdsmen would wake me up to the fact that if we do not take effective action, we might be like the biblical fool who builds his house on the flood and whose house could not stand the ranging storm that is inevitable in any community. Prior to my journey to Britain, I have seen the potentiality of this killing to be a destructive type and I have worked strongly with human rights organisations in campaigning for proper control over the herdsmen.
I have resulted to this writing because while I thought my effort was yielding fruit with the anti-grazing legislation which I campaigned for was established in Ekiti-state, I was shocked to the marrow by the killing of one of my elders by Fulani Herdsmen in Ekiti-State, Engr Adeniyi whose death which was orchestrated in my hometown was very disheartening and so was another embarrassing killing at Oke-Ako in Ikole Ekiti by same men where a swift police response was demanded but denied. I refer the reader of this article to the Thisday newspaper of 22nd May 2016 where it was reported that the police reacted to the emergency call to help face the herdsmen in that village by requesting for twelve thousand Naira. In the absence of this money the herdsmen committed this abomination without the response of the authority of the state.
This led me to the conclusion that Nigeria is not safe for my innocent people who are left vulnerable without sufficient concern from relevant authorities. I now resolve that our joy over the establishment of anti-grazing law in Ekiti is just a mere illusion that cannot succeed the test of time if we consider the killing spates. Albeit the fact that more states are now treading the path of Ekiti by establishing similar laws, a non-coordinated law from the federal government to control the activities of the herdsmen is an insignia of permanent national insecurity that would always change dimension in Nigeria.
The federal government has monopoly of control over police force and it is sad that the same police now considers its service to the people as contractual over payment if lives must be saved in emergency. This mere fact speaks volume of what I think is an all-time quiet war going on in Nigeria different from the lousy Biafra war which took lesser lives in all its tragedies. If our leaders could not see things this way, who would lead the cause of our security better in the hands of these gruesome murderers who are never tired of killing innocent people.
I therefore call on the national assembly to wake up with the presidency and sponsor both a national anti-grazing control legislation and an executive policy of such legislation that we may not live in fear of killers who pride themselves in herds business while they arrogate the right to kill innocent Nigerians into themselves. I want the government to know that worse than any civil war we have noticed in Nigeria, the present evolving insecurities launched by way of boko haram to herdsmen shows that Nigeria is in a quiet war to which we must speak against not only loud and clear but also struggle to end by all means.
Opeyemi Daramola (LLB, BL, LLM)
Liverpool, United Kingdom
viayemimola@gmail.com
