Spoilt Child Syndrome - Deconstructing Fulani Insecurity

By Anthony Chuka Konwea, PhD, PE

If the job of President is to cater for the security, well-being and safety needs of all his constituents and not just a select few, few honest Nigerians would dispute the assertion that competence on the job and President Muhammadu Buhari are two parallel lines that will never meet. It is a testimony of Nigeria’s inbuilt dysfunctionality that a man of such amazing slothfulness ever managed to mount the saddle as President.

To give one example, it is almost one and a half months after he was sworn in for a second term as President. It is almost four months since he was controversially declared as the winner of the 2019 Presidential Elections. Yet he has not managed to draw up his list of ministerial nominees and present same to the National Assembly for approval. In 2015 it took him almost six months after assuming office to achieve the same feat.

Within this period however he has superintended the surreptitious attempt to create permanent settlements by executive fiat for his fellow itinerant Fulani tribesmen, across the length and breadth of Nigeria. President Buhari it could thus be said is only lazy and slothful over matters that concern the interests, safety, and security of other Nigerians he purports to lead but not those of his tribesmen.

It is safe to surmise that the overarching Fulani agenda is to expand their sphere of influence all over Nigeria, by any means possible, fair or foul. The Fulani almost to a man, concede privately that President Buhari is severely limited in administrative capability and executive vision. But they all accept that he is the only person suitably dispositioned at this time to execute the overarching Fulani agenda of perpetual dominance.

In their southward expansionist push, the Fulani have however met with fierce resistance from the southern tribes and pockets of the Middle Belt regions. As things stand today, we are now in a tactical stalemate, where the Fulani with President Buhari as the arrowhead are attempting so far with futility to create Fulani expansionist beachheads all over the country. Governance is clearly the main casualty as Buhari abandons the callings of his office while pandering to the yearnings of his tribesmen.

The first casualty of the abdication of state power to Fulani expansionist interests of course is public safety and security. The recent tragic assassination of Funke Olakunri, daughter of the tribal leader of the Yoruba people, Reuben Fasoranti, after paying a visit to her aged father is a case in point. It is a moot point now whether her killing was the handiwork of Fulani herdsmen as alleged by her family or the work of extraneous bandits or kidnappers as alleged by Buhari sympathizers.

The bottom line is that the Nigerian countryside has been taken over by well-armed Fulani bandits and militia masquerading as herdsmen. For this development, and without concerted efforts to dislodge the Fulani bandits using the executive powers at his disposal, President Buhari bears vicarious responsibility. Governance has been so abused in Nigeria, that the security agencies now apologize for Fulani bandits instead of apprehending them.

The Buhari administration has also publicized its intention to launch a publicly funded short-wave radio station for Fulani herdsmen and bandits terrorizing the nation. You get the impression that the pump has been primed, the Fulani expeditionary and expansionist force is in position, well embedded in the Nigerian countryside. All that remains now is a signal from the expansionist Fulani High Command, issued in Fulfude, the Fulani language, over the exclusively Fulani radio station. And they would overrun the entire country.

My personal assessment of the expansionist Fulani and it bears repeating that not all Fulani are expansionist, is this. They suffer from a very serious and debilitating form of inferiority complex which they over compensate for with a morbid desire to control others. The expansionist Fulani have belatedly come to the realization that the world has moved on and left them far behind. The expansionist Fulani’s nomadic lifestyle means that they are not rooted anywhere. They are everywhere and yet nowhere. They cannot roll up their sleeves and till the land. They neither build houses nor build roads. They do not become doctors nor lawyers. Yet they want to lord it over those who do.

The expansionist Fulani is like the proverbial spoilt child. Lazing and loitering about in his pampered youth while his colleagues burnt the proverbial midnight candle, he belatedly realizes in middle age that while he slept off, the world moved on. Imbued from birth with a false and empty sense of entitlement, he now issues ultimatums, and demands on his neighbors. Give me this or give me that, or else there would be no peace.

That pretty much sums up what Nigeria is going through at this present moment at the hands of these expansionists. Basically, what they are saying is this, give us your lands and give up your destiny to our control, otherwise there would be no peace.

History tells us that once established, Fulani beachheads or outposts, never shrink. They keep on growing and expanding. In the aftermath of the 2019 Presidential Elections, I saluted the Igbo ethnic leaders of Ohanaeze Ndigbo for their principled stand in rejecting President Buhari so decisively. I recall writing, that history will judge them favorably for rejecting Buhari’s ominous “Next Level.”

As the true import of Buhari’s “Next Level” begins to dawn on everyone, History is already beginning to judge Ohanaeze Ndigbo favorably. The Igbos have already moved on. Their message to Buhari and his expansionist, tantrum-throwing followers is clear. “Keep all the sensitive political appointments to yourself. Keep all infrastructural developments to yourself. But make sure you also keep your Fulani settlements to yourself. We are ready to recall all our own living in your territory back to Igboland, if conditions so warrant. But we shall not cede an inch of our land.”

Given their transactional propensities, the Igbos especially and other Nigerians generally should as a matter of utmost urgency, recall all their elected senators and representatives in the National Assembly for urgent briefing. They should publicly articulate their opposition to Fulani resettlement and Federal Government territorial or waterways aggrandizement in whatever shape, guise or form. Anyone that fails to sign up should be recalled immediately and replaced with people ready to represent the peoples’ interests.

How do you handle a spoilt grown-up, throwing tantrums and saying, I want this, and I want that, or else? Do you continue to over-indulge and pamper such a spoilt child? Do you continue to postpone the day of reckoning which will surely come, by kicking the can further down the road for your children and grandchildren to sort out? Or, do you stand your ground, draw a line in the sand and resolve that enough is enough.

For the expansionist Fulani, I have but a few short sentences. It is time to roll up your sleeves and face the reality of life dear ones. It is time to grow up and cater for yourself. No Nigerian owes you a living, just as you do not owe any Nigerian a living. You should emulate the richest black man on earth, Aliko Dangote himself a Fulani, and discard the failed Buhari model. You must man up.

For other Nigerians, I say stand your ground. Do not cede an inch of your land to tantrum-throwing, violence-loving, Fulani expansionists, terrorists, bandits and herdsmen. Rest assured that if you do, they will be back for more. And more! And more!!

Indeed, the woman that willingly yields herself to a pressed man, should expect repeat visits in future, which may turn abusive the very day she declines to be so generous.

Anthony Chuka Konwea, Ph.D., P.E., M.ASCE, MNSE, FNIStructE, MNICE.

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