You may read the first part of this article, Nasir El Rufai And The Bloodfest In Southern Kaduna [MUST READ] HERE.
Senator Danjuma La’ah, the Senator representing the good people of Southern Kaduna continued.
He said that according to the Leadership
Newspaper of 4th December, 2016 under the headline: “Foreigners Behind
Southern Kaduna Massacre”, Governor Nasir El-Rufai stated that some of
them (Killer Fulani) were from Niger, Cameroon, Chad, Mali and Senegal,
adding,
“Many of these people were killed, cattle lost and they organised themselves and came back to revenge.
“We got a group of people that were
going round, trying to trace some of these people in Cameroon, Niger
Republic and so on to tell them that there is a new governor who is
Fulani like them and has no problem paying compensations for lives lost
and he is begging you to stop the killing.
“In most of the communities, once that
appeal was made to them, they said they have forgiven. There are one or
two that asked for monetary compensation. They said they have forgiven
the death of human beings, but want compensation for cattle. We said no
problem, some we paid.”
Senator La’ah maintained that there was
never in a time in 2011 that Fulani from Mali, Niger, Chad, Cameroon,
Mali and Senegal were killed in Southern Kaduna with their cattle.
He added, “This is a silly and an absurd
lie. Southern Kaduna is not a junction of these countries. So how could
they have all converged on Southern Kaduna on their usual migration
back home?
“The Governor just invented this lie to
make excuse for his imported murderous Fulani kindred to continue their
extermination of our people and the occupation of our lands.
“As the main political leader and
representative of Southern Kaduna at the Federal level, despite many
overtures of trying to meet with the Governor over the insecurity in my
zone with no success, he has never deem it fit to inform me of these
actions so as to seek my views and that of my constituency over the
matter.
“This is a very curious development,
especially as I was able to make the Senate to pass a resolution asking
the Federal Government to declare a State of Emergency on Security in
Southern Kaduna last month.
“I expected him to cash on that, using
his connection with the President and Commander-in-Chief. But, he was
obviously not concerned.
“In the light of the above, the Federal
Government, especially the Nigeria Intelligence Agency, NIA, the
Directorate of State Services, SSS, the Directorate of Military
Intelligence, DMI and sundry agencies should look no further for the
solution to the unrelenting killings in Southern Kaduna.
“Governor Nasir el-Rufai should also
state how much of Kaduna State scarce resources have been moved to these
killers and whether he has the authority of the law to so spend the
money on enemies of Southern Kaduna and Nigeria.
“El-Rufai should also be investigated to
find out if these moneys were not further put into the buying of more
arms and the recruitments of more killers, who we strongly believe, are
also jihadists.
“Though he has ferried much undisclosed
amounts of money to murderers, I am pleading with Kaduna State indigenes
and residents to ask why he has stubbornly refused to render basic
assistance of rebuilding of even a home, or any form of monetary
assistance to the surviving victims in Southern Kaduna. Most are still
left without food and shelter despite the modest assistance that some of
us, churches, NGOs etc have continued to render from time to time.
“I am constrained to add that Nasir
el-Rufai with his lack of will to show commitment to the insecurity in
Southern Kaduna, and his resolve to carry on with over six Cattle
Grazing Reserves in Southern Kaduna, he is actually creating new,
permanent “conquered” settlements for his Fulani kinsmen.
“I said this because his Fulani brothers
have killed people and chased them out from their communities and are
now fully settled with their families and cattle in several villages in
Kaura, Sanga and Jema’a Local Government Areas, while the governor turns
his eyes the other way round.”
The statement therefore called on the
people of Southern Kaduna to use every available legitimate means to
defend their lives, properties and communities.
It reads, “History will not forgive our
generation if we succumb to threats and blackmail and fail to defend
ourselves and get wiped out. As Senator of the beleaguered area, l
cannot support that we become sitting ducks each time they come killing.
Again, if El-Rufai will not defend us, let us defend ourselves.”
I can feel the deep hurt and pain behind
the words of Senator La’ah and I wholehearedly concur with his
submissions. The people of Southern Kaduna are going through hell and
they certainly deserve better.
The sheer disdain and utter contempt
that Governor El Rufai has for them can also be reflected in a
television interview that he gave a while back in which he described the
massive Christian population of Kaduna state of being only 30 per cent
whilst he claimed that the Muslims were 70 per cent. This is false.
The fact of the matter is that at least
50 per cent, if not more, of the people of Kaduna state are Christian
but it does not serve the Governor’s purpose to acknowledge or publicly
admit that.
What a tragedy this is for both him and
the good people of Kaduna. His continuos resort to the use of religion
in order to divide and rule the people of his state and to supress and
subvert the religious faith and legitimate aspirations of the Christian
community and the minority Shiite Muslims will lead to nothing but even
more division and chaos.
Let us hope that my friend and brother
Governor Nasir El Rufai listens and that he retraces his steps rather
than issue threats and go on the offensive against those that have found
the courage to tell him the bitter truth.
Let us hope that he remembers that real
friends always speak truth, no matter how unpalatable that truth may be,
to those that they care about and love and they do not tolerate or
condone their vainglorious excesses or treat them like infallible
demi-gods.
Permit me to conclude this contribution
by qouting a large portion of my dear friend and brother Chief Yinka
Odumakin’s latest column titled ‘El Rufai: An Accesory After The Fact To
Murder’ (Vanguard Newspaper, 6th December 2016).
As brilliant, courageous and forthright
as ever, after qouting El Rufai’s exact words and his entire interview
verbatim Odumakin wrote inter alia:
“You would have thought this was Mallam
Ibrahim Shekau (the leader of Boko Haram) talking and not a governor who
swore to protect the lives of the citizens of his state .
The statements credited to the governor
can only be fully appreciated when situated within the complaints of the
Southern Kaduna People’s Union, SOKAPU, about the palpable indifference
of the Federal and Kaduna State governments to their plight in the
hands of Fulani killers.
The Leadership Newspaper of of 17th
October 2016 quoted the group as saying through its President , Barr.
Solomon Musa that the killings in Godo Godo, Jama’a and Sanga local
government areas were successfully carried out by terrorist herdsmen
because the government has abandoned the entire people of Southern
Kaduna to be “maimed, raped, brutalised, killed, slaughtered and
destroyed.”
“Godo Godo communities once again came
under very fierce, terrifying, brutal, savage and barbarous attack by
Fulani herdsmen without provocation of any nature from Saturday 15th
October, 2016 to Sunday afternoon. This is despite the frantic calls for
help from the beleaguered villagers to those constitutionally saddled
with the task of safeguarding their citizens.”
According to SOKAPU, the barbarians
wreaked maximum havoc and destruction by killing uncountable number of
lives of our people is unacceptable.
“So far, the locals have been able to
identify not less than 40 corpses aside from the several other corpses
burnt beyond recognition. Virtually all houses have been burnt in Godo
Godo.
Property worth hundreds of millions
destroyed while crops have been grazed by cattle and the rest destroyed
by the invaders. The savagery and barbarity of the attack is beyond
belief. Yet, governments at the Federal and State levels appear quiet
and noncommittal. We have been abandoned, deserted and neglected,” he
said.
The SOKAPU President who likened the
killings in southen Kaduna to that of the Rwandan genocide, said “the
Tutsis were abandoned, deserted and neglected during the Rwandan
genocide in 1994 until over 800,000 Tutsis were brutally massacred by
the Hutus. This is the scenario that is taking place in Southern Kaduna.
We are being killed, slaughtered and decimated by Fulani Herdsmen, yet
it will appear to our people that the government has failed, refused or
neglected to intervene decisively to end the carriage.
As a peaceful people we have spoken, we
have carried out peaceful protests, we have appealed and pleaded for
intervention by the authorities, yet our appeal and plea have appeared
to have fallen on deaf ears. It will appear to our people that
government is not concerned, moved or bothered by the carnage and pogrom
in Southern Kaduna,” he said.
SOKAPU further regard it a national
shame and an indictment of the state government’s commitment to security
issues in Southern Kaduna that about seven villages in Godo Godo
chiefdom are now completely deserted after being ransacked, burnt and
the people killed.
“More nauseating is the added fact that
in villages like Ninte, Akwa, Ungwan Anjo, and Antang – where the people
had been sacked from their villages, the armed herdsmen have
permanently taken over the villages and boldly grazing their herds on
the farms of the villagers. With thousands of people who have been
displaced, the current attacks can only add to that number if the State
Government does not muster up the will to urgently address the ongoing
genocide in our zone.
“It will appear that Southern Kaduna
does not deserve the attention, sympathy or intervention of government.
It will appear that we have been abandoned, deserted and neglected. We
do not deserve the intervention or sympathy of the Federal or State
Governments.
“Security personnel are posted to the
main highways only; from April to date, there does not appear to be any
form of intelligence gathering, any form of surveillance, any form of
proactive measures to forestall future occurrences; any form of
intervention by government.
“From April to date, neither NEMA nor
SEMA has not seen it fit to rehabilitate, resettle or to bring any kind
of relief materials to the victims of the attacks in the area. No relief
materials, no IDP camps; no protection for our villages. What have we
done to deserve this? Is it because of who we are? Why have we been
abandoned, deserted and neglected? Will this have happened if it is
elsewhere? Are we part of Kaduna State? Are we part of Nigeria? If we
are not, we then deserve our state and our nation. We can stand on our
own,” they asked.
“In view of the fact that Boko Haram has
been degraded; cattle rustling was brought to an end in Kamuku forest
and Zamfara State by the joint action of several states and the Federal
Government, we call on both the State Government and Federal Government
to place greater premium on human lives by carrying out decisive and
combined operation to halt the genocide immediately in order to assure
the people that we are indeed part of Kaduna State and Nigeria,” they
said.
Can anyone fault SOKAPU with the insensitive, bigoted and reckless comments of the state governor?
Some critical issues came out of
El-Rufai’s incendiary remarks. The first is that the official lie that
the Fulani herdsmen who have been terrorising Middle Belt and Southern
communities are from without Nigeria has been repeated.
This is to give the nauseating
impression that government is helpless as if Nigerians who commit crimes
in other lands are not punished outside Nigeria.
The second issue is that of the clash of
civilisations which makes the Nigerian crisis unresolvable unless we
embrace cultural democracy. El-Rufai says because he is Fulani like the
herdsmen, he had no difficulty in cutting deals with them by paying
bribes to people he should be dragging before the law.
It was from that mindset he also
revealed he had compensated them for their cattle killed five years ago
while he cannot even clean the fresh wounds of Southern Kaduna who are
not his ethnic stock.
Perhaps, the greatest revelation from
this leakage is a subtle reminder of the warning El-Rufai gave on his
Twitter account four years ago on the killing of any Fulani “We will
write this for all to read.Anyone,soldier or not that kills the Fulani
takes a loan repayable one day no matter how long it takes”(11:51 am,15
July,2012).
He must have been grinning from ear to
ear as he signed the cheque to the herdsmen when he was satisfied they
have taken enough “revenge”.
Will the people of Southern Kaduna not
proceed to the International Criminal Court now that there is an
Accessory who has confessed to knowing the murderers and exchanging
money with them? Victims of these Fulani herdsmen in the Middle Belt and
Southern Kaduna should follow suit!”.
Chief Odumakin and SOKAPU have said it all. I need say no more.
May the souls of all those that were cut
short in the bloodfest that took place in the killing fields of
southern Kaduna and indeed throughout our nation by these rampaging
foreign monsters and alien beasts rest in peace.
May the Lord of Hosts, the Ancient of
Days, the God of the Armies of israel and He that answereth by fire
avenge them speedily and comfort their families and loved ones. End!
Femi
Fani-Kayode is a lawyer, a Nigerian politician, an evangelical
christian, an essayist, a poet and he was the Special Assistant (Public
Affairs) to President Olusegun Obasanjo from July 2003 until June 2006.
He was the minister of culture and tourism of the Federal Republic of
Nigeria from June 22nd to Nov 7th 2006 and as the minister of Aviation
from Nov 7th 2006 to May 29th 2007. He tweets from@realFFK.
The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author.
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