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The
Expulsion Of The Fulani In Wase |
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By Reuben Abati
The Guardian
Sunday May 17, 2009 |
With the dust generated by the
ethno-religious violence that attended
the 2008 local council elections in Jos
North Local Government not yet settled,
with nerves still frayed and ethnic and
religious sentiments still strong and
fears of reprisals still hauntingly
real, the expulsion of Fulani nomads
from Wase Local Government in Plateau
state in April is a terrible blunder and
a needless act of provocation. Both the
local council and the state government
unfortunately have not said enough to
demonstrate good faith. In the wake of
the Jos North election crisis, the
Federal Government and a number of
Northern spokesmen, including some PDP
leaders of Fulani extraction, had
accused Governor Jonah Jang directly and
his government by extension of such
partisanship in the crisis which
promotes genocidal feelings against the
settler Hausa-Fulani communities in
Plateau state. Governor Jang denied this
profusely and provided evidence to show
that neither he nor his government was
the author of the crisis.
However, what happened in the villages
of Zak, Bumyun, Sabon Gari, Kampanin
Zerak, and Yuli in the Bashar District
of Wase local Government recently
provides fresh ammunition for those who
do not trust the Jang administration. He
needs to get on top of the situation
quickly, put an end to such further
deportations and set the machinery in
place for the return of the expelled
Fulani settlers. What the Plateau state
government has on its hands, for want of
a better phrase, is "bad politics".
At the heart of every outbreak of
violence in Plateau state has been the
politics of indegeneship and settlership
with the indigenous ethnic groups in the
state insisting on their ownership of
the land, while protesting about the
plans of the settler Hausa-Fulani
communities to seize social, political
and cultural control of a land that is
not theirs. The settlers who had been in
the Plateau area, first as nomads and
later as residents for more than a
century, naturally also insist on their
right to remain where they are and enjoy
all due rights under the Constitution of
Nigeria. This conflict of primordial and
proprietary rights is made worse by
religion: with the indigenous people
mostly Christians, and the settlers,
predominantly Moslems. The Plateau, a
crossroads of cultural and social
diversity, suddenly explodes into an
orgy of violence and hate each time this
terrible argument is wrongly conducted.
The decision to expel Fulani nomads from
the Bashar District in Wase no matter
what the government says is bound to
look bad, given this background. It is
one obvious reason why no government in
Plateau, state or local, should have
been tempted to get involved in such
mess. There is a failure of leadership
here.
As reported, a combined team from the
Nigerian Army, the Nigerian Police
Force, and the Nigerian Security and
Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) stormed the
affected five villages, purportedly
"acting on orders from above", to
identify and deport all aliens who had
settled down in the area. All the aliens
in question happened to be Fulani
herdsmen and under heavy security
supervision, they were deported to the
neighbouring states of Bauchi, Gombe,
Katsina, and Jigawa. The explanations
that have since been offered for this
action are shocking. The Plateau State
Special Adviser on Media and Publicity,
Dan Majang, has been quoted at length by
the Daily Trust. In one instance he says
"the evacuation was carried out by the
Wase local government, not the Plateau
state government". Majang should have
left this utterly sensitive matter at
that. But he goes further to commit the
blunder of making the following
statement: "They are aliens because they
migrated from somewhere, that is that,
they are not known to be residents in
Wase local government... these people
came to settle there permanently; as for
the Fulani that moves around, we are
aware of them and nobody has stopped
them."
But the bigger blunder was committed by
the state Commissioner of Information,
Gregory Yenlong, who was subsequently
credited with the following depressing
declaration by the Daily Trust to the
effect that the migrants arrived in the
state after the sectarian crisis of
November 2008: "they came in trucks
instead of on foot as Fulani nomads do".
Then he roped in the state government
when he said "to douse the emerging
tension as well as avert any breakdown
of law and order, the Plateau State
Security Council consented to the cry of
the host communities for the migrant
Fulanis to relocate to where they came
from". The chairman of the Wase local
council also said as much. But the
Fulani intelligentsia is unimpressed.
They are riled by the state government's
open admission of involvement in the
expulsion.
It will be recalled that one of the
major complaints by the Plateau state
Government in November 2008, was that
the state was infiltrated by mercenaries
from other states and the Republic of
Niger who fought on the side of the
Muslim-Fulani to attack other groups in
Jos. The Niger Ambassador in Nigeria
denied this at the time and defended his
country. The Plateau State Government
stood its ground, and this probably
explains why the State Security Council
became jittery this time around when it
received reports that a group of aliens
had taken residence in Wase local
government. And so it conspired with the
Wase local government authorities to
expel them in order to prevent the
influx of more mercenaries pretending to
be herdsmen! Indeed, if the expelled
Fulanis had been Nigeriens or Chadians
and they had been deported back to Niger
and Chad, there may have been no problem
at all. But in a country where there is
no national identity card scheme, it is
difficult to know who is a citizen and
who is not. The Plateau state Government
also "deported" the Fulanis to
neighbouring states- which means there
was no doubt about their Nigerian-ness,
the issue is that they are Nigerians
trying to settle down permanently in a
part of Nigeria where they are not
wanted.
No Nigerian can possibly be an alien in
his own country. The Nigerian
Constitution guarantees every citizen
the freedom of movement, including the
right to take up residence in any part
of Nigeria. In one of the Daily Trust
reports, one village head was quoted as
having pointed out that the state
officials who came to enforce the
deportation said the Fulani nomads did
not obtain official permission to settle
down in Wase. This sounds strange, as no
Nigerian citizen needs a visa or a
resident permit anywhere inside Nigeria.
The law also does not allow any form of
discrimination against any Nigerian on
any grounds whatsoever. To treat Fulani
nomads as if they were the Vaswani
brothers is wrong, and even then, only
the Ministry of Internal Affairs is
empowered under the law to deport or
declare anyone an illegal alien. The
state government, the local government,
and even the Police, the Civil Defence
Corps or the Nigerian Army cannot on
their own exercise such powers. State
government officials also need to be
careful with their choice of words in
handling sensitive issues. Yenlong was
quoted as having said the herdsmen came
"in trucks instead of on foot as Fulani
nomads do". Manjang also talked about
"the Fulani that moves around". Such
labeling betrays a partisan bias that
can only inflame passions. Of course,
there are Fulani nomads who travel in
aircraft and luxury cars. And it is not
only the Fulani that move around.
What we are dealing with however, is not
purely a matter of law, leadership and
human rights, but a dangerous reality in
Nigeria, namely the crisis of
indigeneship and settlership which puts
a question mark on the entire Chapter 3
of the Nigerian Constitution on the
rights of Citizenship. In spite of this
Chapter, and Chapter 4 on Fundamental
Human Rights, Nigerians are routinely
treated as outsiders in their own
country, even when they are among their
kith and kin. The country has a large
population of non-citizens who are
discriminated against based on their
location and often times, this is with
the active connivance of the state. In
the crazy swirl of the mid-60s, Ibos
suddenly became persona non grata in
Northern Nigeria and they were expelled
by an angry indigenous population. In
their own country, they had to flee.
After the creation of the Mid-Western
state in 1967, the Yoruba in the Western
Region civil service insisted that all
mid-Westerners in the service should go
to their state of origin. Each time a
new state is created, persons are asked
to leave, as happened with the creation
of Ekiti, Osun, Delta, Enugu, Akwa Ibom,
Adamawa and so on. Sometimes, the
problem is intra-communal. Till
tomorrow, the people of Ife consider the
people of Modakeke settlers in their
land. Women who are married to men from
other states are suddenly reminded that
they are outsiders when they seek
political appointments in their
husband's state of origin. Expatriate
wives are also similarly discriminated
against. Some states of the Federation
employ Nigerians from other states as
"expatriate staff" or in more civilized
situations as "contract staff", and the
moment there is an indigene, even a less
qualified son of the soil to fill that
position, the alien from another state
of the Federation is promptly sacked.
It is also a fact that students who go
to school in states other than theirs
are made to pay special fees as if they
were foreign students! In many parts of
the country, non-indigenes are not
allowed to buy land or run for political
office. Lagos is probably the only
exception in this regard. What does all
this mean? It means we are in fact, not
yet a nation, just a collection of
ethnic groups, selfish interests and
primordial communities. It is possible
that some of the people who took part in
the deportation of the Fulani in Wase
are themselves Fulanis who see the
influx of other Fulanis as a threat to
their own economic or political
interests, but those who want to use the
incident for political reasons overlook
this sociological detail. It is one more
reason why the Plateau state government
should have steered clear of this kind
of politics.
If the concern of the Plateau State
Security Council was that of security,
government's primary responsibility is
to ensure that adequate security is
provided for every human being and all
property. If the new migrants had
violated any known law, the proper thing
to do is to subject them to the law. But
to descend on innocent people, with a
combined team of security operatives in
three armoured tanks and 15 trucks,
simply because these are Fulani herdsmen
who arrived in trucks and not on foot as
their kind is wont to do, lays the state
government open to charges of ethnic
cleansing.
Majang, the Special Adviser on Media and
Publicity, told the Daily Trust: "...
those affected did not tell the truth.
They are in a better position to tell
you why they were asked to leave." No
sir. You should tell us. Already, some
Fulani commentators are suggesting that
Hausa/Fulani state officials should also
deport Plateau state indigenes residing
in their states. Or that the Plateau
Government wants to flush out all Fulani
from the state. Most conveniently, they
have forgotten that Mohammed Badu, the
Chairman of Wase Local Government, the
Emir of Wase and the District Head of
Bashar are all Fulani! Or that the
aggrieved can exercise their right to
judicial redress. Further sign that
fresh trouble may be brewing is well
indicated by the meeting which Governor
Jang held with Fulani leaders in the
state on Thursday, May 14. The meeting
was reportedly boycotted by the leaders
of the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders
Association of Nigeria (MACBAN).
Governor Jang has an official and a
personal responsibility to douse the
brewing tension, to discourage those who
may be tempted to use it as an
opportunity for a declaration of another
ethno-religious war. He should summon
another meeting of the Fulani leaders in
the state, and quickly get onto the
airwaves to reassure all Fulani in and
outside Plateau state, that his
government means no harm. This should
include allowing the expelled Fulani to
return, paying compensation for the
destruction of their property where
applicable, and possibly, an apology.
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