The Tor Sankera 1 , King Abu Shuluwa , a first - class Tiv
traditional ruler in Benue State , reveals the reasons behind the
Fulani herdsmen attacks on his people to JOHN CHARLES
What in your view is the cause of the killings by
herdsmen in recent times ?
First , let me say that the attacks and killings have nothing to
do with the anti - open grazing law enacted by the Benue
State Government . The job of the state House of Assembly is
to make laws because the constitution of the Federal
Republic of Nigeria empowers it to do so .
So ,
if
you
are
Yoruba , Igbo , Hausa or whatever tribe you may be and you
want to live in Benue State, you must obey and abide by the
laws of the state . You cannot just come from anywhere and
say you don ’t want that law . It is completely absurd for
somebody outside Benue to say ‘no , we don ’t want that law ’
and for them to determine what kind of law we should have
in our own state .
Having said that , killings were carried out by Fulani
herdsmen before the law was enacted . The herdsmen killed
people in Zamfara, Kano , Kaduna , Adamawa, Abia , Rivers
and other states ( before the anti - open grazing law ) . None of
the states enacted the law prohibiting open grazing before
the herders killed their people.
The point here is that the people , who are killing now , have
an agenda and they are being sponsored by faceless people
and the worst thing is that nobody is being apprehended .
Why do you think the police are not arresting them ?
Those who were arrested by the state government agents
while committing criminal acts in broad daylight and handed
over to the police have all been released quietly , but Tiv
men, carrying Dane guns licensed by local government
authorities , are being arrested and paraded by the police as
members of a militia.
What is their mode of operation ?
They usually come out at night when people are asleep and
attack them . They also slaughter their victims . They adopt
the guerrilla warfare style . Imagine yourself sleeping at
night and somebody attacks you and starts slaughtering your
children , wives and relatives and they escape without traces .
How can you then describe those people as Fulani
herdsmen ?
Those
who are
killing us
have no
cattle at
all . The
police,
who have
statutory
responsibility to find out the identities of those faceless
people, are not ready to do so , and I am not surprised
because the police know them but they are under instruction
not to find and arrest them . We in Benue State are totally
convinced that the police know those who are killing our
people and they know the agenda . The police have been
bought over to do their bidding; that’ s all .
Do you then support the recent statement by the
Department of State Services that those carrying out the
killings are foreigners?
If the DSS says the herdsmen are foreigners , why are they
referring to them as ‘ Fulani herdsmen ’? Why is the Miyetti
Allah Kautal Hore group angry about the law ? Is the law in
Benue State provoking foreigners to attack us ? If our
attackers are foreigners , why is the government not securing
our borders?
There are security personnel at the borders. Are they saying
that they prefer to protect the foreigners and their cows
than the people who are the legitimate owners of their lands
in Benue State? We will not agree with the DSS on that
statement . If they are foreigners , why is the Miyetti Allah
complaining? Is Miyetti Allah speaking on behalf of the
Fulani herdsmen or they are speaking on behalf of the
foreigners ? The people ( Miyetti Allah ) think that we are fools
and that we don ’t understand what they were saying . We
are very intelligent, hence we cannot reason the way they
think .
Do you have an idea of the number of attacks on Benue
State so far ?
They have attacked Tiv and the Agatu more than 50 times .
What do you think is their agenda ?
The leaders of our nation should find out if they are not
responsible for the attacks and tell us why a foreigner
should come and attack bona fide citizens of Nigeria . We
have lived with the Fulani for so long and we never
experienced this type of fight with them .
Why should foreigners leave their countries and come all
the way to attack people in Benue ? A policeman will see
them with AK - 47 and will not arrest them because they
know they are Fulani , but if you are Tiv , Benue , Yoruba or
Igbo , they will arrest you. That means that they have an
agenda . If they can open the borders and allow foreigners to
flock into the country to kill in Benue State, then there is an
agenda .
Are you not worried that traditional rulers are not
playing any role to bring peace among the herdsmen and
farmers ?
The Sultan of Sokoto, who is the patron of Miyetti Allah , has
been speaking and he spoke in favour of Miyetti Allah. The
Emir of Kano also spoke in favour of Fulani herdsmen . What
did they say and what would you want me to say ?
Do you expect the said monarchs to speak in favour of
the Fulani or to condemn their act ?
It is not right for you to know that somebody ’s life is being
destroyed and you fail to condemn it ; everybody knows that
it is not right. If my people should go to another region and
they start killing people there , as a traditional ruler here , l
will first ask my people why they should go there to kill .
Here in Benue State , especially in Tiv land, our greatest
friends are the Fulani . The Fulani came and met the Tiv
people here in this valley right from Taraba State . When they
came , they would leave their wives and children under our
care to graze their cows elsewhere, and sometimes, they
stayed for months . Their families were with us and we
looked after them .
Why do you think the Fulani are attacking your people
now?
I can trace the cause to religion and politics . In 1804 , when
the Jihad broke out , it was the Tiv that stopped the war from
spreading to the South and East and that’s why you will
hardly see a Tiv man , who is a Muslim . It is only a few of us
and we don ’ t have emirs . A Tiv is a democrat and a
republican . We had a relationship with them but we didn’ t
want them to lord it over us ; so , we stopped them at
Ushongo Hill and because Fulani don ’t forget and forgive
easily , that thing is paining them to date .
If we didn ’t stop them , the whole of Igboland would have
become Muslim territory , but from the other axis , Fulani
penetrated . That ’s why you have emirs in some of North -
Central Nigeria .
Another thing the Fulani hold against us is that during the
First Republic , the Tiv , led by the late Joseph Tarka , formed
an alliance with the Yoruba . We aligned ourselves with the
Action Group, instead of being with the Northern Peoples
Congress , which was a Hausa / Fulani party .
Lest I forget , the Fulani were not happy with the ( Gideon )
Orkar ’s ( foiled ) coup , which exposed all their plans . Since
then , they have been nursing all these attacks on the Tiv
nation . The Fulani were not happy because we were a force
to be reckoned with as a minority in the North .
A force in terms of population or military might ?
We have a population of more than six million people
scattered across Benue , Taraba, Plateau , Nasarawa , Abuja ,
and so on. When you talk about the Middle Belt , which tribe
has such population in the Middle Belt like the Tiv ? And that
is why we championed the Middle Belt Congress , which later
came into Tiv land in the 60 s .
Why did you follow the Action Congress led by the late
Chief Obafemi Awolowo ?
When Awo ( Obafemi Awolowo ) came to us , he asked what
the Tiv people in Nigeria wanted and we said we didn ’t want
anything other than to allow Hausa / Fulani go as a separate
nation . After our alliance with the AG ended , we later went
into alliance with the National Council of Nigeria and the
Cameroons, an Igbo party, with ( Nnamdi ) Azikiwe as leader .
It was in the Second Republic that the late Joseph Tarka , in
his own wisdom, thought that for us to benefit from Nigeria
properly , we must align ourselves with the North and he
brought us all back to the National Party of Nigeria .
What was your experience under the NPN ?
Former President ( Shehu ) Shagari treated us very well but
when our son , the erstwhile governor of the state , Gabriel
Suswam , pulled out of the Northern Governors Forum , it
angered them the more . They said if they didn ’t check us ,
we would spoil their agenda . They are cheating us and they
are not giving us our proper share as Nigerians .
You have still not told us the Fulani agenda .
Part of their agenda is to stop recruiting Tiv people into the
army , navy , air force, customs and all paramilitary agencies .
We went back to our farms when they started marginalising
us but they still hired people to attack and kill us .
As a traditional ruler , have you received a report of how
many people have been killed or attacked in your
domain ?
Logo Local Government Area is part of my domain, where
several people have been killed and property worth billions
of naira destroyed . You remember during the last regime , l
was a member of the peace committee under General Atom
Kpera and that committee was to bring Fulani and Tiv
people together and we went to all these areas . We went to
Makurdi , Guma, Gwer , Gwer West and Logo and these places
share borders with Nasarawa . Because Nasarawa people are
afraid of Fulani , they harbour them . That is why they usually
come from Nasarawa to attack our people . Now , we have to
be afraid of all those Hausa / Fulani engaging in menial jobs .
The Fulani , who are moving with their cattle , did not kill us .
What they did was to hire foreign herdsmen to come and kill
us . Now , Makurdi is vulnerable to their attacks because of
the river , and you know that some of these Hausa , who are
into menial jobs like nail cutting , hawking water and selling
fruits , could be dangerous.
As a traditional ruler , what efforts are you making to
save your people since you no longer trust the police ?
First , we have been talking to our people not to go to
Nasarawa and other areas where there are Fulani . We also
told them that if anyone attacks them , they should defend
themselves . They should no longer allow themselves and
their families to be killed like chickens .