Our new Animal Farm

There is so much about unfolding developments that have taken my mind to George Orwell’s classic novel, Animal Farm. I read it with the naive mind of a young boy in seconday school back in 1979. I found the story quite amusing and entertaining. It was years later on reading Nineteen Eighty Four, his other political satire and with better political awareness that I was able to understand and interprete the story of Animal Farm.

The bid to get Dr. Goodluck Jonathan out as president of Nigeria was midwifed by the emergence of a coalition which was revoltionary in composition and character. Driven by the political ingenuity of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, the most unlikely collaboration of seemingly irreconciliable ideological persuasions was forged, defying all predictions of inevitable disagreement. The change mantra which propelled the coalition to the status of ruling party nows seems to have a meaning different from the understanding the electorate may have had.

On Wednesday, April 20, hundreds of men and women from all parts of Delta State gathered staged a peaceful protest in Asaba, the state capital, over the incessant and increasing violent attacks on numerous communities in the state by marauding heavily armed Fulani herdsmen. It was the culmination of sustained and unchecked attacks which became more ferocious and deadly since the advent of the Muhammadu Buhari administration that have unleashed rape, kidnappings, robbery and destruction of crops on once peaceful communities.

Some three weeks after His Royal Majesty, Akaeze Ofulue III, Obi of Ubulu-Uku Kingdom, in Aniocha South Local Government Area of Delta State was abducted allegedly by Fulani herdsmen on January 5 this year, his body was found in the forest. It was in the same area where two Catholic reverend fathers, one of them also from Ubulu-Uku, were kidnapped the previous month and taken through the forests and only released near Uromi in Edo State. For the people of the town who are famed for their peaceful and accommodating disposition, the kidnap and murder of the king was a collective trauma. As an indigene of the town and residing in Delta State, we have been inundated with reports of mounting brazen attacks by armed herdsmen on the communities. The Delta story is the same in every other parts of the country.

What has been remarkable about the unfolding events is the official deafening silence of the Federal Government and its security agencies. And when they chose to react, they opted for the path of infamy. From the Abuja headquarters of the Department of State Services (DSS) came a press release claiming it had uncovered 55 shallow graves in Abia State where the remains of five Hausa-Fulani men were allegedly buried. As if on cue, a few days later, a hitherto unknown group, the New Initiative for Credible Leadership (NICL) blamed the “killings” on the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and called for their trial for “crimes against the state and humanity”.

But since Governor Okezie Ikpeazu debunked the DSS claim as no security agency in the state made such finding nor issued a report to that effect, DSS has kept mum.

At a time that the communities under seige are earnestly looking up to the Federal Government for protection, what has been served is a Bill for an Act to establish the National Grazing Route and Reserve Commission. The essence of the bill is that somebody sitting in Abuja can appropriate any swath of land in any state from its owners and hand it over to Fulani herdsmen for their exclusive use. That is the next stage of the brazen arrest by Nigerian soldiers of over 70 residents of a communiy in Enugu State who mobilised its men to attempt a rescue of their women earlier abducted by herdsmen.

For the framers and promoters of the bill, the question that arises is: have cattle owned by individual Fulanis become public or national assets for which the entire country will be treated as a conquered territory? The revolution, that is just what it is, that saw an opposition party oust the ruling party last May is now looking like that in Mr. Jones’ Animal Farm. But unlike the setting where the pigs presided over docile lower animals, the new animal farm emerging in Nigeria is a different ball game.

The barely disguised notion that all Nigerians are equal but that some are more equal than others is breeding a ground swell of discontent and tension the administration may not be able to manage. Having vowed that pipeline vandals will be given the Boko Haram treatment, President Buhari made it clear he would not brook further harm on the oil industry. Fair. But his sound of silence on the menace of armed herdsmen having declared over 300 cows as part of assets is one body language that is resonating nationwide.

Pius Mordi

Pius Mordi, a journalist, wrote from Asaba