Below is the account of the ordeal of Olu Falae, a former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, in the hands of Fulani herdsmen in his farm:
At first, they came to drink water from the Dam in my farm. We were tolerant. We did not suspect anything. We allowed them to drink water and go. But as time went on things began to take different turn, of course, all over Nigeria. They would come in the night, eat our maize and I complained to the police more than ten times. Later still, elements of the same people kidnapped me.
When they were tried in court, they said they were Fulani themselves. So, this hypocrisy that is going on should stop. I have been at the receiving end for a long time. After I was kidnapped, I was humiliated, I was macheted and cut. They came back and killed one of my guards, Ayo, His case remains an unsolved murder case with the police. They killed him and they opened his chest and took away his heart. And every year, they set fire to my farm. You know why?
There are two elements to their action. First is economic (I am an economist, and in anything I try to see the economic component.
They burnt my farm, the non-cropped areas because the grass is already dry, cows don’t like that. So they will burn the grass, in two weeks’ time, fresh grass will grow and their cattle will have very nice grass to eat; in other words, they’re already treating my farms as if it were their colony. They do this every year. The other year, they burnt the oil palm plantation near the dam. Grown trees that have fruit, they burn down.
That is not done so that cattle can have fresh grass to eat; grass does not grow on palm trees. Then you want to know why they do that; to do something that does not enhance their own welfare. It can only be an act of malice and hatred. I believe they have malice against me; they hate me. That is why they would burn my palm trees; uproot the palm trees that I planted and throw the seedlings away. That does not help their cattle or themselves in any way; so, why do they do it? It means that if they saw me in person, it’s me they would hurt. But since I was not present, they hurt my property.
One of my workers met one of the herdsmen in the bush some time ago, and said to him, why would you people not go to the other areas full of grass, you don’t eat the grass, and you come to eat our cassava and our crops? The herdsman said, ‘how person go see rice, ego go chop garri?’ So, the grass, which they can’t even find where they normally come from, when they find it here, it is garri; it is inferior food; it is my maize and cassava that is rice which they prefer. Those are the insults that we go through here.
That I condemn it is the weakest way that I can speak about it. I am appealing to government to take steps to stop it; to ensure they don’t do it again; if they don’t, it means government is not offended, they support what the herdsmen are doing. When I say government, I mean government at all levels, especially the Federal Government, which should be a government for all of us. Regardless of how many votes we cast at election time, we are all entitled to the protection of the Federal Government.
ZEBULON AGOMUO
