Like a man that just awoke from a long slumber, the Sultan of Sokoto Saad Abubakar the 3rd last week condemned the reported killing of some Fulani herdsmen in Numan, Adamawa State Nigeria. Speaking at the commissioning of a radio station owned by the Lamido of Adamawa, the Sultan said, “May I use this opportunity to sympathise with people of Adamawa State, on the recent incident in Numan; and to appeal to security services, to thoroughly investigate the incident and bring the perpetrators to book,”

“We have not forgotten what happened to Fulanis in Mambilla, Taraba State and we are still waiting for action from the security services.”

The sultan then gave the warning against misconstruing “patience for weakness.

The call by the sultan is timely but  it should have come earlier because the death of the fulani herdsmen would have been prevented from happening. The Sultan is a thought leader in the North and his opinion is highly respected. However he stayed quiet during the years when Fulani herders bullied indigenous people, trampling their crops and stealing their land, even going as far as murdering them for daring to protest. His opinion would have predicated these retaliatory acts of violence and his message would have carried more heft if he had presented himself as a proactive leader instead of a reactionary one. It is obvious that the indigenous communities of Northern Nigeria and they will no longer stay quiet while Fulani herdsmen act as though there are no laws forbidding them from damaging private property and assaulting innocent people.

The truth is that we’ve always played a politics of religion and ethnicity in Nigeria until we end up suffering for the repercussions. The activities of the Fulani herdsmen that was once known for peace in the country suddenly approached a disturbing dimension when the new administration came on board.

Many termed it a dead on arrival effort to arouse banditry due to the stand of President Buhari on insecurity but like the Sultan, the President and the Presidency by extension maintained a deafening silence until it snowballed into another security challenge for us all.

The reported killing of these herdsmen is nothing but a reprisal attacks which we could have prevented. It’s a lesson to all especially the Sultan to speak out against evil irrespective of the religion or ethnicity of the perpetrators.

Editor