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THE gory pictures which accompanied the recent reports of alleged attacks by herdsmen on the people of Agu-Amude, Mgbuji, and Ehan-Emafue in the Isi-Uzo Local Government Area of Enugu State should trouble any government. The pictures are just too ghastly. Such cruelty should not be associated with any modern state. In yet another fit of bestial rage, the herders reportedly cut down no fewer than 13 persons in the communities, leaving no further doubt that desperately urgent attention is required to contain them and sustain the integrity of the Nigerian state.
Except for sheer negligence or perhaps deliberate callousness, which government or state will watch idly as its hapless citizens are literally being butchered by a gang of terrorists, as the pictures of the Enugu killings portrayed so horrendously, without apprehending the perpetrators? But that is exactly what the Nigerian state has done, and for years too. Nigeria risks becoming a failed state if the Federal Government neglects to respond appropriately to the recent carnage. If anything, the burgeoning separatist campaigns in the eastern part of the country owe their origins to the callousness and negligence which the Nigerian State has been demonstrating since the current administration took the reins of power. Sadly, the separatists have unleashed naked terror on the very people they claim they want to protect. Thus, in a terrible state of affairs, Nigerians in the eastern part of the country experience threats from killer herders and the separatists concurrently, and no one knows precisely when there will be respite.
It is regrettable that Nigerians in the South-East are needlessly compelled to endure the manifest results of the incompetence of the current administration, including widespread insecurity. Unable to protect themselves, they have become sitting ducks for their aggressors who regularly come to molest and kill them. It seems that the government expects them to continue tolerating the vicious onslaughts of the separatists and the attacks of herdsmen without any form of defence or protection. To be sure, such an expectation is unfounded and even unrealistic because those citizens are likely to be inclined to take the options best suited to their needs in order to feel secure. There is a desperate and compulsive need to defend and protect these citizens but the glaring unwillingness of the country’s administration to protect them suggests that there may be no consequences for the herdsmen’s attack on them.
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The Enugu State killings definitely raise questions about the insensitivity of the Muhammadu Buhari government to issues of security and unity of the country. It is confounding that despite the unending reports on herdsmen invading and sacking communities, the government has not bothered to even acknowledge such destruction, oftentimes preferring to deal with the issues with kid gloves. As a matter of fact, it has openly cast doubts on the integrity of such reports. Yet it has to be recognised that security is the most important function of government. Since the government has refused to put in place structures to save people from attacks by herders, it won’t be long before the people decide to protect themselves, thwarting and responding to the attacks in acknowledgment of the loss of legitimacy by the government. This situation has contributed to the feelings of alienation in the South-East, perhaps helping to fuel the desire to separate from Nigeria. The government cannot continue to pretend that all is well or that people are not being killed in their homes and communities by herdsmen. This situation portends grave danger to the continued existence of Nigeria.
The government should not allow it to degenerate into massive retaliation against herdsmen by the people who have been bearing the brunt of the indiscriminate attacks for years now. The time to act to show that herdsmen do not have a licence from the government to continue killing across the country is now.
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