Femi Fani-Kayode writes on the devastating siege on the Christians and ethnic minorities of Southern Kaduna. The people have endured a sustained and systematic ethnic and religious cleansing carried out by the terrorist group, the Fulani herdsmen militia.
“Buhari is the last standing samurai of the oligarchy with the boldness to implement the Fulani agenda. He is doing it as fast as possible. The regime of Buhari is on a conquest mission. It is not hiding its intention because it believes that our strongholds have been spiritually damaged. What is going on has a spiritual precursor. They don’t fight in the ordinary alone. The reason the Middle Belt is under massive siege is because they have been spiritually decimated. They have to pray AND FIGHT”- Ariyo Raphael Dare- Atoye.
Mr. Dare-Atoye of the One Nigeria Group is absolutely right. Yet permit me to begin this contribution with an aside and a brief glimpse into the mindset of the enemy.
Just before he murdered one dozen Germans in cold blood as they were making merry and doing their last minute Christmas shopping in a Berlin market square, Anis Amri, the infamous and thankfully deceased ISIS foot soldier, expressed the following sentiments in a pre-recorded video message. He said,
“By God’s will we will slaughter you like pigs. I swear we will slaughter you”.
These words reflect and convey nothing but unadulterated hate and pure venom. Such deep-seated hatred coupled with an unrelenting and hideous murderous intent is beyond human comprehension and it is bereft of any decency or humanity.
When the Holy Bible speaks about our enemies hating us “with a perfect hatred” this is surely it.
Simply put the creature that was known as Anis Amri, before he was summarily despatched to meet his father the devil in hell courtesy of an Italian policeman’s bullet, was nothing but a psychopathic and sociopathic beast.
He was a cold-blooded murderer: an animal in human skin. And I daresay that so are all those that share his homicidal disposition and barbaric sentiments.
He is a good example of what the civilised world is up against today and sadly Nigeria is not exempted. As a matter of fact we are even more afflicted by this monumental global challenge than most.
Amir’s words are an excellent example of the way that those that President-elect Donald J. Trump has described as the “attackers of humanity” feel about those of us who do not share their warped and primitive world view and who do not believe in the shameful misinterpretation of their religious faith.
The words of the beast betrays the mindset of every radical Islamist jihadist in the world today. It also reflects the mindset of every Fulani militant and herdsman.
If this were not the case how can one explain away the mindless genocide and carnage that the people of the south and the Middle Belt generally and the people of southern Kaduna particularly have been subjected to over the last one year.
In southern Kaduna alone literally thousands of Christians, ethnic minorities and Shiite Muslims have been murdered in cold blood and have had their homes, farms, churches, properties, burial sites and holy places torched and burnt to the ground by the bloodthirsty aliens and Fulani hordes over that period of time.
Trump’s words also reveals the mindset of their loyal friend and self-acclaimed Fulani brother Nasir El Rufai, the Governor of Kaduna state.
I am surprised by some of the things that he has been saying latelty. Someone should please tell him to stop talking rubbish. He will soon set this nation on fire with his tongue and if that ever happens he and his Fulani brothers will be the worst for it.
Permit me to share one or two examples of what can only be described as a graphic manifestation of the inner most recesses of his utterly devious and twisted mind.
After claiming that those that killed thousands of Christians in southern Kaduna were not Nigerian Fulanis a few weeks ago and after publicly admitting that he funded them, he has now claimed that Niger Delta militants from the southern part of the country are planning to disguise as Fulani herdsmen and attack the people of southern Kaduna?
This is false. And not only is it false but it is also a premeditated, calculated, irresponsible, incendiary, pernicious and dangerous mendacity. Worse still he has said it with malicious intent and thereby endangered the lives of even more people.
Am I the only one that sees where all this is heading and what El Rufai is trying to achieve? Is it not obvious that he is trying to widen the conflict and spark off a sectarian and ethnic war in our country?
I am convinced that my old friend has finally lost his mind! He should stop trying to cover up his heinous crimes in Southern Kaduna and desist from blaming the carnage on others.
And given the amount of innocent blood that has been spilt in Southern Kaduna by his Fulani brothers I have to say that Nasir is a disgrace to Islam, a disgrace to the Fulani, a disgrace to Nigeria, a disgrace to the black man and a disgrace to humanity.
He can never wash away all the blood that is on his hands either by omission or commission because his primary duty as the Chief Security Officer of Kaduna State is to protect the life and property of its citizens. In this respect and in virtually every other he has failed woefully.
Shakespear’s Julius Caesar said “cowards die many times before their death but the valiant die but once”.
We must not be cowards, we must speak the truth boldly and we must say things as they are no matter whose ox is gored. And the truth is as follows.
On Christmas eve, despite a three day government curfew, Goska and numerous other towns, communities and villages in Southern Kaduna were attacked by the Fulani militants and herdsmen yet again. In Goska they raped most of the girls before slaughtering them.
Scores of innocent men, women and children, including the fourteen year old daughter of the former LGA Chairman of Jema, Barrister Gideon Morik, were butchered.
I saw the picture of her battered head and body all over the social media and it sickened and enraged me. I kept asking myself what type of animals would do this to a child?
What evil forest did these monstrous beasts crawl out of? Which of Dante’s nine circles of hell did they come from?
We have been praying for Southern Kaduna all along but with this last attack I am constrained to ask the following questions: when will we stop the praying and start the fighting? When will we begin to defend ourselves and those that are being subjected to these attacks?
How many people have to be killed before we appreciate the fact that self-defence is a lawful and necessary recourse when it comes to preserving your life and that of your loved ones?
There is no place for a violent and unprovoked attack on others and I have not advocated that but there is every place for a violent defence of your homes, wives, children and loved ones. That is a duty and a solemn obligation before God and before the law.
Since both the state and the Federal government have refused to protect or defend them when will the people of Southern Kaduna start defending themselves and when will we start helping them to do so?
How many more little babies have to have their heads dashed against a wall and how many more infants and women have to be raped, have their throats slit open and blood drained?
These questions are made all the more relevant given the fact that our President, who is himself a Fulani, has refused to condemn or even say anything about the latest series of attacks and killings.
Things have got so bad that one Mr. Audu Maikori was forced to write the following on his twitter handle. He said,
“The southern Kaduna killings are going on while the media is keeping mute! Houses razed and people killed during a curfew!!!!”
The veracity of this assertion can hardly be disputed. The Nigerian media is complicit in this criminal conspiracy and these acts of genocide.
I say this because hardly any newspaper will even mention the atrocities that are being committed in southern Kaduna and when they do they always play the whole thing down and treat it with levity.
They refuse to tell the world about the sheer barbarity of the events and the real number of casualties that have been counted and recorded by eye-witnesses and those that are on the ground.
Where one thousand people are killed they will say one hundred, where one hundred are killed they will say ten and where ten are killed they will say one. Why? Because in Nigeria under President Buhari only Fulani lives matter.
Much of the mainstream media has been completely intimidated and cowered into a pitiful and nauseating silence. When they are not intimidated they are induced into supressing reports, write-ups and essays (like this one) that expose the sheer carnage, the ugly realities and the bitter truth.
They have forgotten what they were taught at journalism school: that facts are sacred and opinion is cheap.
They have also forgotten the words of Rev. Martin Luther King jnr. when he said “the moment we are silent about the things that matter we begin to die”.
He also said “if you are not ready to die for something then you are not fit to live for anything”.
Again they have forgotten the words of our very own Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka. He said “the greatest threat to freedom is the absence of criticism”. He also said “the man died in him who remained silent in the face of tyranny”.
The man has clearly died in many of our journalists and media practitioners in Nigeria today.
We can only thank God for the social media because if not for that most of our mainstream newspapers and television stations would have convinced us that the horrific events that are taking place on a daily basis in Southern Kaduna are nothing but a cooked-up and fabricated fairy tale. (END OF PART 1).
Femi Fani-Kayode is a lawyer, a Nigerian politician, an evangelical christian, an essayist, a poet and he was the Special Assistant (Public Affairs) to President Olusegun Obasanjo from July 2003 until June 2006. He was the minister of culture and tourism of the Federal Republic of Nigeria from June 22nd to Nov 7th 2006 and as the minister of Aviation from Nov 7th 2006 to May 29th 2007. He tweets from@realFFK.
The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author.
