Soyinka asks federal government to seek international help over Fulani herdsmen killings

NOBEL laureate Professor Wole Soyinka has advised the federal government to solicit the support of the international community to combat insecurity in the country as it appears unable to address the ongoing Fulani herdsmen saga alone.

Over recent years, Nigeria has been plagued with the menace of Fulani cattle herdsmen attacking rural farming communities across the country, killings hundreds. These heavily-armed gunmen are generally recruited from neighbouring West African countries and kill with ruthless abandon, often sacking entire villages.

Speaking in Makurdi, the Benue State capital yesterday at the 35th anniversary of Senator Suemo Chia’s novel, Adan Wade Kohol Ga, written in Tiv, Professor Soyinka said that instead of hunting animals for food, the killer herdsmen hunted for human beings. He added that some people wanted to change the narrative that the killer herdsmen were Libyans, querying who brought them, who kept them and who funds them?

Professor Soyinka said: “If the government cannot cope, it should not shy away from asking for international help. People are dying and this government cannot cope, so please just ask for international help and I know they’re ready and willing to come to our aid.

“Instead of treating the country of its cancerous disease rather, it is ringworm that is being treated. The killings that are taking place in Benue and other states are targeted at ethnic cleansing and there is no any other word to describe it than that.”

He noted that herdsmen kill and occupy people’s communities which clearly reveal their actual motive. Professor Soyinka urged the federal government to give the herdsmen that were occupying other people's communities their marching orders to vacate such areas within 48 hours.

“We have to come together to probe the ugly situation so that the impunity which is going on in the country for long will stop. If the president had visited any community where lives were lost due to the killings perpetrated by the armed herdsmen and give warnings, the killings would have stopped since," Professor Soyinka added.

He pointed out that the killings are sponsored by desperate politicians because of their selfish motives and they are not sporadic but well-coordinated and the people behind the attacks should be identified for prosecution. Professor Soyinka said that the phenomenon was not new because it happened in Rwanda and other crisis-ridden countries, so Nigerians ought to have learnt to avoid the situation turning to an epidemic.

Benue State governor Samuel Ortom thanked the Nobel laureate for the solidarity visit, adding that he had told the world what the state was going through, particularly its security challenges. He said he had evidence to prove that armed herdsmen were perpetrating the heinous acts with impunity.

“What is happening to us is not a hidden agenda because the herdsmen, through Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore, have said at several fora that they want to take over the Benue valley. The attacks are also the continuation of the jihad which was truncated by the Benue people in 1804,” Governor Ortom added.