While the Kano 16 deserve justice, the wider context of justice in this case is for the Nigerian State to rise up to its responsibilities and bring justice to the people of Uromi and environs by defeating those that are tormenting them in their forests, farms and highways and protect them from all forms of insecurity. In emulating the good example of the government and people of Edo State and Uromi in their condemnation of this barbaric act, the JNI, NEF, ACF and other northern groups will do well to go beyond the killing of some of their own to equally condemn…mass killings…
On 28 March, tragedy struck the town of Uromi in Edo State, Southern Nigeria, when a group of 16 young men were lynched and burnt by some members of the community, in a manner that sent shock waves across the country. The victims have been identified as Hausa hunters who were returning home to Kano State for the end of Ramadan Sallah celebration with their families, while their killers have been revealed to be members of a local vigilante group. Travelling aboard a Dangote Cement truck, the hunters had their Dane guns and hunting dogs with them. But this party ran into trouble when it was accosted by members of the local vigilante who have been operating in the area, after it came under the sustained attacks of assailants identified as killer herdsmen, who are mostly of Fulani ethnicity.
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For many months, there have been reports of the siege of the forests, farms and highways of Uromi and environs by killer herdsmen, without any form of containment from government security forces, thereby leaving the members of the community to resort to self-help. And clearly unable to make a distinction between a Fulani bandit and Hausa hunter, members of the local vigilante group, under circumstances that are still unclear, decided to carry out jungle justice by acting as the accuser, jury, judge and executioner of the Kano 16 hunters.
As usual with Nigeria, a country deeply polarised along ethno-geographic and religious fault lines, opinions are divided to the extent of obfuscating the serious issue of extrajudicial killing in the most barbaric manner, of innocent Nigerians whose only offence happens to being at the wrong place at the wrong time. Many have raised concerns about the reasonableness of a Hausa man from Kano going down south to Rivers State to hunt and the appropriateness of carrying arms from one location to another. Some have also posited that the Uromi killings are just one among many ugly incidences of killings across the country, including the ongoing killings of Uromi people by killer herdsmen. On the part of the Jama’atu Nasril Islam, Northern Elders Forum and Arewa Consultative Forum, it has been total condemnation of the brutal killing of their kinsmen, while calling for justice and payment of “blood money” to the families of the victims.
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The cacophony of conversations going on in the public space is a reflexion of a Nigerian state in decline and a nation held hostage by unresolved contradictions since its independence in 1960. For those wondering why or how it is possible for a Hausa hunter from Kano State, northern Nigeria to be in the forests of Rivers State in southern Nigeria, it should be known that long before the amalgamation of Nigeria in 1914, the constituent peoples of modern Nigeria moved between its northern and southern halves as cultural economic groupings involved in farming, blacksmithing, fishing and hunting. And some of these migrant groups have been assimilated and seamlessly integrated into their adopted communities for centuries.
On the bright side, the steps taken so far by the Edo State governor, Senator Monday Okpebholo, is highly commendable. His condemnation of the dastardly act and swift sanctioning of those concerned, as well as the prompt arrest of suspects, is a testimony to his responsible leadership in a time of crisis. His subsequent visit to Kano to commiserate with his counterpart, Governor Abba Yusuf, and his visit to the family of the victims, as well as his pledge of compensation, is a shining example of how to be a responsible leader.
A good example are the Igede people of Benue State, North-Central Nigeria, whose origins are traceable to Agbede in Edo State, Southern Nigeria. Similarly, the Igala of Kogi State in North-Central Nigeria, with ancestral links to the Jukun of North-Eastern Nigeria, are known to have moved from Idah, southwards, into northern Enugu State, across Anambra State in South-East Nigeria, and as far as the Anioma area of the Niger Delta, together with craftsmen, farmers, hunters and other cultural economic groups, and have become part of the indigenous people of these Igbo speaking parts of Nigeria.
Apart from the fact that the Legendary Alaafin Sango of Oyo has his maternal roots in the Nupe heartland of Bida in Niger State, which used to be part of the defunct North-West State, a group of Nupe people that have over time moved southwards to the Ibarapa area of Oyo State, to become part of the indigenous community, with a First Class Chiefdom created for them in recognition of their status as indigenes. And many centuries before a group of 16 Hausa hunters decided to move down south in search of wild animals, a section of the Bille Kingdom, an indigenous Ijaw clan in Rivers State, migrated north to present day Adamawa State to establish the now indigenous Billechi community, along with their fishermen, farmers, blacksmiths and hunters.
Like banking, nursing, teaching and driving, hunting is a profession and as citizens, the Kano 16 are at liberty to ply their trade in any part of Nigeria they deem fit. To query the rationale behind the presence of a Hausa hunter in Rivers State is to wonder why an Ijaw accountant is in the employment of a commercial bank with a branch in Kano. And common sense intelligence should have suggested to members of the local vigilante group that Fulani bandits don’t “ply their trade” with locally made Dane guns but with sophisticated weapons on a scale that the combined forces of the Nigerian state are yet to defeat.
The Uromi killings was not an intentional killing of Hausa people by the Esan people of Uromi but an unintended consequence of self-help by a community under siege by domestic enemies that the Nigerian State is either unwilling or unable to defeat… While those responsible for the Uromi killings must be brought to book, those equally responsible for the killings of Uromi people must be defeated and sent to hell once and for all by the Nigerian State.
On the bright side, the steps taken so far by the Edo State governor, Senator Monday Okpebholo, is highly commendable. His condemnation of the dastardly act and swift sanctioning of those concerned, as well as the prompt arrest of suspects, is a testimony to his responsible leadership in a time of crisis. His subsequent visit to Kano to commiserate with his counterpart, Governor Abba Yusuf, and his visit to the family of the victims, as well as his pledge of compensation, is a shining example of how to be a responsible leader. This is also true of the traditional rulers of the community, the worldwide umbrella body of the Esan people, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, and other groups that have condemned the killings and called for justice.
While the Kano 16 deserve justice, the wider context of justice in this case is for the Nigerian State to rise up to its responsibilities and bring justice to the people of Uromi and environs by defeating those that are tormenting them in their forests, farms and highways and protect them from all forms of insecurity. In emulating the good example of the government and people of Edo State and Uromi in their condemnation of this barbaric act, the JNI, NEF, ACF and other northern groups will do well to go beyond the killing of some of their own to equally condemn the mass killings, abductions, destruction of farms and highway robbery that is being perpetrated by their other kinsmen (Fulani bandits) in Uromi, particularly, and across Nigeria, from Benue to Plateau. Many years after, Deborah Samuel, a student who was lynched and burnt in Sokoto is yet to get justice, neither JNI nor ACF was heard condemning that barbaric mob action.
The Uromi killings was not an intentional killing of Hausa people by the Esan people of Uromi but an unintended consequence of self-help by a community under siege by domestic enemies that the Nigerian State is either unwilling or unable to defeat. And this domestic enemies are killer herdsmen that have turned Nigeria into a criminal enterprise of highway robbery, kidnapping, cattle rustling, destruction of farms and mass killings across the country. While those responsible for the Uromi killings must be brought to book, those equally responsible for the killings of Uromi people must be defeated and sent to hell once and for all by the Nigerian State.
Majeed Dahiru, a public affairs analyst, writes from Abuja and can be reached through [email protected].
