The assertion of President Muhammadu Buhari that herdsmen/Farmers killing and Boko Haram carnage was aggravated by the Libyan crisis, for which he has come under fire, is one even the past administration and other notable Nigerians held and believed, before and now.
In April, President Buhari met with the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, where he said the herdsmen-farmer rampage did not start today as it was an inherited problem.
“Herdsmen that we used to know carried only sticks and maybe a cutlass to clear the way, but these ones now carry sophisticated weapons.
“The problem is even older than us. It has always been there, but now made worse by the influx of armed gunmen from the Sahel region into different parts of the West African sub-region.”
“These gunmen were trained and armed by Muammar Gaddafi of Libya. When he was killed, the gunmen escaped with their arms. We encountered some of them fighting with Boko Haram.”
President Buhari also iterated that the menace was not religious but but economic and sociological and that his Government is already working on its solutions.
However, reactions trail the statement with Media outlets reporting the story saying “Buhari blames Gadaffi for killings in Nigeria.”
Femi Fani-Kayode
Former Aviation Minister, Femi Fani-Kayode, in a direct twist of the President’s statement, accused President Buhari of inconsistency in heaping blames.
“First you blamed Goodluck Jonathan for the herdsmen, then you blamed Obasanjo, and now you are blaming Gaddafi.
“Have you no shame? None of those you are blaming are Fulani and none is a member of Miyetti Allah. The herdsmen are your boys.Blame Yourself!.”
The same Fani-Kayode had already written an opinion article in 2012 where he referenced the death of the late Libyan leader as one of the factors responsible for the carnage in Northern Nigeria.
In the piece titled “Can Obama be trusted”, Fani-Kayode questioned many of the Obama-led Government foreign and domestic policies which have incurred a negative effect in Africa including
“the destabilisation of North Africa and the opening of the door for Islamic insurgents in the North African Arab Sahel States and the West African sub-region.”
He also mentioned that Obama had “disastrous legacies and sadly the mistakes he has made in his foreign policy in North Africa” impacts directly on West Africa, particularly Nigeria.
“Had it not been for the fall-out of the mess in Libya and the brutal way in which Muammar Ghadaffi, the Libyan leader, was murdered in cold blood one year ago, his Taureg friends and allies in North Africa would not have been inspired and driven to take over Northern Mali and create a Taliban-style Islamic fundamentalist state there and Northern Nigeria would not have been flooded with jihadist foot-soldiers and all manner of sophisticated arms and bombing devices for usage by Boko Haram.”
President Goodluck Jonathan
In an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, former President Goodluck Jonathan also corroborated Fani-Kayode claim about Libyan Crisis being partly responsible for the various killings in the Country.
Amanpour had asked Jonathan about Boko Haram’s threats to the Country to which he said
“if it’s not contained, it would be a threat not only to Nigeria, but to West Africa, Central Africa and the North Africa.”
He said this disclosure in 2014, at the annual meeting of World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
Jonathan also said the insurgents are affiliated with Al-Qaida and ISIS operating in the Northern region of the Continent.
“The Nigerian Government is totally committed to work with other Government to make sure that we contain the problems in Mali.
“As you rightly said, the issue of Libya try to create more problem in the sub-region.”
While speaking to Nigerians in Geneva Switzerland, in 2013, Jonathan also claimed 50% of Boko Haram members were trained in Mali.
In May 2013, Jonathan said in clear terms exactly what President Buhari is now saying, as he defended his decision to declare State of Emergency in some states
“We must comb the whole place to seize all these weapons and so on. A lot of free weapons come in because of the Libya crisis. We must seize them. They are illegal weapons and must be seized and you cannot do that without declaring a state of emergency to enable the military enter any house, whether it is a residential building, it is a church, a mosque, a shrine, anywhere, hotel, anything that we suspect, we will be able to enter and seize these weapons.”
This was not just the opinion of Mr. Jonathan, but of the Army. A senior military official told The Guardian of London
“They have been putting up fierce resistance and they are very, very well-armed with weapons from Libya,”
Doyin Okupe
According to the former President Goodluck Jonathan Special Assistant on Public Affairs, some of the perpetrators of the Fulani-Farmers killings in Nigeria are break-away faction of Boko Haram.
In an interview with Tribune, Okupe said it is a misnomer to say there is a Fulani /farmers clash, as there is no farmer clashing with herdsmen here, but what is being experienced is typical of ISIS operations.
“I don’t think President Muhammadu Buhari was too much out of order—-perhaps he didn’t put it well when he said these are people trained by Muamar Ghadaffi. What he probably had meant to say was that people that were trained in Libya had come down and are wrecking havoc in our system. That would have been more credible.
“It is better for us as Nigerians and those who lead us to come to terms with this reality. They will not want to sound alarmed that we are not through with Boko Haram yet and we now have ISIS, which may bring panic. Let us speak the truth and let the devil be ashamed.”
Okupe expressed disbelief at the concept of ‘killer herdsmen’ as the herdsmen he is aware of are protective of their herds, carrying food and water to feed them with, and a herdsman cannot start burning farms and killing villagers after feeding his cattle from the same farm.
“It doesn’t make any sense. That has gone beyond tendering cattle. It is something that is beyond 400-500 years. It has been from the time we existed here.
“Unfortunately, the Government is headed by a Fulani and tends to protect the image of other Fulanis that they are not killers. But there is no need to protect what is not true. If there is anything to protect, it should be the lives and properties of Nigerians.”
