Gani Adams, the Aareonakakanfo of Yoruba, on Thursday weighed in on the spate of insecurity across the country, challenging President Muhammadu Buhari to ensure that justice prevails over rampaging herdsmen.
Mr. Adams, while speaking during a live chat with media mogul, Dele Momodu, said the herdsmen, “The liver they have in the last five years, most of them threaten that the government can do nothing and from information and my experience, when they have issues they call officers from headquarters, and order comes from above that they should be released. Until when the government changes tactics, we won’t have peace.”
Speaking further, he explained how he wrote letters to all council of obas on insecurity, while recounting a series of criminal activities like rituals, armed robberies, and land-grabbing in the southwest, claiming that “some big Yoruba personalities collaborate with the herdsmen.”
He stressed that “security is about intelligence and there must be a structure”, and if the country is restructured with a suitable mechanism, the issue of insecurity will be minimal.
Mr. Adams added, “Structure can only come through federalism. How can we have a supreme court in a country of over 200 million people? Every state or region should have its own supreme court; many things are wrong beyond security. We must go back to true federalism.”
On the emergence of Sunday Igboho, he noted, “Psychologically, it is one of the activities of the struggle, and even though some alleged that he is taking laws into his hands, it’s their opinion. I won’t support him doing that. But what we realised is that the Fulani have already taken laws into their hands too.”
According to him, the government encourages people to take the law into their own hands when justice is not served to culprits, insisting “the government has already created a lacuna that will encourage people to come out as warlord.”
Mr. Adams noted that the “coming of Sunday (Igboho) as a warrior in his own axis is a welcome development. There is nothing bad in that and definitely what he has done in recent times will encourage people, other people to fish out criminals.”
Although violent crimes linked to herdsmen of Fulani origin have intensified since Mr. Buhari assumed power in 2015, the president has publicly denounced their deadly tactics and sued for lasting peace across the country.
Mr. Buhari also suggested ways to resolve the crisis, including establishing settlements for nomadic herders, but some of his solutions have hit roadblocks amongst people of southern Nigeria, who said it was an attempt at land grab. Nonetheless, both the administration and other political and religious leaders have been hosting consistent talks on how to resolve the crisis, which has also taken a serious toll on the country’s economic output.