For sometime now, there has been speculations and reports
that following the abduction or kidnapping of Chief Olu Falae, an
elder statesman, the Yoruba and their leaders were contemplating
and agitating over what action to take against the Fulani herdsmen
in, not only, Ondo State, where the old man was kidnapped but the
entire South West.
The alleged kidnapping of the former Secretary to the Federal
Government and one time Minister of Finance, by the herdsmen in
the first place did surprise not a few Nigerians, in view of the fat that
no arrest and interrogation of any herdsman or men were made by
anybody, including the Nigeria Police and other security agencies in
the country.
So, a lot of reasonable people did not take this matter of the
allegation that the Yoruba ethnic nationality was taking or preparing
to take any umbrella decision to expel any herdsmen from any part
of Nigeria. The allegation sounded like a movie fiction from another
wild planet. The best way to handle such long tale was to ignore it in
the interest of your time and sanity.
Otherwise, how could any Nigerian contemplate the expulsion
from another part of Nigeria of any Nigerian to another part of it?
What could be the constitutional and national consequence of such
an action within the country as a body corporate? For the sake of
argument let’s assume that the wild allegation were true – that it was
the herdsmen, six of them that kidnapped the Chief. Would the
action of these six demented criminals justify the blanket
repercussive action on the entire herdsmen in the South West?
Every tribe, ethnic group has her own the good, the bad and
the ugly, granted, this is a factual statement. And that is why there
has never been and there will never be any law that will be enacted
to force people as a whole to carry any vicarious liability on behalf of
others. People will continue to bear liability for their own actions only
– either positive or negative. This is the standard of any civilized
society. People must be assumed to be innocent until proven
otherwise.
One question that has been agitating my mind and I believe
most Nigerians is how did Chief Olu Falae come to the factual
conclusion that it was Fulani herdsmen who kidnapped him? What
incontrovertible evidence did he have or put forward to Nigerians that
it was truly the herdsmen that kidnapped him? To say they dressed
like herdsmen or spoke Fulfulde (the Fulani language) or they looked
like Fulani was not and shall never be tenable for various reasons.
Since when did it become a law that only Fulani should speak
Fulfulde, dress in any particular clothes or manner? Under what law
did the Fulani get any different colour identity or any other identity
that is legally and lawfully exclusive to them as a mark of a tribal
identity?
It is one of the commonest thing to find better Fulfulde
speakers among the Fulani who are yet not Fulani. There are still
those who look like the Fulani in all their physical features but are not
Fulani. There are also those who dressed like the Fulani but are not
Fulani especially during cultural displays. There are also other tribes
that dress like the Yoruba, speak Yoruba fluently, yet they are not
Yoruba. We also have other tribes such as the Berom, Tarok, Shuwa,
Mandingo, Tuaregs both local and internationally who are herdsmen
but they are not Fulani.
Are the Yoruba elders telling us today that the Fulani or their
herdsmen who have lived for hundreds of years in Yoruba land who
speak the Yoruba language and have become almost entirely
absorbed in the Yoruba culture of dress, dance and other Yoruba
activities should today go out and commit any criminal activity and
the Yoruba as an ethnic group be forced to take a mortal liability for
it as a people? The dress, the language, even the marks (meant to
identify different tribes) have failed as the marks of most tribes look
alike. As for physical attributes you need to ask people sometimes
before you know where they come from or who they are tribally or
even ethnically.
Do we need to remind these respected, educated, enlightened,
cosmopolitan and urbane Yoruba elders that the 1999 Constitution of
Nigeria clearly spelt out under Section 41(1) thus: “Every citizen of
Nigeria is entitled to move freely throughout (emphasis ours)
Nigeria and to reside in any part thereof, and no citizen of Nigeria
shall be expelled from Nigeria or refused entry thereto or exit
therefrom”.
As Nigerians, we must try as hard as possible, no matter, our
ethnic, tribal or other differences to respect the laws of the land and
refrain from doing anything that can cause ill-feeling, disunity, ethnic
or religious crises where it is absolutely dangerous to do so like it is
in this case. There is nowhere that the herdsmen in the South West
in general or Ondo State in particular held any tribal, ethnic or any
corporate group meeting where a decision was taken to kidnap Chief
Olu Falae or any Yoruba man or woman for that matter.
It is also true that so far there is no identity parade or security
report that identified and verified that it was the herdsmen of the
village farm of Olu Falae that kidnapped him. Even if there were
such facts they would still be subjected to the rigours of our law
courts to establish the level of the culpability of such herdsmen, their
sponsors, if any, and their motive for such criminal act.
Even with that, there would not be any vicarious criminal
liability on anybody, including the blood relations of such criminals.
It remains a very dangerous thing to lump an entire ethnic group
together and accuse them of committing crime only six crazy and
deranged criminals committed. They should be found and be fried
for their criminal action. Yoruba, roonuu!
Sale Bayari, Former National Officer of the Myetti Allah Association,
wrote in this piece from Jos.
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