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We started this topic last week by laying the foundation on the Holy Bible’s book of Hosea 6:4, which says that “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: Because you have rejected knowledge, l also rejected you as my priests, because you have ignored the law of your God, l also will ignore your children”. We equally quoted from Isaiah 5:13 with this saying: “Therefore my people will go into exile for lack of understanding; their men of rank will die of hunger and their masses will be parched with thirst”.
In evaluating the position of our own President Muhammadu Buhari vis-à-vis “the danger of not knowing” last week, l mentioned two events. The first being the President’s statement in London on Wednesday, April 11, 2018, while meeting the Archbishop of Canterbury; Justin Welby. Against the background of the popular belief that Fulani Herdsmen in Nigeria were responsible for the human carnage which had claimed thousands of lives across the country; mostly in Benue, Plateau, Taraba, Enugu, Delta and Oyo States, President Buhari put the narrative differently to the Man of God, in London when he shifted the blame of the killing away from the Fulani Herdsmen to some foreign mercenaries from Libya.
“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”, Buhari was quoted as saying before adding that “Herdsmen that we used to know carried only sticks and maybe a cutlass to clear the way, but these ones now carry sophisticated weapons.”
For President Buhari to have blamed Muammar Gaddafi; a man that died 7 years ago, as responsible for killing Nigerians by Fulani Herdsmen; a fact even admitted to by Buhari himself when he told Benue State people that they should learn to “live and accommodate their brothers” [referring to the Fulani herdsmen as brothers to the Benue people] remains glorification of ignorance.
The second being President Buhari’s admission in Markudi, the capital of Benue State, on Monday 12th of March, 2018, that he did not know that the Inspector General of Police did not carry out the order he [President] gave to him [Inspector General of Police] on January 9, 2018, to relocate to Benue State and remain there till solution to the genocide taking place there was settled. This genuine revelation of “not knowing” by the President is more embarrassing.
Mayhem broke out in some communities of Benue State on January 1, 2018, when Fulani Herdsmen went on rampage, killing and maiming and at the end of that ugly episode, over 70 people were slaughtered, farms, houses and other properties were burnt down. It was mayhem like never before. Of course, there was silence; akin to consenting to the rampage, from the throne of power in Abuja until January 9, 2018, when the President ordered his own appointed Inspector General of Police to relocate to Benue and remain there until he put the situation under control.
The President gave the order and went to bed, so it seemed, or worse still, he did not monitor his IGP on how effectively he was complying with the order he gave to him. Meanwhile, the IGP, maybe, knowing fully that his Commander-in-Chief lacked the instrumentality of monitoring him or believing that the C-in-C did not mean the order to be carried out, went to Benue State, spent a night, doing what he knows how to do best [nobody should ask me what he knows how to do best as Senator Isah Hamma Misau from Bauchi Central Senatorial Zone can answer that question better] and returned to Abuja the next.
He would have arrived Abuja back on January 10, 2018, remained there in Abuja till March 12, 2018, when the President made the revelation that “I did not know that the Inspector General of Police did not obey my order” in Markudi. Though this is hard to believe, taking into consideration the fact that the IGP, who arrived his office back and remained in Abuja for almost two months after fragrantly disobeying the President’s order, could not have been invisible to his boss, the President’s sincerity in admitting that he “did not know” should be given a place of leniency in dealing with this “not knowing syndrome issue”. At least, he told us the truth. And here really is the catastrophic point of “not knowing”.
Let us come to synergize the relationship of both episodes of “not knowing” credited to our President and use it as perimeter of evaluating the danger such portend to the citizenry. His claim in London that Muammar Gadaffi; the Libya maxim leader, who was killed in his country 7 years ago was responsible for invasion of Nigeria by Fulani killers herdsmen must have been out of total ignorance.
This is more so when the President had earlier admitted at home that killer-herdsmen and those being killed “are brothers”. His Minister for Defense justified the killing when he said that “the immediate cause of recent killing was the blockage of the herdsmen route for grazing”. The Inspector General of Police; a man appointed by President Buhari, claimed in a statement he made that the “immediate cause for the killing was the anti-grazing laws of some States”. He was obviously referring to Benue and Taraba States anti-grazing laws.
There is more to back-up the claim that Muammar Gaddafi was responsible for happening in Nigeria as one fortified fallacy. Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria [MACBAN] took responsibility for some of the mayhems when it threatened that they “would not obey the anti-grazing law of Benue State” when the latter’s State House of Assembly enacted that law. It [MACBAN] made its stand of “going to war” against the government of Benue State on the law known during a world Press Conference it addressed in Abuja. The President and the presidency, with all apparatus of government, knew of the Press Conference and what MACNAN vowed to do.
It is for these reasons and many others that the claim that the late Muammar Gaddafi of Libya was behind Nigerians killing; a killing coordinately carried out by a well-organized and sophisticatedly-armed Fulani Herdsmen, shall remain mockery of knowledge into eternality.
The second admission of the President of “not knowing” what his IGP did with his order, ordinarily ought to attract sympathy for the President, for some reasons. First amongst these reasons was the fact that he genuinely told us what happened. Another reason for sympathy should be by considering the President’s age and his fragile health; mostly of recent times. There is also this issue of the Fifth Columnist within the President’s “Movement”; being spear-headed by, maybe the types of the IGP. We can count and be counting thousands reasons why the President need to be “judged mercifully” on this admission.
Yet, however way we look at this issue, our collective tomorrow as a people is at stake, the liberty of unborn generations is being compromised, the place of functionality for posterity is being endangered, as long as we have a leader who does not know for whatever reason.
So, as we draw the curtain on this topic, we need to do a thorough soul-searching or embark on proper voyage of discovery on what we actually want to do with ourselves now, what future are we chatting, which place of identity in safe-landing are we preparing for our children; mostly those unborn, and finally, what place of judgment is posterity preparing for us, for having seen but lack the audacious temerity to do the right thing.
If we have a leader that “does not know” and is not willing to know, for whatever reason or reasons, and if this person is unfortunately surrounded by “unknowing” sycophants; such a leader definitely would be lost at the end, but not without consigning his people to perpetual and permanent peril, penury and total annihilation.
This is the actual fact of life and it is for this reason that our Creator warned that “my people perished for lack of knowledge” as we earlier pointed out at the beginning of this essay, from the Bible book of Hosea chapter 6, verse 4.
We can avoid this course of catastrophic voyage by doing the right thing. The choice is ours and the time is now!
Godwin Etakibuebu, a veteran Journalist, wrote from Lagos.