I WAS in Ndjamena, Chad in 2014 as the then Secretary General of the African Workers, to meet the labour leaders in that country. There was a major barracks on the road opposite the hotel I stayed. Newly arrived soldiers poured from the barracks towards the hotel. They were Chadian troops that had been expelled by the Central African Republic, CAR.
A national coalition against CAR President Francois Bozize had removed him from power in 2013. Unfortunately, a group in that uprising called the Seleka, led by Michel Djotodia, had tried to lord it over the entire country. The majority of the population reacted by establishing a popular front called Anti-Baleka which defeated the minority Seleka.
The defeated fighters, with their arms and families, were escorted out of Bangui and the CAR by Chadian troops. But Chad did not let them stay in its territory; so they moved into Nigeria to find new homes. So, the remnants of the militarily-trained and armed Seleka forces have been operating in Nigeria for eleven years now.
However, they are not the first foreign fighters to move into Nigeria. In January, 2019, President Muhammadu Buhari, in an interview with the media, admitted that following the 2011 overthrow of President Mouamar Ghadafi of Libya, his defeated multinational troops from Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Nigeria, Chad and CAR, moved into Nigeria.
These foreign fighters have been busy trying to create a homeland for themselves. So, they continuously invade the Middle Belt, carrying out massacres on such a massive scale that in Plateau State alone by July 1, 2018, they had occupied 54 communities which they renamed and are living there now. The indigenes of those occupied communities, like those in Benue State, have mainly been killed or are in internally displaced camps, IDPs.
In his 2021 interview with Arise Television, President Buhari admitted that many of the fighters attacking Nigerians are foreigners. He said: “The Nigerian cattle rearer was not carrying anything more than a stick. Sometimes he carried a machete to cut trees… but those sophisticated ones; they are good with AK-47. So, from all the Sahel areas, people rush to Nigeria; Fulani from Mauritania or Central Africa look the same; so they think they are Nigerian ones.”
Despite his clear identification of the attackers, Buhari preferred to present the massacres not as criminality or invasion, but as “herders-farmers” clashes. So, rather than flush out these foreign fighters as he did in 1983 when he was the General Officer Commanding the Third Armoured Division, Jos, he preached good neighbourliness.
Rather than send the armed forces to take back the villages and towns being occupied by the invaders and return the Nigerians in IDP camps back to their ancestral lands, he decided to look for the colonial “cattle routes”. He even had the nerve to tell the victims to surrender their lands for cattle ranches. When the victims said they have ancestral attachment to their lands and would not give them up for cattle ranching, Buhari’s Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Mr. Femi Adesina, told the victims in a July 2018 AIT interview: “Ancestral attachment? You can only have ancestral attachment when you are alive. If you are talking about ancestral attachment, if you are dead, how does the attachment matter? … What will the land be used for if those who own it are dead at the end of the day?”
When Nasir el-Rufai became Kaduna State governor in 2015, he sent a message to herdsmen in some West African countries to, in his own words: “tell them that there is a new governor who is Fulani like them and has no problem paying compensations for lives lost…”during the 2011 post-election violence. He paid those foreign fighters compensation, but not the Nigerian farmers. However, this did not stop more attacks on Kaduna State villages and towns by those foreign fighters.
In Katsina State, Governor Aminu Bello Masari gave the local and foreign bandits amnesty from 2016, compensated them for their arms and disbanded the vigilante and defence corps fighting banditry. But the latter merely bought more arms and heightened their murderous activities. Masari regretted his actions and begged the people for forgiveness.
Now, six years later, Masari’s successor, Governor Dikko Umar Radda is repeating the same ‘mistake’ by signing ‘peace agreements’ with the bandits. In the meantime, Buhari who vowed that after leaving office, he would live the rest of his life in Daura, is now a little disguised IDP in Kaduna.
Meanwhile, the massacre of Nigerians, especially in Benue State, continues. In the latest, the invaders killed over 200 Nigerians in Yelewata village. President Bola Tinubu decided to visit the state. Apparently, he had the same solution as Buhari: allocate land for ranching. But his message is at variance with those of the victims and military chiefs. For instance, the Tor Tiv, Orchivirigh Prof. James Ayatse, told him pointedly: “Your Excellency, it is not herder-farmer clashes. It is not communal clashes. It is not reprisal attacks or skirmishes. What we are dealing with here in Benue is a calculated, well-planned, full-scale genocidal invasion and land-grabbing campaign by herder-terrorists and bandits.”
Indeed, a critical analysis of these massacres show they are carried out with military precision, pointing to the fact that foreign fighters are heavily involved. The Chief of Defence Staff, General Christopher Musa, alluded to this when he told the media: “What has happened recently is that there’s a global push by terrorists and jihadists all over the Sahel area, and that pressure is what actually came into Nigeria because of the porous nature of our borders”.
The Director, Defence Media Operations, Major General Markus Kangye, revealed that a lot of captured terrorists, on interrogation, are found to speak Hausa with a different intonation from that spoken in Nigeria. The implication is that “many of those terrorising our people are foreigners even though some of them are also Nigerians.”
He added: “Know that most of the violence and incessant killings you are hearing in some parts of this country are perpetrated by mostly those that find their way into porous borders of our country.”
We need to take back our country. First, criminality is criminality irrespective of who commits it. Secondly, President Tinubu needs to direct the armed forces to retake all communities and villages occupied by invaders and return all the IDPs to their ancestral homes. Thirdly, bandits and terrorists should be brought to justice not treated like rock stars signing worthless peace accords. Fourthly, the victims should be empowered for self-defence. Fifthly, there should be a general mobilisation of Nigerians for mass defence and attack.
To try being politically correct is to endanger us all.