As the Blood Loan Gets Repaid With Blood....

by Eze Eluchie,

When a man becomes a serial candidate for the highest political office of any territory, it will not be wrong to presume that if ever an opportunity is accorded to such candidate to assume the office he had long sought after, enormous zeal would be channeled towards addressing the myriad of problems which beset such territory. The foregoing would be trite if from the very onset, the quest for political office had been motivated by altruistic positive considerations.

If however the quest for power had been founded on devious foundations, spite, ill-will, and with the intent to retaliate for perceived or actual wrongs thought to have been committed against anyone particular ethnic group in a multi-ethnic and multi-religious enclave, the ascendance to power of the serial candidate will mark the commencement and or entrenchment of darkness over the territory with accumulated grievances of the several years of failure at the polls being transformed into a fast-track agenda of nepotism, anger, hate and violence.

After his (s)election in the March 28^th Presidential elections in Nigeria, there was palpable expectation, not just amongst some segments of the Nigerian population but from the international community) that Muhammadu Buhari who had contested all three presidential elections in Nigeria over a 12-year period, would upon assumption of office approach the issues of governance and addressing the myriad of problems afflicting Nigeria with requisite attention.

Not to be. Far from it! For several months after his inauguration, the newly elected Nigerian president appeared to have been caught flatfooted – bereft of any economic, social or governance blueprints, unable to even perform such basic tasks as appoint his own Ministers or populate the various governing Boards of government agencies (tasks for which he was at liberty to perform). The one area where Mr. Buhari seemed to have already made plans was in surrounding himself with persons from his ethnic and religious group under the pretext that he ‘knew and trusted’ them. There was a frenzied craze to populate virtually every meaningful office in the Presidency with Muslims of the Hausa-Fulani ethnic stock, same stack as the President – amongst other absurdities, Mr. Buhari actually went to his own village in Daura, Katsina State, fished out a retired security officer, Mr. Lawal Musa Daura, and anointed the later the head of Nigeria’s State Security Services (SSS), an outfit that is fast metamorphosing into a dreaded instrument for witch-hunting perceived and real opposition to the government.

Buoyed by the eerily feeling of ‘we-are-now-in-charge-and-can-get-away-with-anything’, a view reinforced by the mannerisms, demeanor, comments and activities of Buhari, inclusive but not restricted to the infamous promise to unequally treat those that gave him ‘5% votes’ during the Presidential elections (made at the United States Institute of Peace, in Washington DC; warnings made to the immediate past regime of Goodluck Jonathan that ‘attacks against Boko Haram were attacks against the North’; the tweet made on the 15^th July 2012, by Nasir el Rufai, also a Fulani Muslim and principal confidant of Mr. Buhari and now Governor of Nigeria’s north-central Kaduna State that 'We will write this for all to read. Anyone, soldier or not that kills the Fulani takes a loan repayable one day no matter how long it takes', erstwhile nomadic Fulani Herdsmen who had for centuries plied their vocation by negotiating passage through various communities with the indigenous land owners have now resorted to murderous orgies, indiscriminately decapitating, raping and maiming members of other ethnic groups over whose territories they choose to herd their livestock. The magnitude of the killings and the virtual complicit silence that has characterized the response of the Muhammadu Buhari-led regime over the mayhem caused by his kinsmen has left most Nigerians wondering if indeed this was the repayment of the ‘blood loan’ Mr. El Rufai had tweeted and assured would be made.

As the killings and pillage continue unabated, it is instructive to note that despite the seeming invincibility of the Fulani herdsmen resulting from the inability and or unwillingness of relevant security agencies to confront and curtail their crimes, the continuation of the ongoing trend can only lead to foreseeable calamities not just for those who seem to be the present victims but for even the present day perpetrators.

When blood loans begin to be repaid, it tends to assume a vicious circle, generating a life of its own that propels vile crimes for generations unborn.

Picture: Snapshot of Governor Nasir el Rufai’s tweet of 15^th July 2012 and some victims of a recent attack by Fulani Herdsmen/Militia in Agatu, Benue State, Nigeria.