Approval Of Forest Guards By President Tinubu, Another Bold Step Towards National Security And Development.
Thursday (Afor)15-05-2025.
Running the affairs of a complex heterogeneous multi-ethnic and religious country like Nigeria is not meant for the lily-livered. Leadership, no matter at what level it is operational, should be associated with vision, capacity and intrepidity.
Nigeria, for more than ten years, has been bedeviled by insecurity orchestrated by an Islamist fundamentalist gang of insurgents first known as Boko Haram in the Northeastern States of Borno, Yobe, and Adamawa. Kidnap of 276 students of Government Girls’ Secondary School, Chibok, in Borno State in the night of 14th-15th April, 2014 by the Boko Haram insurgents was a major propaganda used to disparage and weaken the Administration of President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, particularly against the election of 2015.
Even when President Jonathan came out boldly to fight the islamist insurgents, using the Chief of Army Staff, Lt-Gen Azubuike Ihejirika, an Igbo, General Muhammadu Buhari and some other Fulani leaders accused him of ‘deliberately targeting the North’. Consequently, Jonathan chickened out.
In contradiction, Gen Buhari used rhetorics surrounding the same Boko Haram insurgents to curry favour from the Northern electorate, by promising if elected in 2015, he would end insecurity arising from Boko Haram, and every foreseeable act of terrorism.
To the dismay of Nigerians, after his election in 2015, Gen Buhari threw the borders of Nigeria, especially in the North, open to all manner of Fulani from all parts of West Africa, and the Sahel region. They migrated into Nigeria in droves, without any immigration protocols.
The ‘invading fulani’ did not come into Nigeria just to rear cattle for which the Fulani have been known for over a century but they came in with a mindset, kill Indigenous peoples of Nigeria and take over their ancestral lands. They are the bandits in Nigeria today.
Unlike ancestral indigenes of Nigerian tribes, these Fulani terrorists do not seek for accommodation from Nigerian Landlords but move straight into Nigerian Forests where they set up makeshift accommodation, and from there commit all manner of criminality, including raiding of ancestral communities, killing, maiming, arson, ransacking, raping and big time commercial kidnapping. They use ransoms forced out of their victims, a good number of who they still kill after collecting the ransom, to buy weapons of mass destruction with which they have been waging wars of attrition against Nigerians.
Many Fulani leaders are not only aware of this destructive attacks on Indigenous Nigerians but also tacitly support and encourage the heinous crimes against humanity.
What the Fulani bandits and terrorists are doing are in sync with the ideology of the patriarch of the Fulani in Nigeria, Sheikh Usman Dan Fodio, 1754-1817, under whose command Hausa Kingdoms, even extending to Ilorin of the Yoruba Empire, were conquered and the Hausa were turned into perpetual slaves, and the duo of Sirs Ahmadu Bello and Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, who believed Nigeria should be a conquered territory of the Fulani, and that the Indigenous peoples of Nigeria should not even be allowed to determine or control their destiny, not to imagine ever ruling them.
The terrorism by the Fulani in Nigeria has led to hundreds of thousands of death of innocent harmless defenceless Nigerians, especially in such States as Benue, Plateau, Taraba, Niger, Kaduna, Zamfara, Sokoto, and Kebbi. The menace is not limited to the North. It has also extended to many States in the South of Nigeria, including Edo, Enugu and Ondo. It is an unimaginable but avoidable national disaster and calamity.
The insecurity posed by the Fulani has had adverse consequences both in Nigeria and on Nigerians. The first is Food Insecurity. Because the Fulani terrorists have taken over Nigerian Forests, encouraged by Gen Buhari and some othe Fulani leaders, indigenous Nigerian farmers no longer have access to their farms because of the high rate of fatalities that result from any attempt they make in order to access their farms. Of course, majority of the farmers, especially in the North-Central and Middle-Belt, were forced out of their ancestral homes during the eight years of Gen Buhari as President of Nigeria, 2015-2023. That was the darkest period of the Nigerian State.
It has to be stated that Gen Buhari did not want a Southerner to succeed him in 2023, even though he knows Nigeria should be run on two broad geo-political basis of North and South, because he knew that if such happened, as it eventually happened, the excesses of the Fulani terrorists would be put under control. He fought all he could to make sure a Northerner, Senator Ahmed Ibrahim Lawan, succeeded him but Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu still emerged as the President.
Unemployment is one of the consequences of the terrorism by the Fulani. Agriculture provides more than 50% of employment in Nigeria. But due to the devastating activities of Fulani terrorists and bandits, farmers who have been forced to become Internally Displaced Persons in different refugee camps in places distant from their ancestral homes, have unfortunately become unemployed. The shock is on the economy.
Again, the future of Nigerian Youths has become blurred, as the children of displaced farmers can no longer go to school. It has also started affecting the moral and ethical upbringing of these children. If Nigeria can not guarantee the future of her children, it would be an irreparable damage to the country itself.
It is, therefore, reassuring that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR, has, once again, taken the bull by the horn by giving approval for the Establishment of Forest Guards in Nigeria. The Forest Guards, according to the President, will comb all the Government Forest Reserves in Nigeria, about 1,129, and effectively protect them against terrorists, bandits or marauders.
It is kudos to President Tinubu for taking this bold initiative. It is with the same sense of patriotism that he courageously removed the scandalous Fuel Subsidy Regime, and made it possible for State Governments to be receiving more than four times the allocations they received during the Presidency of Gen Buhari.
With the same boldness, he successfully took the 36 State Governments to the Supreme Court just to allow direct financial allocations to the 774 Local Government Councils. Unfortunately, most of the State Governors have refused to obey this very important Judgment.
The President’s sensitivity to the deplorable plight of the Nigerian workers made him approve a more than 100% increase in their salaries.
It is on record that for close to two years that President Tinubu has been in power, there has not been any Industrial action(s) by Universities in Nigeria. This is a great relief to Nigerian Students, Parents and also the Universities’ Managements.
It will, however, be suggested that Mr President, having given approval for the Establishment of Forest Guards, which will create thousands of jobs for the Nigerian Youths and also provide security in different areas of the economy, should not only make sure that the youths to be recruited for that purpose are well trained but well armed. The Fulani terrorists occupying Nigerian Forests are equipped with sophisticated arms and communication gadgets.
Therefore, sending Nigerian Youths only armed with Pump Action Guns will destructively amount to sending them on an avoidable suicide mission, and their early grave.
It will also be very important that adequate attention must be paid in selecting those that will be in charge of the recruitment exercise. If a rogue is mandated to catch a rogue, stealing would never end.
Equity Global Reporters Ltd.
