Part 33 (1) of the Structure of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as Amended) gives that ‘each individual has a proper to life, and nobody shall be disadvantaged deliberately of his life, save in execution of the sentence of a court docket in respect of a felony offence of which he has been discovered responsible in Nigeria’.
Exodus 20:13 prohibits illegal killing within the commandments of God that ‘thou shall not kill’. Intentionally due to this fact, God and man have made the appropriate to life essentially the most primary of all human rights; it’s made so elementary amongst all different rights since you want it to implement and luxuriate in them.
It’s the principal proper and all different rights are ancillary thereto. On March 28 and April 2, 2025 respectively, gunmen in focused assaults invaded Ruwi, Mangor, Daffo, Manguna, Hurti and Tadai communities in Plateau State, forsaking a path of demise and destruction. Though safety companies are but to launch official casualty figures, residents claimed that a minimum of 52 folks have been killed, with many others injured or nonetheless lacking. Right here is the account of one of many survivors as monitored within the media. “We have been dwelling in peace, with no provocation. Then gunmen on bikes arrived, capturing indiscriminately. We ran for our lives, youngsters alongside us. We had no nowhere to cover. Many have been killed. Our houses have been burnt. We name on the federal government to assist us.” As has been the standard sample of the federal government’s responses, the Presidency has issued a lame assertion condemning the grotesque assaults with a supposed pledge to convey the perpetrators to justice. On Friday March 28, 2025, hunters coming back from their looking expedition have been ambushed by vigilantes in Uromi, Edo State they usually have been brutally murdered by a mob in a reckless show of intolerance. In these and different reprehensible assaults, humanity is desecrated.
No respectable society ought to condone mob justice or jungle justice, by no matter title it’s known as. It’s commendable that safety companies have been in a position to monitor down the Uromi demons but it surely shouldn’t cease there. The shortcoming or unwillingness of the federal government to sort out headlong the festering conflicts between herders and farmers is the foundation reason for the rising sense of desperation and frustration throughout the land.
From Benue to Ondo, Kaduna, Delta, Plateau, Niger, Nassarawa, Borno, Zamfara and Edo States, Nigeria has turn into an open discipline of mass murders. A uniform response from the federal government and safety companies to those barbaric tendencies will give the folks some sense of aid. The federal and state governments ought to be certain that Nigerians are handled equally no matter their ethnic, tribal, and spiritual inclinations.
In a fragile nation, the overt deployment of double requirements is harmful and results in unintended outcomes. The tragedy in Uromi unfolded when a mob set upon 16 Fulani hunters travelling by means of the group. Accused of being complicit within the serial safety breaches which have rendered native farmers weak, the hunters have been dragged from their automobiles, lynched, and their our bodies mutilated. It’s horrific, despicable, offensive and stays insupportable now and for all occasions.
But it surely goes past condemnations and remoted responses as a result of these ignominious assaults reduce throughout the size and breadth of Nigeria and the federal government should not be perceived as using double requirements in its responses and actions.
Earlier on in February, 2025, Edo State witnessed the demise of 27 farmers and no motion was taken by the federal government. On March 19, 2025 in Ondo State, 5 farmers have been shot useless by suspected herdsmen in Aba Oyinbo in Akure North Native Authorities space of the state. Earlier than then, about 14 individuals have been murdered by gunmen in Ademekun, Aba Sunday, Aba Pastor and Alajido in the identical native authorities space.
No particular motion has been taken by the federal government to search out the attackers to convey them to justice. A number of communities in Zamfara and Borno States are reportedly paying tribute to bandits and criminals with the intention to stay in their very own homelands.
Fulani herdsmen, with a way of gross entitlement, encroach on farmlands and kill farmers for resisting the violation of their livelihoods. Human life is sacrosanct and it’s with the identical outrage that the federal government has responded to the Uromi killings that it ought to attend to the Plateau, Zamfara and Ondo assaults, as an expression of its dedication to finish violence and mass murders within the nation.
In 2014, the World Terrorism Index listed Fulani herdsmen among the many 4 most harmful terrorist teams on the planet due to their killing sprees in Nigeria. It’s time for the federal government to take decisive actions in addressing this menace as it’s hypocritical to have selective responses to the identical felony conduct.
The federal government ought to leverage on related provisions of the Structure to avert the looming catastrophe staring the nation within the face. Part 41 (1) grants to each individual the appropriate ‘to maneuver freely all through Nigeria and to reside in any half thereof, and no citizen of Nigeria shall be expelled from Nigeria.’
For the herdsmen, the liberty of motion ought to essentially be prolonged to managed grazing and thus, it can’t be tenable to suggest that any citizen of Nigeria must be expelled or prevented from taking residency in any a part of the nation on account of ethnicity, faith or vocation. Nevertheless, part 41 (2) permits the federal government to make any legislation that’s fairly justifiable in a democratic society to derogate from the liberty of motion granted by the identical Structure in sure instances. In essence, a legislation towards open and uncoordinated grazing will fall throughout the class of legal guidelines which can be fairly justifiable to safe peace, legislation and order.
Moreover, part 41 (2) permits the imposition of ‘restrictions on the residence or motion of any one that has dedicated or in all fairness suspected to have dedicated a felony offence’. In an effort to keep away from unfavorable profiling of any group of individuals, the legislation towards open grazing ought to solely impose cheap restrictions upon anybody discovered to have violated it, after due and correct trial. Now, part 43 grants to each citizen the appropriate to amass and personal immovable property anyplace in Nigeria.
Despite the fact that the Structure locations emphasis on ‘immovable property’, which on this case is land, this may and must be prolonged to moveable property, on this case cattle. In legislation, possession of immovable property could be by means of customary inheritance within the case of farmers, whereas acquisition of immovable property could be by means of legitimate task, within the case of herders. In essence, the place a herdsman wishes to graze upon the immovable property of one other, he ought to undergo part 43 to amass land from the house owners to advance his vocation.
This can’t be accomplished by means of open grazing as a result of part 44 (1) prohibits obligatory acquisition or forceful possession of land in stating that ‘little interest in an immovable property shall be taken possession of compulsorily and no proper over or curiosity in any such property shall be acquired compulsorily in any a part of Nigeria besides within the method and for the needs prescribed by legislation.’
Open grazing quantities to a flagrant violation of part 44 (1), for a citizen to invade the customary inheritance of one other citizen to destroy the farmlands, harvest crops thereat unlawfully and forcefully ward off the house owners, rape them at will or kill them in the event that they enterprise any type of resistance. It’s gratifying that the federal government has arrange a separate Ministry of Livestock with the intention to deal with the fixed clashes between herdsmen and farmers. The answer to this matter is for herdsmen to embrace ranching and for land house owners to show brotherhood to lease or assign land and permit mutual co-existence as was the case in occasions previous. Properly over a yr after this laudable initiative nonetheless, nothing tangible has been completed on this regard, as it will appear to be one other political gimmick of the federal government to curry favour and safe unmerited patronage.
There’s thus a roadmap supplied by the Structure for the decision of this hydra-headed monster. The unwillingness or seeming incapacity of the federal government to confront the actual difficulty is the underlying gas that’s propelling the killings, particularly those by the herdsmen. The problem of selective justice additionally raises troubling questions in regards to the worth positioned on the lifetime of the residents as if one life issues greater than the opposite. The criminals who killed the Fulani males in Uromi should be dropped at justice, simply as these accountable for earlier assaults on farmers and civilians should additionally face the legislation. Till Nigeria embraces the rule of legislation and discards partiality within the dispensation of justice, the cycle of violence will persist.
And though one is outraged with the killings in Uromi, we get extra diminished when killings happen in different places and the federal government is pretending to be helpless or condoning them. Authorities ought to encourage and work with herders to undertake the ranching possibility as a substitute of trampling roughshod on farming communities. That is the observe in different jurisdictions like Brazil, Egypt and Netherlands, the place the livestock enterprise exceeds that of Nigeria. Authorities shouldn’t lose sight of the unlucky impression already created within the minds of residents that they can’t be protected by the system, therefore the resort to self-help and vigilante choices.
We should always nonetheless not descend to the state of violence as that may lead us nowhere. An additional resolution lies in a complete safety overhaul because the Nigeria Police Drive is understaffed and ill-equipped to deal with the nation’s safety challenges. The Federal Authorities ought to rise above ethnic biases and be certain that each Nigerian life is valued equally and granted sufficient safety. Any authorities that claims to be incapable of or reveals itself to be unwilling to sort out insecurity headlong has no enterprise retaining energy.
Adegboruwa is a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN).
