When patriotic Nigerians bade one another Merry Christmas and a happy new year in advance in December 2017, little did they expect that the year 2018 would commence with the bloodbath of innocent fellow Nigerians from Benue to Rivers; Maiduguri to Taraba; Adamawa to Niger; Kwara to Kaduna; Oyo to Ikorodu and Cross-River; there was virtually no geo-political zone that was not attacked by gunmen and bloody psychopaths!

Nigerians were greeted with the sad news that over 50 people, rural men, women and children were murdered by gunmen believed to be herdsmen in Benue State on 1st January, 2018; on the same day, more that 40 people were killed in cold blood by cultists in Rivers State, and innocent blood flowed on daily basis unabated up till the morning of 6th January, 2018, when another 16 persons were sent to early graves in Tombo village, Logo Council Area, in a fresh attack! -SAD, SAD, SO SAD!

Benue State was the hardest hit because, less than 24 hours of the Inspector General's of Police deployment of additional security personnel headed by Deputy IGP and an Assistant IGP, on 4th January, 2018, FOUR persons were killed in the same area!
Has all security measures defied solution - also in Luru Community, Numan LG, Adamawa FOUR people were also killed on 5th January, 2018!
Could Benue's Anti-Open Grazing Bill signed into law late last year by the Governor be responsible for the attacks by his detractors who are opposed to restriction of their cattle to RANCHES?
But, should the innocent citizens become scapegoats to government's friendly policy? Now, apart from those killed, over 40,000 people have been displaced and are homeless because their homes have been razed to the ground by the murderous arsonists!


ARE THE KILLERS EVIL SPIRITS?
Media reports indicate that those perpetrators were gunmen with sophisticated weapons whose "modus operandi" is the "hit-and-run" tactics of Boko Haram terrorists but the only noticeable difference between the two groups is that the alleged herdsmen gunmen have not yet introduced suicide bombings into their heinous rampages. Some criminologists have alleged that "fleeing Boko Haram terrorists from Sambisa Forest" are the marauders while analysts believed from reliable sources that the killers were contracted Fulani mercenaries who were brought in from Nigeria's neighbouring States of Chad, Niger and Cameroon! If we choose to believe the second information, we would surely be on the right track because it was confirmed by the Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El- Rufai that the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association, of Nigeria (MACBAN), had regularly contracted foreign mercenaries to defend the herdsmen from untoward attacks in the line of their nomadic occupation. He also said that he brokered peace at one time between farmers and herdsmen by paying handsomely for some cows allegedly killed by the former, which proves that law enforcement agents are dealing with HUMANS and not SPIRITS and therefore it should not be too difficult to track them through genuine public information!


IS A COW'S LIFE MORE SACRED THAN A HUMAN LIFE?
It has been alleged that almost all retired army generals in Nigeria own large agricultural and dairy farms and are the employers of the herdsmen - mostly of the Fulani stock, because the average herder may not own more than four or five cattle of his own and that these military men were in good position to arm and train their employees to "defend" themselves in the case of any confrontation which have become very rampant in recent times!
SHOULD IT NOT BE OF CONCERN TO POLICE DETECTIVES AND OTHER SECURITY OPERATIVES THAT CASUALTY FIGURES AT THE END OF EACH VIOLENT CLASH HAD ALWAYS BEEN OF INNOCENT HUMAN BEINGS AND NOT COWS?


WHERE ARE THE DEAD CATTLE?
We have it on good authority that MIYETTI ALLAH has instructed their nomadic herders not to engage the farmers whenever they were confronted in respect of grazing but to report to the Association for necessary action normally carried out by their contracted mercenaries and that was why there were no cattle but human casualties at the end of all bloody clashes because the cattle were usually kept away in safe custody and out of sight!
WHAT DO THESE PSYCOPATHS GAIN FROM SHEDDING INNOCENT HUMAN BLOOD? DO THEY FEEL ANY REMORSE WHEN THEY NESTLE WITH THEIR OWN WIVES AND CHILDREN WHOM THEY HAVE KEPT AWAY IN "SAFE HAVENS" JUST LIKE THEIR BOKO HARAM COUNTERPARTS? DO THEY HAVE ANY KIND OF CONSCIENCE? ARE THEY CREATED BY OUR GOD WHO SAYS, "THOU SHALT NOT KILL?"


NASARAWA STATE:
On 9th May, 2013, about two years before the APC Government took over the reins of political power in Nigeria, Nasarawa State recorded the bizarre massacre of over 100 policemen and about 12 State Security Service agents, who were officially deployed from Abuja to maintain law and order in that land which was notorious as the theatre of violent conflicts between rival cults which struggled for political relevance along ethnocentric divide on one side and nomadic herdsmen and farmers frequent clashes over grazing "rights", on the other!

At the end of the gruesome cold-blooded homicide on the fateful day, it was widely reported that there was not a single civilian casualty recorded because members of the OMBATSE CULT whose leader was to be arrested claimed that they were protected by their deity which protected them from POLICE BULLETS WHICH HAD NO LETHAL POWER TO KILL THEM!
A tribunal instituted by the State Government after the massacre sat for several weeks but was unable to establish those who were culpable because the National President, Eggon Cultural and Development Association (ECDA), claimed that devotees to Ombatse Cult were peace-loving and did not participate in the killings of the team of policemen, which was headed by an Assistant Commissioner! THESE SENSELESS KILLINGS ARE RUBBISHING DIVIDENDS OF ECONOMIC GAINS!


THE SANCTITY OF LIFE:
What is the life of a Nigerian worth these days? What could be responsible for the massacre, slaughter and dismemberment of innocent fathers, mothers, children, even pregnant women? Could it be hatred, ethnicity, tribalism, nepotism, caste discrimination, ethnic/religious bigotism, or sheer bestiality of the act of man's inhumanity against man? Could it be a senseless political move to ignite a RELIGIOUS WAR, similar to the kite flown by Boko Haram in 2009?


PLATEAU STATE:
Human Rights Watch (HRW), quoting the Geneva Declaration published in November 2011, reported that more than 13,500 people were killed in communal violence in Nigeria's Middle Belt Region since the nation returned to civilian rule in 1999, and that Plateau State was hardest hit because it became notorious for bloody political crisis over indigene rights and political representation in Jos, State Capital, had evolved into protracted communal clashes in which, during that period, about 7,000 were killed! Other Middle Belt States which had similar and violent crises are Benue, Niger, Nasarawa, and Kaduna!

During the years of the very first and second military coups in Nigeria and the 30-month-long period of the Biafra Civil War January 1966 - January 1970, some unpatriotic Plateau State indigenes unleashed mayhem which resulted into massive culpable homicide of innocent about 1,000 non-natives and settlers throughout the four years of instability in the country!
The end of the civil war ushered a fragile peace but in bottled-grudges of many years on both sides resurrected chains of reprisals which changed the story from 2001, till date over indegeneship and political representation status.
Mindless killings are not limited to the Middle Belt: virtually all geo-political zones have been invaded by armed herdsmen! Ethno-religious clashes in Southern Kaduna, Niger, Nasarawa ,Taraba, Cross River State, etc. has turned the promulgation of the Anti-Open Grazing Act in some of these States into mere academic exercise but it should not be so in this Change Administration of President Muhammadu Buhari.
These herdsmen/farmers clashes which defies all borders and is no respecter of persons are no doubt orchestrated and brazen effrontery by some detractors against the ruling administration and MUST be dealt with decisively - especially when the Commander-in-Chief has given marching orders to all security agencies to move in full gear to destroy this communal plague of epidemic proportion!


RIVERS/KADUNA STATES:
What of the cult killings in Rivers State on the new year's day celebration, and the dastard and gruesome murder of a tribal chief and his pregnant wife on the same day in Kaduna State? According to Governor Nyesome Wike of Rivers State, some members of rival cults who were contracted by foreign oil companies to protect oil installations and were responsible for the bloodshed in the State because they were empowered to purchase sophisticated weapons with which they have been unleashing terror on their communities!


WAY FORWARD:
Since terror attacks are rife in isolated outskirts of all States involved and it is noticeable that the presence of security agents was more felt in the tows rather than the villages which are vulnerable to the attackers who after their dastard crimes disappear into THIN AIR, troops who were usually drafted to restore peace MUST NOW resided with the locals, and forestall REPRISALS and prevent marauders from attacking the SOFT TARGETS over and over again!


ARE THE LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCIES - ESPECIALLY THE SOLDIERS, AND POLICEMEN OVERSTRECHED?
Or are they conniving with the Fulani herdsmen as alleged by Initiative for Development and Advancement of the Natives, an umbrella for all (56) ethnic nationalities in Plateau State. A survivor of the 17th October, 2017, attack on the frightened natives of Irigwe Chiefdom in Bassa Local Govt Area, claimed that they were lured into a classroom and abandoned there for their assailants to kill 27 innocent natives who could not escape!

CAN'T WE NIP THESE CONFLICTS IN THE BUD? ARE THE ATTACKERS FULANI HERDSMEN OR MERCENERY FULANIS, CONTRACTED FROM NIGER, CHAD, AND CAMEROON? IS FIRE BRIGADE APPROACH THE SOLUTION? HOW MANY CULPRITS HAVE BEEN ARRESTED OR CONVICTED?
BREAKING NEWS: "SEVEN SUSPECTED HERDSMEN WERE REPORTEDLY ARRAIGNED IN A COURT IN BENUE?"
Life is the fresh air that we badly need to keep alive; It is the heat, the warmth, released from the Sun across the earth for the organic; Life is the Gilead Balm that swaps frayed nerves for good health; Life is the spirit in a clay tabernacle; the life of the body is in the Blood. Human life is sacred. Life is precious, it must not be wasted!

We appeal to these psychopaths and their sponsors to repent from destroying human lives which they cannot CREATE! It is written: "God cannot be deceived, whatever a man sows, that he will surely reap. He who kills by the sword will surely die by the sword. AND HELL FIRE AWAITS THE UNREPENTANT, BE WARNED!



I am, yours sincerely, Dr. David B.A. Olufon. 08130669886, 08098194390. 08080243066. g-mail- dvdolufon@gmail.com.