Anchor Borrowers’ Fraud (2)

    Yusuf Yila, Director, Development Finance Department, CBN

This is the second in my article series to narrate a tortuous three-year journey and five applications that unveiled the fraud in the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme (ABP) of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). If you have read the first article, you will quickly grasp this continuation of the harrowing tale of how a cabal in the CBN sabotaged President Muhammadu Buhari’s rice revolution and defied the edicts to make it a success.

Our third application for the Wet Season Maize was submitted at the CBN on February 22, 2021. Because of our sore experience with the Rice Champion, who unjustly blacklisted Comerel Farms, we had to use another company for the Saminaka project. Any person who evaded the CBN Governor’s orders emanating from His Eminence’s intercession in this and any other case must be acting on the strength of the unknown. Therefore, Wallmark Multi-Concepts Limited was the company presented for the maize farming programme in Saminaka. The team was Comerel’s, the one that worked on the ill-fated Sokoto Wet Season Rice project, but with the addition of two experts: one was the Manager of the farm of a former governor of Kaduna State; the other a consultant of repute with World Bank agricultural projects in Nigeria. 

We established an elaborate project and quickly became the go-to company for all farmers in Saminaka and its environs, one of the largest maize-producing areas in Nigeria. More than ten thousand genuine, verifiable farmers enlisted with us. On April 8, 2021, after making its due diligence part in the project, our Participating Financial Institution (PFI) wrote a letter to the Director of the Development Finance Department of the CBN to inform him concerning Wallmark’s application and the Bank’s readiness “to partner with” us “for the disbursement of the funds under” the ABP. 

“As an integral part of our due diligence responsibility as a PFI”, affirms the letter, “we have visited the customer’s farmland to confirm suitability for farming the chosen commodity. Also confirmed is the customer’s access to the farmland and receipt of acceptable title documents of the property pledged as collateral for the loan.” This meant again that our capacity was never questionable. On its part, the CBN visited our farms and facilities for independent inspection on several occasions. It corroborated the PFI on our capacity. The application was approved, or so we were made to believe. 

Before the approval, we had finished the distribution of inputs to the farmers, planting had been completed, and post-planting exercises were already in top gear, with every phase of the exercise recorded on video and sent to the CBN. When the inspection team came again on July 19, 2021, its members marvelled at how we unprecedentedly deployed satellite technology to work wonders. Our new technology was built on satellite data (NDVI) for spatial analyses and Geographic Information System (GIS). Doing it the modern innovative way will enable us to map field data, monitor the farms remotely, and provide valuable information to relevant stakeholders with utmost transparency. In essence, the CBN can monitor our farms and developments from anywhere. With the aid of television monitors, drones were also used to survey the entire length and breadth of our farms. The ArcGIS dashboard with details of farmers and a real-time map of 8,000 hectares of farms (at the time) was shown to the team.

The CBN team has never seen anything like this. They were certain their superiors would jump at the technology for the apparent need. The CBN would later request that we grant them access to the Wallmark Dashboard. We gave a brief explanation of the technology and further details of the dashboard instead since there was no date for the disbursement of the funds applied.

“The Wallmark Monitoring Dashboard is an application of geospatial intelligence for precision agriculture – newly deployed by the company for more than fifteen thousand hectares of maize farms under its 2021 wet season farming in Saminaka. The one-stop agro dashboard provides data for accurate, informed decisions while delivering intuitive and interactive data visualisations that give real-time farm information, up-to-date soil and risk analysis, spatial yield calculation and other location-based analytics that help make insightful decisions, visualise trends, monitor farm status, and provide valuable information,” reads the brief about the technology that can end significant frauds in the ABP. Needless to guess why the company introducing it must be persecuted.

On April 21, 2021, our PFI wrote the CBN to release the funds. “Our customer, Wallmark Multi Concepts Limited”, read the letter, “have (sic) requested for a facility under the Prime Anchor Window of the ABP. The facility will be used to cultivate Maize on 10,000 hectares of land in Kaduna State using the Economics of Production (EOP) amount of N227,203 per hectare.

“We, therefore, request for the release of N2,272,030,100,00 (Two Billion, Two Hundred and Seventy-Two Million, Thirty Thousand One Hundred Naira Only) for on-lending to Wallmark Multi Concepts Limited.”

The CBN summoned all anchors in 2021 Wet Season farming to an emergency meeting on Monday, August 2, 2021, at its headquarters in Abuja. Even though the meeting was for those anchors whose funds were released, the CBN invited some of those who were yet to have the funds, mentioning Wallmark specifically, to attend. At the meeting, our PFI gave a complimentary account of our performance which was not news to the CBN since its team was there several times. There, we learnt that the approval given was for 5,000 hectares as against the 10,000 applied for (without any reason, indeed not based on capacity) and that the funds have been disbursed to the PFI. Really? We were made to understand that ‘the PFI bears the Credit Risk and therefore must ensure that Wallmark satisfies the Bank’s Assessment Criteria (as if that was not done before the PFI called for the release of the funds months earlier) before the CBN approved funds were disbursed. The CBN appeared to pressure the PFI to expedite action and make all pending disbursements before mid-August 2021.

No disbursement of funds was made to Wallmark.

We were summoned to another meeting at the CBN on Tuesday, September 21, 2021, in a letter signed by the Director of the Development Finance Department himself. During the meeting, where we gave every detail of the current situation in the farms in Saminaka with the audiovisual presentation, the DFO rated our operations highly and gave valuable advice on recovery strategy, the number of Extension Agents (EAs), insurance, warehouses and the need for a software for farm operations for monitoring purposes. We thanked him for his advice and clarified that further delay in releasing the funds would severely affect our recovery efforts. He said our funds would be ready “any moment” and that we should keep the pressure on the PFI.

ANCHOR BORROWERS’ FRAUD (1)

So now that you have committed yourself to the rule of Fortune, you must acquiesce in her ways. If you are trying to stop her wheel from turning, you are, of all men, the most obtuse.

Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius

The Constitution of Philosophy

You read it correctly - Anchor Borrowers’ Fraud, a deliberate alteration of the Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) Anchor Borrowers’ Programme (ABP). The aim is to chronicle a tortuous three-year journey and five applications on this fraud that I undertook through agricultural companies in which I have an interest.  

Let me state from the onset that I am prepared to subject myself to questioning in case the EFCC, ICPC or any anti-graft agency finds, in what this piece contains, reasons for further details. 

This is not an invented story. Documents and transaction notifications from our banks support the bulk of the points you are about to read. 

If you do not see the second part or any subsequent edition of this write-up, know that those concerned have found a means to prevent me from writing and publishing it. 

I will avoid mentioning names of people or institutions other than the CBN, its Governor and President Muhammad Buhari, whom I had the privilege of meeting three times on this matter. I have much respect for His Excellency, the President. No other Nigerian leader has done the least of what he hoped to achieve in agriculture. But the people he entrusted with this task have repeatedly betrayed his trust and have not told him the truth. I will revert to this in greater detail. 

During one of our Umrah operations in Saudi Arabia, one of my pilgrims introduced me to the Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) Anchors Borrowers’ Programme (ABP). He was a two-time beneficiary of the programme and, thus, a farmer of ample experience. His suggestion was helpful during the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to the floating of a new company - COMEREL FARMS LIMITED. To his credit, this pilgrim served as a quasi-consultant. He guided us every step of the way, from creating Comerel Farms to opening an agric-account with our Participating Financial Institution (PFI) and a successful application submitted to the CBN on January 20, 2020, for Wet Season Rice. 

We submitted two title documents belonging to our directors, resident in Lagos, to satisfy the Bank’s condition of collateral for the ABP, which will cover the amount applied for the loan. One of the properties was valued at Four Hundred Million Naira Only (N400,000,000.00), and the other was valued at One Billion Four Hundred Million Naira Only (N1,400,000,000.00). 

Comerel Farms fulfilled all conditions, land preparations, engagement of farmers, securing and distributing farm inputs (seed, fertiliser, chemicals), and planting. After a thorough investigation and inspection of our farms in Sokoto, the CBN approved our application and disbursed to our Bank the sum of N1,725,680,000,00 (One Billion Seven Hundred And Twenty-five Million Six Hundred And Eighty Thousand Naira Only) in favour of Comerel Farms. (We still possess the transaction notification of this amount in Comerel Farms' account). Unfortunately, the Bank placed a lien on the account, so we could only access the funds once the Bank did its due diligence in the Land Registry, Lagos, on the papers of the properties submitted as collateral. But the EndSARS protests lingered for a long time and degenerated into violent riots that stalled the entire process. Meanwhile, since farming activities cannot be halted once commenced, we had to continue whether or not we could access the funds. 

The Bank finished the authentication process at the Land Registry in Lagos after the EndSARS riots when Comerel Farms was harvesting its rice in Sokoto. I was summoned to a meeting at the Bank where the then Head of Agric Sales and Value Chain called the Rice Champion at the CBN and put him on speakerphone. He said Comerel Farms should surrender its paddy (rice) to the CBN at N160,000 per ton when a ton was selling at N220,000 in Sokoto. I said if we had used the CBN’s funds in planting the rice, we would have given it without question. However, since other people were involved, input suppliers and myriad creditors, forcing us to sell far below the market price as a condition of the CBN loan was unfair. The Rice Champion said Comerel Farms was acting irrationally and thus sabotaging the efforts of President Muhammadu Buhari to bring down the price of rice. Therefore, Comerel Farms was blacklisted as a company and would no longer be allowed to participate in the ABP. Blacklisting of an anchor can occur when there is a case of diversion of funds in as much as the ABP’s Guidelines stipulate in Chapter Six under INFRACTIONS AND SANCTIONS. We had no access to the funds. Thus, we did not divert any. But we were blacklisted regardless. 

The Champion further said that the money sent in favour of Comerel Farms would be repatriated to the CBN as unutilised funds. And true to his word, on November 24, 2020, our PFI (the Bank) wrote to inform us to “recall that the sum of N1,725,680,000,00 (One Billion Seven Hundred And Twenty-five Million Six Hundred And Eighty Thousand Naira Only) was disbursed to the Bank for on-lending to COMEREL FARMS LIMITED.

“COMEREL FARMS LIMITED proceeded with the land preparation and planting whilst working to provide the required collateral for a complete credit approval. This was not achieved before the commencement of the harvest season.” 

Because of bureaucratic inertia coupled with the EndSARS uprising, as mentioned earlier, we had to find means of completing the farming and harvest without the CBN’s funds.  

“The CBN however” continued the letter, “engaged your company to submit paddy as a form of repayment while the unutilised funds would be rolled over to the dry season farming. There was no agreement in this regard hence CBN has recalled the unutilised funds.” 

How could the unutilised funds be rolled over when nothing was given in the first place?

“In compliance with the request to repatriate unutilised funds,” the letter further stated, “we have repatriated the sum of N1,725,680,000,00 ….”

I was left no option but to report this case to our Ameerul Mu’mineen, (The Commander of the Faithful), who, after listening, made his independent enquiries and graciously intervened, and, behold, within days, Comerel Farms was removed from the blacklisting of the CBN. The Governor instructed us to put in a fresh application for the Dry Season Rice. We did. Approval was given for the new application. We are still waiting for the disbursement of the funds three years on. Nothing. Even though repeated order has been given for the release of the funds from the Director, Development Finance Department of the CBN. Those people who unjustly blacklisted Comerel Farms are so obdurate and brazen in defying the Governor’s instruction and His Eminence’s intervention without compunction or fear of any consequences.  

Our third application to the CBN was in 2021 for Wet Season Maize in Saminaka, Kaduna State. Between this application to the CBN and the fifth on the same agricultural commodity (maise), we had a series of visits by inspectors of the apex bank to our farms and meetings at both the Kaduna office and the headquarters in Abuja. The CBN expects an anchor who applies, for instance, for 2000 or more hectares of farmland to commence work in the fields as if the funds have been disbursed. This means exposure to heavy debts from input suppliers and farm mechanisation outfits. It does not make any financial sense to make applicants spend funds they do not have before their applications are approved. When the funds fail to come, as is typically the case with this fraud called ABP, the creditors make life unbearable for the applicants as the terms of the debts are tied to the mirage in the desert of the CBN. 

TO EVERY PILGRIM AND HAJJ TOUR OPERATOR

Many 4 and 5-star hotels in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia are now planning to employ chefs from Nigeria to oversee the cooking of our local meals during the pilgrimage seasons. This comes at a time when the Hajj and Umrah authorities in Saudi Arabia are working towards having 10 million Umrah pilgrims from all over the world for this year's season. The number will keep rising until it reaches the Kingdom's Vision 2030 mark which, among others, aims at having 30 million Umrah pilgrims annually. Nigeria is a very important stakeholder in Hajj and Umrah which contributes an ample percentage of pilgrims to the holy territories. Service providers in the Kingdom have realised the strong attachment the Nigerian has to his local cuisine. My company has been the vanguard in raising the currency of Nigerian cuisine to the level it is today in Saudi Arabia, especially in 5-star hotels. This is not self-praise; it is Allah's making!

I share, below, just as samples,

 two emails between me and the top management of the Oberoi Medina after our first year of operation there in 2014. Enjoy:

Dear Mr Adel Abdel Hai,

Vice President – Saudi Arabia & General Manager,

The Oberoi MADINA,

OUR HAJJ GROUP

We wish to extend through this medium our appreciation for the services rendered to our group during our stay at The Oberoi Madina for Hajj 2014.

Let me start with you, the Vice President and General Manager, Adel Abdel Hai, for you are the door through which we entered into this beautiful experience with The Oberoi. I recall with pleasant memories our meeting in your office, your warmth, friendliness and openness in the best way to accommodate our group. This expressed good leadership and sound judgment in dealing with new business opportunities. We are extremely grateful for your advice and proper handling of our group.

Mr Yousri El-Maghrabi, Director of Sales & Marketing has been wonderful, meticulous and patient in taking every detail regarding our hitherto unusual requirement in terms of meals for our Nigerian contingent. He spared no effort in arranging meetings with the executives at the Food and Beverages (F & B) department, and even the kitchen. Mr Adel Ahmed Wishahi, the Sales Administrator at his office was very helpful in all issues relating to online registration of Hajj contract, registration of arrival dates for our group into Madinah, etc. Not only that, Mr Adel was kind enough to lead us to the Adillah office in Madinah, and facilitate our speedy possession of the username and password for the Madinan part of the Hajj Contract. He was not content with giving us the description of the Adillah office; he went with us personally. We appreciate that immensely.

Moreover, Mr Yousri El-Magrabi became the nucleus around which everything revolves, because at every point I kept updating him on the needs of the group, arrival details for welcome drinks, and varied check-in/check-out for some of the pilgrims who had a different itinerary with the rest of the group. All was carried out with military precision under his supervision. He ensured, in liaison with the Front Office managers, that our keys were given to us at the right time, as well as upgraded most of our top VIPs to suites and Haram-view rooms.

We cannot find the right words to thank Mr Yousri for his valuable interventions in our debut at The Oberoi Madina. But for him, we would not have been here in the first place.

The Nigerian Cuisine, as I mentioned in our meeting with you, is what made our group distinct from any other. We have been serving Nigerian food at Madinah Hilton for about a decade now. And the best you can do to any Nigerian is to serve them their native meals. In this regard, I will say that Mr Abdelaziz Nadif, the Executive Chef, was the cornerstone of the stay of our group at The Oberoi. At one point, we were regretting leaving Hilton. Things suddenly became bleak! We thought everything would fail. But Mr Abdelaziz, with his quick American accent and Obama-like yes-we-can confidence, said ‘No, we are here to make things work and to tackle all challenges.’ We did not believe him at first. Whenever there was an obstacle he was there to proffer solutions. He assigned quite a number of his staff, (at the head of them Mr Ilyas, his Assistant), to be at our beck and call whenever we needed anything. Mr Abdelaziz also made sure that our cooks are familiar with the modern implements in the kitchen.

In the area of foodstuff, Mr Abdelaziz requested from us a list of all items needed for the Nigerian Cuisine, which I provided. I am happy to report that no item was denied us. Whatever we wanted was there, and where something was not available, Mr Abdelaziz sent for it to be bought and delivered to us immediately. We have not seen this level of confidence, timeliness and efficiency in ANY other hotel.

In addition to up-to-the-minute inspection and supervision of the cooking of our meals, Mr Abdelaziz was hovering between the kitchen and the restaurant; he was the first to taste the meals of the day, to certify the quality and ensure the standard. Our pilgrims appreciated this from him. They love seeing non-Nigerians trying Nigerian food.

Mr Vice President, as I write this email, I can say without any doubt that the Comerel group has not a single complaint with regard to the kitchen and the arrangement for Nigerian food. All that was made possible due to the ubiquitous vigilance, willingness to assist, and inspiration of confidence in making the best out of any situation, of your able Executive Chef, Mr Abdelaziz Nadif.

The services we got, generally, were of a high standard. Your staff are friendly. The ambience of the environment, reception area and rooms was serene and clean. The concierge and bellman desk was prompt and quick in receiving our baggage both at the time of arrival and that of departure.  

Mr Vice President, I am proud to inform you that during our last meeting with the group in Madinah, it was resolved by the majority of the pilgrims that we shall never return to Madinah Hilton, that The Oberoi Madina is now our home! In this regard, our Ramadan package, and that of Hajj will be having The Oberoi as our place of stay in Madinah.

I thank all of your staff that have made this favourable assessment possible.

Thank you very much indeed,

Muhammad Abubakr Siddeeq,

Managing Director.

In his reply to the above email, the Vice President of the Oberoi Group of Hotels wrote:

Dear Mr Abubakr Siddeeq,

 

Thank you very much for your comprehensively detailed email. 

 

Your stay with us was a big challenge as all your group members were VIP clients who demand the highest level of hoteliering and I am very, very happy and proud that we were up to the challenge.  Your email has made me very happy and I have distributed it to all my colleagues so that they share my happiness and be proud of their achievements.

 

Please allow me to compliment you on the selective wordings in your email that explains clearly why your company is the best in Nigeria as they have someone like yourself on top with the ability to memorize the details that you have mentioned which is quite incredible.  I have learned a lot from your email and I hope one day I will also be able to write such beautiful emails.

 

We all at The Oberoi Madina are waiting for your next group so that we could offer better services and once again be up to the challenge.

 

With kind regards,

 

Yours sincerely,

 

Adel Abdel Hai

Vice President & General Manager

The Oberoi Madina

NO WORD OF WELCOME FOR PRESIDENT ERDOGAN

Dear President Recep Tayyip Erdogan,

Since I am not a Nigerian government official, the content of this letter, therefore, is not an official pronouncement from your host or the government of my country.

I find it expedient to correspond with you through this medium while you are still around in my beautiful country before your departure date. I prefer that you take a copy of this edition of LEADERSHIP Newspaper FRIDAY as a souvenir to Ankara.

Your official visit here, I thought, was to strengthen bilateral and diplomatic relations between Nigeria and Turkey but I was taken aback when you ventured out into the issue of terrorism in your speech at the joint press conference with President Muhammadu Buhari. One will be forgiven if they assume that the main purpose of your visit was to pontificate about terrorism. Your feigned expression of concern about the activities of what you called and allegedly blamed for the July 15, 2016, failed coup attempt against your government, the Fethullah Terrorist Organisation (FETO), was apparent to all.

“Distinguished members of the press,” you said in your speech at the joint press conference, “as Turkey, we have been closely monitoring the developments unfolding in Nigeria, our brotherly and friendly nation.

“The terrorist organisations, the armed gangs and the marine bandits are continuously active in Nigeria and the Nigerian authorities are continuously fighting against them. So, in order to cooperate further in the fields of military, defence, and security, we are doing everything that will be available….

“As we’re probably aware of the fact that Turkey has been fighting against terrorist organisations for many decades, such as the PKK, PYD, FETO, DASH and other terrorist organisations.

“The perpetrator of the heinous failed coup of July the 15th, FETO, is still illegally active in Nigeria, and we are continuously sharing our intelligence with the Nigerian interlocutors and authorities. I hope and pray that our Nigerian brothers will forge a closer solidarity in this field with us, the Republic of Turkey. I hope and pray that our visit will yield the most auspicious results and I would like to thank my distinguished brother, President Buhari, for being such a gracious host for me and for my delegation”, you said.

What many Nigerians do not know, Mr President is that you and Fethullah Gulen have been in the same camp under the same movement before you parted ways due to political differences within your Justice and Development Party (AKP). The question is, were you a terrorist then?

What the Gulen movement has brought to Nigeria is Hizmet (service to humanity). Nigeria is a witness to the usefulness of the Hizmet personified in the Nusret Company in the form of its highly intellectual engagements in our institutions of learning where seminars and conferences are regularly convened encompassing various topics pertaining to national development. Nusret has a humanitarian branch that caters for the needs of orphans and widows in our communities offering scholarships as well as providing sustenance to the indigent. We are witnesses to the feeding of millions by the Nusret in the Iftar programmes of every Ramadan and the Adhaa free distribution of meat to those in need in many parts of this country.

In Ufuk Dialogue, another aspect of the Hizmet, we see the efficacy of dialogue as a means to forestall friction, religious crises and advance the need for mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and religious harmony among adherents of different creeds in Nigeria.

Education is the primal purpose of the Hizmet. The Nigerian community as a whole is a beneficiary of this in the NTIC schools across the nation. Mr President, your visit to Nigeria is incomplete without a tour of any NTIC school where you would see the encasement of Nigeria in the school environment in our diversity in languages, tribe and religion all in one place. Wherever NTIC school is found in any state of Nigeria hardly will there be a part of that state that has not enrolled a child in the school. I am a proud parent of NTIC students and I am not a terrorist! I will not even say anything concerning the Nile University, a citadel of learning in the Federal Capital Territory, or even, in the area of healthcare services, the Nizamiye Hospital courtesy of the Hizmet.

Mr President, what I have stated above does not fall within what you called “illegally active in Nigeria” as there is nothing outside the law in what your former allies turned foes are doing in Nigeria. As you said, Mr President, Nigeria is “the oldest allies of Turkey in Africa, having seen 60 years of diplomatic ties.” But is it not a regrettable and miserable relationship, that after 60 years, Turkey has nothing to show as a token of its presence in Nigeria - no schools, no hospitals, nothing? Turkey, unfortunately, under your watch, wants to reap what it has not sowed by taking over Hizmet schools and organisations or having them closed down in Nigeria by conveniently branding them as terrorists. I have an advice for you, Mr President. During your current visit here in Nigeria, let your “gracious host” organise a town hall where parents of students at NTIC schools in the country, for example, will gather so you can address them and say that their children are taught terrorism. I warrant you, Mr President, you will never forget your visit to Nigeria because of the kind of reaction you would receive. Nigerians know who a terrorist is and what he does. Terrorists, Mr President, are doing exactly what you are trying to do - close down schools. They don’t want to spread education among the people. If your government wants to have hospitals, schools, and institutions of higher learning in Nigeria it can do so as our government encourages such ventures. But whoever would hide under a diplomatic curtain to paint a blameless movement with a brush of terrorism to usurp its property, if that is not a terrorist I don’t know how to christen them!

When you said you “have been closely monitoring the developments unfolding in Nigeria”, I am tempted to ask, what help has Turkey offered Nigeria in our fight against terrorists and insurgents for more than a decade now? You even said that “in order to cooperate further in the fields of military, defence, and security, we are doing everything that will be available….” In the Hausa language here we say Mu gani a kasa (let us see it on the ground). They are just empty words, signifying nothing! Terrorism, Mr President, has become a tool with which repressive regimes around the world employ against any dissenting voice or opposition, like those you referred to as the "perpetrator of the heinous failed coup of July the 15th,". When you requested the extradition of Fethullah Gulen to Turkey from American, Mr President, Washington required proof from your government before they extradite him. President Obama made that condition then; now President Biden is still waiting. Produce your proof, if you are truthful.

THE COW-HATERS (2)

The cows are not aware that their hate has become the nexus of discordant political parties through which members could confer and issue edicts. Of course, there is hardly any difference between one political party or another in my country; it is only a means by which people who desire to rule over us shamelessly shuffle themselves from one party to another, for many of them, not for service but self-aggrandisement. The cows are not aware, for instance, that most of those who labelled one of the political parties as a Muslim party working clandestinely to Islamise Nigeria are now trooping into it like locusts. That is politics, they say, it's all about interest!

“There is no good in much of their secret conferences save (in) him who enjoineth almsgiving and kindness and peacemaking among the people..” (an-Nisaa 4:114). Doubtless, a conference that sought to impede the movement of herders and their cattle, a right vested in them by the letter of the laws of the land, was not dispensing ‘kindness and peacemaking among the people.’ If you describe this flouting of the law by the group of 17 haters as something of “questionable legality” their leader, like a wild dog, pants with his tongue out and attacks you (ask Garba Shehu) for working  “assiduously, for extraneous interests whose game plan stands at variance with the expectations of genuine lovers of peaceful coexistence…” as if he was not the one who “ordered cattle herders to leave” his state because according to him they had “encroached” his sanctuary, “government forest reserves''. That unlawful eviction was what Sunday Igboho and terrorists like him were waiting for to expel Fulani settlers from their dwellings, killing those who were obdurate and scorching their huts.  

One would expect a similar reaction from cattle rearing leaders, but their ability to make good judgement prevailed and they admonished caution. Governor Nasir El-Fufai ‘advised Nigerians not to allow the criminal actions of insurgents and bandits to tear the country apart.’ Rascals and vagabonds like Sunday Igboho, I make bold to state, are ubiquitous in this part of the country also, and the governors need not look far if they decide to recruit and goad them behind the scene into mischief and “expel settlers” from the cattle rearing areas! But cattle rearing folks are a special breed of homo sapiens. Dealing with animals makes them discern when a human being is acting like cattle or worse, and they will bring conscientiousness and sagacity to the table and they will not be like them. Many of God's emissaries were herders so they can be trained on how to relate with people of Mr Akeredolu's ilk. That is why people like Governor El-Rufai, at the peak of provocation, called for caution. They demarcate between criminals and law-abiding citizens; they do not paint all with the same brush. “The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him.” (Ezekiel 18:20)

These cow-haters, who pride themselves on superior scholarship and exposure, treat all Fulani as bandits and kidnappers, therefore, they and their cattle are fair game wherever they are found. To them, all cases of kidnapping for ransom go back to one source - Fulani. Now that clergymen can contrive their own kidnap case to make their flock pay the ransom, the Fulani are taking many forms. 

I like the Malami logic: open grazing is the equivalent of spare-part business for the cow rearing areas, and if the image of one is smeared with the iniquitous acts of a few - banditry and kidnapping for ransom, the image of the other is greatly associated with armed robbery, arson, drug trafficking and internet fraud, yet, nobody paints all of them with the same brush. 

As I mentioned in the first part of this piece last week, everything centres on the persona of the President; unfortunately for the cow-haters, Buhari cannot take another form other than being a Fulani. He cannot profess another religion other than Islam. He cannot be born-again to become a member of the cow-haters enclave. All these agitations will die out when Buhari is no longer there. They hate him so much that everything he stands for is gravely affected. Cow-haters are everywhere including people within the inner sanctum of the State House who are part of whatever Buhari is accused of. Why are they so deafeningly silent in the face of these acts of sabotage and hatred directed at their principal? 

“O ye who believe! Take not for intimates other than your own folk, who would spare no pains to ruin you; they love to hamper you. Hatred is revealed by (the utterance of) their mouths, but that which their breasts hide is greater. We have made plain for you the revelations if ye will understand.” (Aali Imraan, 3:118)

The cow-haters, according to the Northern Elders’ Forum (NEF), are encouraging “ethnic monsters and hiding behind them to whip up sentiments” to actualise ‘their sinister motive’.

“It is now clear,” said Dr Hakeem Baba-Ahmad, the NEF Spokesman, in a statement on Tuesday, May 25, 2021, “that elected people sworn to protect the constitution and protect the unity and integrity of Nigeria have decided to surrender to deeply divisive or outrightly irredentist and secessionist tendencies and movements.

“Governors are building ethnic monsters and hiding behind them to whip up sentiments in a crude attempt to extract concessions no one is in a position to give or guarantee.

“A desperate but futile attempt is being made to split the North along lines that suit people who ignore its complexities and plurality when it is convenient to lump all northerners and submit them to humiliation or attacks,”

“In the South-East, governors are yielding their political turf and mandates to secessionists, criminals and subversives who think they can exterminate federal presence and Northerners from the region and achieve dubious political goals related to 2023, or break away from the country.

“In the South-West, elected leaders and pampered ethnic bullies are closing ranks to provide a front that apes the do-what-we-want-or-we-leave-the-country strategy of the marginalised leaders of the South-East.

“The South-South is squeezed between fear and uncertainty and its leaders are gambling that they can benefit from further weakening the federal administration and the North if it rides along with the rest of the South.

“The forum supports a citizen-driven national dialogue and a campaign to get the government to accord its outcome the respect it deserves.

“The forum extends its hands to groups that genuinely believe that Nigerians should demand and design the type of country we want and should not wait for people we elected to set the boundaries and conditions of our existence.

“The forum restates that the North will not be cowed and stampeded into escorting political ambitions of politicians at the cost of its rights, security and dignity,” the statement said.

The Cow-Haters (1)

All the good ideas I ever had came to me while I was milking a cow.

I don't like looking back; I absolutely adore cows.

Moo may represent an idea, but only the cow knows.

The cow is of the bovine ilk; One end is moo, the other milk.

Ogden Nash

If Ogden Nash, in the above epigraph, adores cows, some people in my country hate them with passion. But, wait a minute; is it the cows that they hate or the one that herds them? It is a triangle of hate: the hate of the President because his genome has the herder’s blood, a Fulani; the hate of the cow-owner, the herder because of, largely, his affinity to the President; and the hate of the cow. The cow is oblivious of who is the governor of a state it inhabits or the president of its country of residence, but nevertheless, the cow bears the brunt of acrimony and rancour lurking in the hearts of people who see, in every cow, the personification of Fulani or Aboki who has usurped in vanity what is rightfully theirs through one of their kinsman who happens to be President Buhari. This hatred does not stop at the tribe or race of the Fulani-Aboki, it encompasses the religion they profess.

The evil augury of the cow-haters on the outcome of the 2019 general elections came to naught. What was hidden under the façade of fighting police brutality was exposed in the aftermath of the EndSARS protests. The cows and those who herd them bear the brunt of what the cow-haters failed to achieve by the ballot and the EndSARS protests, while perpetrators of arson, murder of security personnel, and internet fraud claim innocence and compensation in Judicial Panels within the cow-haters enclave.

The cow-haters took strong exception to the image of the cows on the 200 naira note and that of a herdsman shepherding his cows on the new International Passport. Rotimi Amaechi, Minister of Transportation, said recently on the speed of the Abuja-Kaduna train, that “We are doing 90km/h with Abuja to Kaduna, the reason we are doing 90km/h is because there are cows everywhere, and we don’t want to kill cows.” The Minister was undeservedly criticised and ridiculed for making that statement. And yet the cow-haters love to hamper cows by all means and further exacerbate the problem. Recently, some rail track vandals were arrested; anything that favours the cow must not be spared even if it involves the destruction of critical national infrastructure.

They proscribed open grazing (on which more later); they are opposed to cattle ranching or colonies and called it land-grabbing (whatever that means), and they rejected RUGA settlements as nothing but ‘Militia Barracks’ for the herders, as they belied the National Livestock Transformation Plan (NLTP). They are shamelessly opposed to every solution to the problem!

One of the bitterest opponents of any move by the government to proffer a solution to cow-hating is the Governor of the-food-basket-of-the-nation, followed by his brother-governors in the cow-haters territories. In a Nollywood-style dramatisation he claimed to have been attacked by his bête noire, Fulani herdsmen who shot at him, thanks to his fitness, he “ran for more than one and a half kilometres without stopping.” The Governor ended the fairy tale of his attack by armed herders anticlimactically without evidence of gunshots on his person, his security details or any car in his convoy. The Miyetti-Allah-sponsored hitmen were so meticulous in the way they conducted their mission that no harm touched the Governor or his retinue.

This Governor-dramatist merits garlands as the best actor in the 2020-2021 Fulani-hater film festival. His neighbour, Kauran Bauchi, Governor Bala Muhammed blamed his ‘lack of foresight’, ‘controversial utterances and policies’ as reasons ‘for the negative perception of Fulani herders in the country.’

"If you don't accommodate other tribes,” said Bala to the dramatist in a public function held recently in Bauchi, “there will be challenges because we also accommodate other tribes in Bauchi and other places. We have many Tiv people farming in Alkaleri, Tafawa Balewa, and Bogoro in Bauchi State. Has anybody told them to go? No, because they have inalienable rights to be here.

"We have people living in Bauchi for over 150 years, even before the birth of Nigeria. Nobody is talking to them to go and some of them have risen to become Permanent Secretaries in the governments of Bauchi, Borno, and so on."

"You have seen what our colleagues in the southwest and southeastern states are doing. We have told them with all modesty that they are wrong. But the person that is most wrong is my brother and colleague Governor of Benue State, Governor Ortom," he said.

The Bauchi State Governor ‘further lamented that pastoralists in the country, particularly Fulani are being maligned even though most of them have become victims of cattle rustlers who have dispossessed them of their commonwealth and they’ 'have no option than to carry AK47 because the society and the government are not protecting them.'

“Some herdsmen wrote me a letter,” the dramatist responded, “that they will kill me from the way and manner my brother and Governor of Bauchi spoke in support of herdsmen carrying arms, I suspect that he is one among the Fulani who wants to kill me and should anything happen to me they should not look far…”

The dramatist missed the point or has conveniently chosen to impute blame to his brother. Bala said herdsmen suffered a loss of their commonwealth at the hands of cattle rustlers and thus ‘have no option than to carry AK47 because the society and the government are not protecting them.' But the point has been made; our governor-dramatist is the architect of ‘the negative perception of Fulani herders in the country.’

Their political party has brought about a rapprochement and the two governors have buried the hatchet, but I think, with the handles sticking out for future engagement because the dramatist still indulges in his favourite pastime; you cannot teach an old dog new tricks!

The SNGF, a body that ‘has long been moribund’, goaded by their hatred for the cows, 17 of them converged, after years of irrelevance, to discuss security issues as they affect Nigeria presently. In the Communique (which was actually a summary of proceedings for that is not how to write communiqués) issued at the end of the conference, the leaders legislated “the ban on open grazing in the South (including cattle movement to the South by foot);”. By foot? Why not by truck which is faster? The ban should be total. The movement of the much-hated cows should be stopped by all means of transportation to places that do not need them. The poor docile animals are inhumanely transported daily by trucks to the South in their thousands to consumers that begrudge naught save hatred. As I write this piece, innocent wayfarers who look like Fulani are intercepted, lynched and burnt alive, especially where they travel with locally made hunting guns as is their custom in recent times. The SNGF conference was conveniently blind to this reality as it was to daily attacks on settlements and expulsion of Fulani from their dwellings.

God has ways of exacting retribution….

Now that police stations are attacked daily with many officers losing their lives, correctional facilities are scorched and dangerous inmates let loose, and INEC offices burnt to ashes, the cow-haters are not agreed on the proper nomenclature for the perpetrators of these crimes - arsonists, armed criminals, unknown gunmen and whatnot. They are not described as terrorists. Why not christen them Fulani herdsmen that you have expelled from your enclave? Nnamdi Kanu said God has given him a new assignment. Will this be it?

A National Publicity Secretary of a party on Wednesday, (who needs to work on his elocution; he even confused the pronunciation of kiosk with chaos), was accusing the FG of not saying anything on these burnings especially of INEC offices, but if the President had spoken (and I believe he should) such people would nevertheless have said Fulani herdsmen, who, according to them enjoy the tacit support of the President, are more deserving to be addressed than the perpetrators of the crimes. Nonsense!

The cow-haters will not anoint any Fulani for the presidency except he be a wolf in sheep's clothing to devour, in their stead, the cows they severely abhor. Cow rearing folks should be wary of accepting any Fulani candidate in whom the cow-haters are well pleased!