The year 2024 began on a sour note for my hometown after a wave of murderous attacks by Fulani herders resulted in the loss of many lives. Suddenly, I realized I had no more a place to call an ancestral home to visit. It was quite surreal that a place where I had lived all my formative years had been wiped out and about to be supplanted by a violent group of killers.
On April 4, for the second time this year—2024, over 200 well well-armed Fulani herdsmen attacked Agojeju-Odoh in Omala LGA, Kogi state Nigeria. The attack resulted in the death of 25 men (mostly), women and children. On January 30 this year–2024, the same Fulanis attacked my hometown and killed four men without any provocation. My hometown was sacked and deserted. I know almost everyone that was massacred. Just like a dream, every other person that survived the carnage like my own immediate Sister became destitute from their ancestral homes and living at the mercies of neighboring villages. Lately, those other nearby villages have been attacked by the rampaging murderous bloody herders.
Left at the mercies of killer herdsmen and overwhelmed at the sad news that kept coming online via different platforms, it has not been easy managing the despair and trauma of my people like Nehemiah (Nehemiah 1:2-11). Until it happens to your community, the violent and destructive activities of different groups that have taken the toga of “bandits” a euphemism for killer herdsmen and terrorists for political correctness may seem like a distant incidence news. It is however an existential conundrum that is about to upset Nigeria as we know it, if these none state actors are not dealt with now.
Our current food shortage and the rising number of Internally Displaced People (IDP) are both products of the activities of bandits. Farmers can’t go to farms because they have become refugees in our urban areas. It is in the light of these developments that the news of the visit of Kogi State governor, Usman Ododo to my village—Agojeju-Odoh on (05/04/24) stands as a beacon of hope.
The governor’s visit marks exactly a month after the most consequential evil to visit my people by the Fulani herdsmen who came via Bagana, a town where they have pitched their abode as they strategize to fan out to other areas in Omala local government areas. It was indeed a day of infamy to have about 27 of your compatriots and relations murdered in the most gruesome manner in one fell swoop. Since then, a couple of government officials from the national assembly and the deputy governor came to Abejukolo, the LGA headquarters for political/media grandstanding and photo-ups without visiting Agojeju-Odoh. Until the governor’s visit, I had given up on institutional governance and responsibility as a measure of relevance in the Nigerian society.
Governor Ododo’s visit is a delightful reassurance to the residents of my hometown who survived the genocide of April 4th that they have a governor who is both concerned and in solidarity with their welfare. However, Governor Ododo’s narrative that my people were victims of a fallout from two warring communities outside their territory is to say the least disingenuous. Whoever sold this narrative to the governor as his talking point is not interested in finding a lasting solution to the ‘kill and grab-land’ mentality of the perpetrators of the heinous acts. The large-scale murder of indigenous farmers and rural dwellers that has been taking place in the middle belt of Nigeria and southern Kaduna for decades have been without doubt due to playing the Ostrich mentality of not naming and shaming the perpetrators by not going after them to bring them to justice. The approach merely elongates the evil days for all vulnerable communities.
Governor Usman Ododo is probably the first Kogi State governor ever to go so far a field to a place like Agojeju-Odoh not as a candidate canvassing for their votes but to identify with their loses and pains. The governor for this singular act of responsibility as the executive governor of the state has earned my respect and honor. It shows courage and humanity on his side and the advisers around him.
The governor must have realized during his visit that like most rural towns and villages in the commonwealth of Nigeria, Agojeju-Odoh is an agrarian settlement. Our people practice subsistence agriculture for self-sufficiency. We don’t look out to any government for handouts and dependency. But we need a secured and peaceful environment to practice our vocation, provide for ourselves and sell excess to others in a normal economic transaction with others. Can his visit deliver that environment to the People of Agojeju-Odoh and others in Omala communities?
With the enormous power the state government wields in our democratic dispensation, no one doubts the capacity of governor Ododo to guarantee a violent free space for Agojeju-Odoh people to return to a semblance of the life they had lived before the merchants of death unleased the most violent acts on them in a lifetime. Those who killed and dismembered the 27 killed on that day of infamy are known to the villagers because they met them feed their cattle with the farm produce on their farms. The people know the encampment of the Fulanis in the forests that surround the village. So please Governor Ododo please give us a break by putting in place a security system that takes account of stopping the killers we already know from killing the unarmed farming communities who have become soft targets to their murderous cult.
– Paul E. Attah
attahpaul@hotmail.com
Pastor, Solace Christian Ministry,
Kennesaw GA, USA.