Armed Herdsmen and Yoruba rural Resistance
By Comrade Kola Odetola
It’s easy for rich and middle class yoruba’s including the radical ones living comfortably in the big cities to dismiss the attempts by poor yoruba’s in the countryside to defend themselves from state sponsored terrorism (islamist herders) as tribalism or ethnic jingoism.
Sunday Igboho
But the day these herders and fundamentalists take over Lagos (and one day they will) -the only natural barrier for them; where they cant ‘graze cattle’ is the Atlantic ocean, the penny will drop and the urban elite will wake up from their complacency – but by then it will be too late.
When that day arrives and these ‘herdsmen’ stop the yoruba educated elite from clubbing, partying, Owambeing stop them listening to music, force their wives jnto the hijab, stop them connecting to the internet, behead them in public for ‘adultery’ and ‘ fornication’ and raise the black flag of islamic fundamentalism over the 3rd mainland bridge, resistance to the herdsmen will no longer be dismissed as tribalism as it is now its the yoruba lower classes bearing the brunt of the assault by these neo fascist armed gangs.
Then it will become a fight for ‘democratic rights’ new revolutionary slogans will be coined, pasdionate speeches will be delivered at international human rights seminars, NGO’s will spring up like mushrooms – But by then it will be too late.
Now its the poor yorubas in the villages fighting for their land, livelihoods and their very lives, a fight that doesnt concern the yoruba middle classes as it doesnt impact their shiny office blocks in Lagos, their access to social media and the glitzy banks where their money resides. Its a tribal, ‘ethno nationalistic ‘sectarian’ struggle.
Baba Ayo Adebanjo
Ignoring the reality that the biggest danger to democracy in the country today are the fundamentalists in the north call them what you will – Boko Haram, ISWAP, Herdsmen , bandits.
They are different branches spouting from the same poisonous root.
They are armed, protected and indulged by a Nigerian state built by British imperialism around the Northern fuedal Oligarchy, – the most backward, the most reactionary and by a country mile, the most retrograde ruling class on the African continent with a mindset frozen, like an iceberg, in the 18th century.
What they are dishing out to peasants in Oyo, Osun and Ogun states will one day be visited on the lawyers, doctors and journalists dismissing the ‘tribal’ struggle in the yoruba countryside. If anyone believes this is about ‘grazing land’ they will soon be disabused of that notion.
If you allow armed herders in the yoruba countryside what argument would you have to stop them settling in Lagos? Is there not grass in Lagos? Where does the grass in Lagos end? – The Atlantic Ocean”.
