Blood in our streets

Twentieth century Chilean poet and 1971 Nobel literature prize laureate, the late Pablo Neruda, struck an intensely emotional pitch in a poem he wrote on the Spanish Civil War titled ‘I’m Explaining a Few Things.’ In that famous work, you couldn’t miss the poet’s deep pathos. And he could as well have foretold Nigeria’s current blight of communal bloodletting, of which the recent rampage in three local governments of Plateau State that left scores of persons dead is only the latest.

Neruda, in the poem, recalled the peace in his corner of Madrid before the fighting broke out: ‘I lived in a suburb / a suburb of Madrid, with bells / and clocks, and trees…My house was called / the house of flowers, because in every cranny / geraniums burst: it was / a good-looking house / with its dogs and children.’

Then, the war came and that idyllic landscape became like sheer illusion induced by a drugged sleep, as the poet wrote:  ‘And one morning all that was burning / one morning the bonfires / leapt out of the earth / devouring human beings -- / and from then on fire / gunpowder from then on / and from then on blood…Bandits with black friars spattering blessings / came through the sky to kill children / and the blood of children ran through the streets / without fuss, like children’s blood.’

Neruda did have a mean view of the assailants. He said they were ‘Jackals that the jackals would despise / stones that the dry thistle would bite on and spit out / vipers that the vipers would abominate!’ But he nonetheless noted that the consequences of their exploits were damning at the instant and into the future: ‘From every house burning metal flows / instead of flowers / from every socket of Spain / Spain emerges / and from every dead child a rifle with eyes / and from every crime bullets are born / which will one day find / the bull’s eye of your hearts.’

The poet climaxed his narrative with a moving portrait of the new landscape, calling: ‘Come and see the blood in the streets / Come and see / The blood in the streets / Come and see the blood / In the streets!’

Nigeria isn’t exactly at war like Neruda’s Spain, but there are floods of blood running in our streets. That is the effect of random killings in communal conflicts and lone wolf insurgency strikes recurring across this country, especially in some northern and middle belt states, which the Buhari presidency just doesn’t seem to yet have a firm handle on.

On the latest score, some 100 residents were killed in a siege by suspected herdsmen on communities in Riyom, Barkin Ladi and Jos South council areas of Plateau State. It was after some spell of peace that deadly animosity flared again penultimate weekend between the native Berom and Fulani herdsmen, leaving a toll of human casualty that was so utterly benumbing, before security operatives stepped in to restore order. The carnage was a consequence, obviously, of mutual intolerance between native farmers and nomadic herders, and of the people taking the laws into their own hands to avenge wrongs by either side. It was initially reported that the herders’ umbrella association owned up to the killings as being in retaliation for the loss of some 300 cows by its members at the hands of members of the affected the communities, but thankfully that has now been denied.

Many people have argued that killer herdsmen rampage so doggedly in the recent times only because the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari appears to condone their exploits, and the government has repeatedly denied that claim. But by the standards of this modern age, killing scores of humans in sheer retaliation for cows would be brazenly licentious and should on no account be accepted as a norm.

Besides, it hasn’t been very helpful in my view that the Presidency, following the Plateau killings, code switched somewhat in a manner that beclouded its determination to firmly tackle the security challenge.

‘Nigeria isn’t exactly at war like Neruda’s Spain, but there are floods of blood running in our streets’

For instance, an initial statement by the Presidency bemoaned how increasingly cheap human life was becoming in Nigeria and accused politicians of fuelling the farmers-herders crisis with intent to gain advantage of some sort towards the 2019 general election. “We know that a number of geographical and economic factors are contributing to the longstanding herdsmen-farmers clashes. But we also know that politicians are taking advantage of the situation,” presidential spokesman Garba Shehu said.

But that same statement, in another breath, appeared to rationalise the bloodletting by saying the Presidency had information that prior to the Plateau rage, about one hundred cattle were rustled by a community in the state, with some herdsmen killed in the process. “The state Governor Simon Lalong had invited the aggrieved groups and pleaded against further action while the law enforcement agents looked into the matter. Less than 24 hours later, violence broke out,” the statement added.

It was reassuring that the President later declared that the government would spare no effort to ensure that culprits of the Plateau killings on no account escape justice. Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo also echoed that line during a visit to the Plateau capital, saying: “The President has said whatever it takes, those that committed this heinous crime will not only be arrested but made to publicly face justice.”

My take is: killing by either side of the farmers-herders divide is a brute act, and I boldly hold that killers of harmless herdsmen just as well as killer herdsmen deserve to face stiff justice. But at the heart of this crisis everywhere across the country is access to land, and that is the core issue the Buhari presidency must address to resolve the security challenge.

Our own Nobel laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, in a statement last week linked the killings by herdsmen to land grab. “What is the ultimate destination of these new imperators? The answer is unambiguous: Land. The seizure of land, either for seasonal grazing, for the lordly passage of cattle, or for permanent settlement. The rights of passage, no matter the cost,” he said inter alia. The icon, therefore, applauded an official pronouncement (apparently by the Plateau Governor) that land grab would be resisted.

But then, the current tension over land wasn’t historically that way. Like in Neruda’s pre-war Spain, Soyinka in his statement recalled his personal experience of Barkin Ladi as “a serene, hospitable town (that) was one of the favourite way stops of my research days across the nation at the very time that the nation took her early faltering steps into independence – in the early sixties.” He added: “Distanced by time, Barkin Ladi nevertheless remains part of a personal, fond, formative family. Is it that same Barkin Ladi that has been put to the torch after the slaughter of her people? My people? If I visit Barkin Ladi tomorrow, will I recognise any landmark of my knowledge-seeking trajectory?”

The Buhari presidency must muster the will to draw a firm line against grazers dispossessing communities of their historical right to landholding if it genuinely seeks to curb the menace of killer herdsmen and the killing of herdsmen. Fudging on this critical challenge would only leave blood longer on our streets, and political opportunists won’t be to blame.