In what appeared to be a celebration of the 8th anniversary of the havoc it wrecked on Ukpabi Nimbo community in Uzo Uwani Local Government Area of Enugu State, marauding Fulani herders made a return to the local council area between April 25 and 28, 2024, leaving in their wake blood, death, and a badly traumatised community.
When the first and repeated wave of killings was launched on 24th April 2016, the then Governor of Enugu State immediately rallied his team and a horde of his press crew to Nimbo and on sighting the river of blood from butchered helpless women and children was photographed covering his face in what apparently looked like he was crying.
Perhaps thinking it as a most moving headline, the media team of the governor made a paraphrase of the popular Biblical verse in John 11:35: “And Jesus wept”, by casting a headline, “and Governor Ugwuanyi wept” in the press statement distributed to media houses in the aftermath of the sympathy visit.
Angered by this rather cowardly display of what I considered a show of cosmetic emotion, I took to social media to express my dissatisfaction. A series of articles would later inspire a phone call that paved the way for me to meet Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi for the very first time.
I still recall our first meeting in his office along with one of his political godsons, Malachy Agbo, who later became the chairman of Igbo Etiti Local Government Area. After a lengthy discussing during which the governor blamed everyone in his team except himself for the untidy outcome of the killings, he asked me, with his eyes directly on mine, what I could have done were I to be the governor of the state.
I did not hesitate before telling him my response was not going to be immediate and he graciously asked that I go home and think about the solution.
Back to Lagos and after a few days of reflection, I put together a proposal for the establishment of a vigilante security outfit across the state with formations from community, through wards, up to what I proposed to be a central state command. When I was through, I first sent this to Agbo, who encouraged me to send it to the governor’s email addresses and once he read it, he gave me a call, commending my recommendations.
About six weeks later, I received a call from Ugwuanyi inviting me to Enugu. Upon arrival, the governor informed me that the State Executive Council had approved my proposal and that there was already a plan to inaugurate the outfit the next day. Apart from his belief that I should be there, being the person, whose idea led to the establishment of the security outfit, he also asked that I provide the name for the organisation.
While giving me this assignment, he informed me that some people had recommended Forest Rangers as a name for the outfit, and to this I vehemently disagreed, and on his prompting, I offered that the name would not work for two reasons. First I told him the outfit was going to compete with Rangers International Football Club, the pride of eastern Nigeria that helped the people cope with the brutal aftermath of the civil war. Secondly, I made him understand that forest rangers is a name for special security officials that guard forests and wildlife.
Ugwuanyi asked that I go ahead with a name suggestion and at about 2 am the next day, I sent a message to his WhatsApp account, informing him Community Marshall. I went to the extent of drawing a badge to be worn as a symbol of identification by those hired to work in the outfit.
Less than 20 minutes after sending the message, the governor called me to offer his regrets that although the name I recommended sounded good, it was not going to be adopted because the speech he was going to read at the inauguration ground had been written. He then asked that I join him at the Government House for the motorcade to Okpara Square, and I declined, offering instead to book the earliest flight available to return to Lagos.
I watched in pain as the heart and soul of what I recommended were bleached by politics and lip service to become just another platform for patronage and political witch-hunt. From the Enugu State Vigilante and Security Service (I think that was the name they adopted) to Enugu Forest Guards, the outfits turned into weapons of intimidation against the opposition. It also became the source for political sloganeering through which the governor buoyed his employment generation credentials. This left the very reasons why they were established lost in the cobwebs of insincerity that is the DNA of most projects the government did not want to work.
The Fulani herders have never let many communities in Enugu State enjoy their peace since then. But they returned with renewed viciousness and as at the last count, more than eight men have been picked from farms, homes, and streets, delivered to their homes in wheelbarrows in preparation for a burial by people who are not sure if it would be their turn the next day.
In all these, no one has heard a whimper from the Grand Maximum Ruler of Enugu State, Peter Mbah, whose government generously carved swathes of Uzo Uwani land as gifts to the Fulanis, perhaps in appreciation for acts such as this and previous ones.
I remember a joke shared around social media days after the naira began its wobble against the dollar; someone had created a meme, saying he never realised a day would come when he would look back to the administration of Muhammadu Buhari with great longing. Recalling that joke now, it becomes strange that some of us are looking back to the rather ineffectual administration of Ugwuanyi with intense nostalgia.
Ugwuanyi came to Nimbo to commiserate with the survivors of the 2016 massacre. But the one that took the reins after him apparently doesn’t even see us as worthy of his tears, even if it would be the crocodile form as many suspected was what Ugwuanyi shed during his time.
How time changed everything. Throughout his eight years in office, all Ugwuanyi wanted to be remembered for was being a godly governor who superintended a peaceful state. He invested heavily in this enterprise and took advantage of every visit by any person outside the state to extract endorsements for Enugu as the most peaceful state in the country. His slogan, “Enugu State is in the hand of God…” was crafted to leverage the peace he wanted everybody to believe he singlehandedly brought to the state.
That peace, from the situation of things in Enugu State, appears to have followed Ugwuanyi out of the Government House to his Ohom Orba community and I am sure the people of Enugu State will willingly constitute themselves into a search party in the quest for a return to the Ugwuanyi era kind of peace, even if it was contrived or acquired at great costs.
We honestly miss Ugwuanyi. By now, he would have visited all the spots where the killings took place, dishing out cash to launder his plethora of excuses and/or buck-passing, but the people would see that at least their governor had shown his presence and marked the register of compassion.
When this one bulldozed his way into office, the thinking, based on how he was packaged, was that an action man had come down to us in the likeness of a governor. But do not even know what we have got. During the campaigns, we all heard him promise Uzo Uwani people a university of agriculture among many other projects. They made good music to the ears and unlike all other parts of Enugu North, Uzo Uwani people voted heavily for him.
But months down the line, the reward for helping him into office was an announcement that a swath of Uzo Uwani land was going to be gifted for ranching to the same people fertilising the grasses of the proposed ranch with the blood of the people.
Those who try to explain away Governor Mbah’s rather unsettling silence over the deteriorating security situation in Enugu State as stoicism, are missing the point. No one is interested in hearing his voice. People heard enough under Governor Ugwuanyi and now, what they want to see are the things that show the presence of empathetic humanity in the leadership of Enugu State. He can be as aloof as a hermit wedding guest, but let his action announce his presence.
During Ugwuanyi’s time, I was aware of his pacification strategy. The future of his politics did not permit decisive action, and in exchange for some respite that would preserve his peaceful Enugu slogan, he horse-traded quite a lot.
But this is not what the people want now. Those killing Uzo Uwani people have been called out and mentioned as Funai herders. Their routes are known, their camps are identifiable, and if the security outfits available to the government of Enugu State are not adequate, local community people should be equipped to defend themselves and put to end the arrogant and reprehensible impunity with which pestilence is visited by human beings upon their fellows.
Mbah should not weep. But let him sweep; sweep crime, killings and criminality out of Enugu State.
