By Akioyamen Josephine
ABUJA (Sundiata Post) I have just read the post that Mr Fatai Owoseni has been deployed to Benue as the new CP for the State.
On the surface this looks like a piece of cheering news, but if you look closely there is nothing for the hapless and harrassed Benue people to cheer. The NPF, like other security services, is a command and obey structure. In that set-up, the ultimate order rests with Mr President who has the power to fire and appoint. Even if Mr Owoseni is an Orngu Tsav, and is Tiv from Benue he cannot make a difference, except he receives clear orders and instructions to treat the herdsmen militia as criminals and also to rein in the Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore leaders who have been threatening fire and brimstone and those threats are being executed.
There are no signals that the President is willing to give those orders to Mr Owoseni. On the contrary, judging by what the President told the Benue State Governor and his elders to go and accommodate their country men, it is clear that the President’s understanding of the problem and the genocide perpetrated against the Benue people is more in tune with the Miyetti Allah’s argument and insistence than the way the Benue people see it as a matter of law and order being enforced. Even if they appoint an Igbo man as IGP without giving him the freehand to act, he would be powerless even as Solomon Arase was during the Agatu massacre of 2016.
We must sympathise with Mr Owoseni whose reputation for cracking down on crime and criminality is about to suffer a big dent for no fault of his.
If truly President Buhari wants Nigerians to believe that he is not partisan and complicit in these killings in the middle belt, he should speak out in favour of the law for ranching and direct the law enforcement agencies to enforce the laws in those States that have them, viz Ekiti, Benue and Taraba. He should also urge Miyetti Allah to encourage their herdsmen to ranch their cattle. Anything short of this is mere cosmetic action intended to soothe the pains and agonies of the Benue people until the next massacre and pillage by the rampaging herdsmen visible to all except the Nigerian security and Intelligence agencies.
Source: Facebook