When President Muhammadu Buhari was sworn in as the President and the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria on the 29th of May, I updated my Facebook status with a post that said my fears were as high as my hopes. I was deliberately evasive to those who wanted to know about the “fears” part in order to give the new administration the benefit of the doubt.

Well, no need to talk about my hopes in this administration as they are self-evident. Every ministry, agency and parastatal of government is fully functional now, including the almost-moribund refineries. Corrupt government officials have lost sleep due to the new administration’s insistence to bring them to book. There is no doubt that President Buhari is battle-ready to govern this country. But, while emphasis is laid on war against the Boko Haram insurgency in the North-Eastern part of the country, is the president doing anything different from previous administrations to address the increasing acts of terrorism and ethnic cleansing in Plateau State?

In 2007, the late President Yar’adua inherited the Plateau crises from President Obasanjo. Between the 8th and 9th of March, 2009, the residents of Dogo Na Hauwa in Plateau State woke up to a horror beyond their wildest imagination where more than 500 women and children were gruesomely hacked to death at night by Fulani herdsmen. This was followed by myriads of other attacks, sacking entire communities like one would an unproductive employee. The ailing president looked the other way as though Plateau State was not a federating unit in Nigeria. He did little or nothing to address the core causes of the killings besides deploying security personnel, some of whom were accused of participating in the genocides and exhibiting total indifference to the situation of the defenceless victims. In fact, they were only seen after the attacks taking statistics of damage done to lives and property like some chartered statisticians.

The Jonathan administration came with some strong words which sparked hope in 2010. But as soon as the elections were over in 2011, the killing spree resumed with a wider coverage to include Benue, Taraba, Southern Kaduna, Nassarawa and some Gbagi settlements in Abuja. The then president, who was overwhelmed by the Boko Haram insurgency seemed to have no idea of the carnage that was going on in the villages of Plateau State despite the deaths of serving senator, Gyang Dantong, and Plateau Sate House of Assembly member, Gyang Danfulani. The president persisted in his ignorance of the night attacks in the villages until his exit on the 29th of May. This ushered in Baba Buhari as the Grand Commander of the Change Army who raised our hopes.

But the hopes are only proving to be transient. We are unspeakably perplexed by the coldness that characterizes Mr. President’s disposition towards the systematic, well-orchestrated and incessant massacres of Nigerian citizens in the villages of Plateau State by Fulani herdsmen, officially known as “unknown gunmen”. Aside our indefatigable president only dismissing the ugly trend as “farmers/herdsmen clashes” in his most celebrated inaugural speech of “I belong to everyone, I belong to no one”, he has not brought this issue to the front burner with the view to investigating the actual causes, punishing the perpetrators and providing a long-lasting panacea to it. The eight people killed by the gaseous escape in Jos received a presidential condolence but the killings of hundreds, destruction of farms and sacking of villages in Plateau have not. With due respect to His Excellency, it is by no means a clash when women and children are hacked to dead or shot at in their farms. It is terrorism. It is massacre. It is genocide.

While it would appear that President Yar’adua swore to a code of silence to the sustained annihilation of whole villages on the Plateau, President Jonathan seemed to have sworn to a code of ignorance. The pertinent question begging for answer is, to which of these codes has our respectable and amiable president pledged his allegiance? The presidential code of silence or the code of ignorance? Is there a hidden clause that forbids presidents from addressing the Plateau matter? Baba Buhari obviously has the political will and commands the requisite respect to end this abuse of humanity. So what is preventing him from taking immediate action as he is rightly doing with other terrorising attacks in the country?

It may, at first glance seem like this is a Plateau problem, but there were instances where, out of rage, the victims of these attacks blocked highways and attacked innocent travellers. This is by no means a justification for any act of carnage. My point is that we must not wait like we did with the issue of Boko Haram when it was at its embryonic stage, only to be proactive when it became a hydra-headed monster which sought to consume us all. With the killing of any Nigerian citizen in Nigeria or elsewhere, we lose our humanity when we stay aloof. In the words of Martin Niemoller:

“First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out-
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out –
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out –
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me – and there was no one left to speak for me.”
Those close to the president, please inform him that Plateau State needs urgent presidential attention. Community policing and collaboration have stemmed the occurrences of crises in Jos and environs, but not the unabated daily killings in the villages of Riyom, Bokkos and Barkin Ladi.
We either collectively speak out and bring an end to these insane killings now or forever keep our guilt.

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Plateau Massacre: A plea to President Muhammadu Buhari by Bulus Atsen