POLSCOPE BY Eddy Odivwri
Sometime in early January 2019, the presidency, I think, sent some top government officials to meet with the Editors of various Newspaper houses in Lagos. There were two ministers: Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi (Transportation) and Chris Ngige (Labour and Productivity); a serving governor, Nasir El-Rufai (Kaduna); and a few other officials.
The meeting was to explain what they described as the “misconceptions” in the public domain. Predictably, the issue of security was one of the major concerns that engaged the meeting that night.
Like many others at the meeting, I was shocked when Gov El-Rufai, in his explanations, declared that the typical Fulani man values his cattle much more than human being. The Fulani cattle rearer, according to him, has nothing else in the world but his cows, and so will defend the welfare and life of the cows with all he’s got, even if it means laying down his own life for the safety and preservation of the cows.