My stomach churned as I read the document published by Uche Onyema from
Washington DC, United States of America, titled “Fulani Hersdmen: Reasons Why Gen
Yakubu Gowon is Silent”. In the said publication, Mr Onyema stated as follows:
“Gowon and his Supreme Military Council thought it would be easy to walk over Biafra and
capture Ojukwu so they decided to launch attack on Enugu to capture Ojukwu. That attempt met with stiff resistance from unarmed youths to the surprise of Gowon and his army.
Mauritala, that beast and a bigot in his zealousness made 2 attempts to take over Onitsha
but was successfully stopped by Ojukwu soldiers. This frustration led to a quick fix that would lead to the worst pact with the devil himself.
In order to aid the Federal Army, Mauritala Mohammed convinced Gowon to bring the
foreign militias called the Godogodo people to fight Biafra. Those who lived or witnessed and
or fought in the civil war are not strange to the atrocities of these people. They were
heartless militias paid to kill and praised for their ruthlessness. Although the Godogodo
people were not trained professional regular soldiers, their duty was to do the military’s dirty job. Massacre civilians, rape and slaughter the already conquered people with hatchet, axe and other dangerous instruments. They are also experts in torture. Anywhere the Federal troops conquered, they would bring the Godogodo people to finish off the civilians. So in some instances the civilians were warned to flee the cities before the Godogodo people would arrive. These Godogodo people were not repatriated after the civil war. Most of them settled in northern Nigeria. The government lost control of them. It is the same Godogodo militias that constitute today’s Fulani herdsmen terrorist group.
Those in the east who witnessed the war will testify about the Godogodo people named after a village in Kaduna of today. So, the Fulani herdsmen are the offshoot or the continuation of the Godogodo people Gowon brought to Nigeria to kill Biafrans. Today they have become the errant virus that eats what it was supposed to protect.
2. Months into the war, Gowon saw that Biafra could not be conquered unless Port Harcourt fell into Federal hands, so he went into pact with the President of Cameroon. In the pact,Gowon pledged Bakassi Peninsula in exchange if Cameroon allowed Nigeria to use its sea route to get to Port Harcourt. We are all aware of how many innocent people that died since the war ended because of this pact. Today the entire people of Bakassi are displaced and no one is talking about them.
3. THE GRAZING ROUTE.
When Gowon and his military found out that Biafra is not a pushover, he entered into
another contract. This time he went to Niger for the help of the Arabs in Africa. In other for Chad and Niger to give the Federal Government the help they sought, Niger and its allies, Benin Republic and Chad Fulanis stated their conditions. That condition was to grant to the Fulani nomads a grazing route from Niger to the Eastern Nigeria. Again Gowon without brains accepted this demand and signed off the arable land of Nigeria to the Fulanis for grazing.Now if you have been listening or reading what the leaders of Miyatti Allah have been saying you would notice one constant claim. They insist that there is international document that granted them grazing route from Niger to Eastern Nigeria. Of all those banning the open grazing, no one has challenged this claim. Did such document exist? Who are the signatories?
Was it rectified (ratified) after the war in which Gowon and the Supreme Military Council was in charge for 6 years after the war?Now we can see why those who fought the civil war and looted Nigeria thereafter are criminally silent over this predicament. The Fulanis claim that Allah gave them our ancestral land to graze. It is clear who the Allah is… Gen. Yakubu Gowon is the Allah that gave our land to the Fulanis”.
I have no reason to doubt the veracity of this story made public by Uche Onyema. It
means there is trouble for General Yakubu Gowon and all the Nigerian leaders who
purported to sign away our ancestral lands to the Fulani herdsmen. We were crying
that we lost Bakassi Peninsula to the Republic of Cameroon and now the Niger
Republic and Chad Republic may claim that they signed an International Agreement
with the Nigerian Government under Gen Gowon that conferred grazing rights on
them to graze their cattle from Niger Republic to Eastern Nigeria. Well, their claim
will not stand in law. A grazing right is an easement or covenant that runs with land
but there are conditions necessary for the easement to be valid. Though it is alleged
that the easement of grazing rights was in writing which satisfies the Statute of
Frauds 1677, the essential omission which destroyed the agreement is that there was
no privity of estate, neither horizontal nor vertical privity. I do not intend to trouble
my readers with the complexities of land law regarding easements but let it be
known that the purported agreement signed by General Gowon granting grazing
rights to the Fulani Herdsmen to graze their cattle from Niger Republic to Eastern
Nigeria is null and void. Therefore, the claim of grazing rights will not stand!
Nevertheless, Gen Yakubu Gowon must be dragged out to give answers to these allegations
Authorized by Emeka Emekesri
