Now that the North too is giving the Fulani eviction notices

On the joyous occasion of the Eid festivities last week, Alhaji Abbas Tafida, the Emir of Muri, a modest empire in Taraba State, made a stunning comment to his subjects and their neighbours, the ubiquitous Fulani herdsmen of the wild.

Having had more than his fair share of sleepless nights over the regular kidnapping of people in villages and towns and the seizing and raping of women in the emirate mostly blamed on criminal Fulani, the emir said, “Because of this unending trend, every Fulani herdsman in the state living in the forests has been given 30 days ultimatum to vacate the forests,” Newspapers like the Guardian, Vanguard and The Punch quoted country freely with their cattle chomping on fodder here and there, settling and breeding both men and beasts. They, and their nomadic lifestyle, were romanticised and celebrated—in calendars, arts and the novels of Cyprian Ekwensi.

As the late American talk show host Tom Snyder once said, “When everything is coming your way, you are probably in the wrong lane.” The Fulani have changed lanes. The flak coming their way reflects an increasing intolerance to the shenanigans of the criminals kidnapping people and ransacking villages all over the country, most of whom happen to be Fulani.

For a group once much-vaunted to suddenly morph into one of the most feared in the nation, with eviction notices being tacked to them from South to North, reflects the lifestyle change we have seen in the last decade or so, from the amiable nomad to the bloodthirsty bandit. A year ago, as reported by Daily Trust on June 26, 2019, in