WHAT NEXT FOR THE CALIPHATE?

The peaceful caliphate woke up to unprovoked and totally mindless killings by unknown persons who invaded the state from a border town. The killings were brazen as over 35 innocent lives were lost, several houses and other property destroyed and over 10,000 people displaced; who are currently taking shelter in three different internally displaced persons (IDPs) camps.

In addition to suppressed security reports, those that finger the federal government, its agents or likely fanatical followers of some key unnamed political actors at the centre, base their positions on three major planks: Governor Aminu Tambuwal’s recent public comments, condemning the lingering insecurity situation in the nation, in spite of the huge amount of money being spent on security by the Buhari administration. The governor had in his recent media statements, attributed the widespread killings and the seeming inability of the security agencies to secure lives and property of citizens to “failure of leadership” and ineptitude. He had also repeatedly called for the rejigging of the national security architecture in order to make it more effective and efficient.

Secondly, the killings are viewed in certain quarters in the state, as attack on Tambuwal’s novel agric policy, under the “Cattle Breeding, Milk and Beef Production Project”, which is designed to make the state a model of agric hub, essentially in the areas of animal husbandry that is driven by technology as against the current problematic mode of cattle herding in Nigeria.

The successful management of the herdsmen and farmers relations, like governor Ganduje’s invitation to herders all over the country months ago, to come and take over the massive arable land in his state, is said to be offensive to a federal government that is determined to set up cattle colonies. The horrendous killings were curiously carried out in the same Rabah area of the state where this project is sited. Now that fear has gripped staffers and foreign partners, the project may suffer a major setback.

Insight into the Sokoto State agriculture blueprint has a detailed roadmap of a technological template fashioned to dramatically improve the fortunes of the state in the agro-allied sector positively. It is a model designed to provide a realistic framework to be replicated in other states, with a view to bringing a new order of prosperous and peaceful nation, devoid of herders/farmers conflicts. Salihu Abdulahi, Sokoto