Deadly romance: Fulani herders deploy charms, cash to win Okun women

Okunland in Kogi State is facing existential challenge from the activities of Fulani herdsmen, who are now destroying family bonds by abducting their women – both married – unmarried – for their own pleasure. In most cases, the action is taken under ‘unseen’ duress as the victims generally complain of being overcome by a force they couldn’t resist until they had been severally raped.

Okunland, the Yoruba-speaking part of Kogi State, which straddles four sprawling local governments –  is under lethal siege by herders of Fulani extraction. The herdsmen are not new to the people, as they have been part of their lives for decades living peacefully with the indigenes, mainly inhabiting the fringes of forests.

There, they set up thatched huts along with their families, where they tend to their cattle – some their own, some belong to the wealthy indigenes.

Their relationship with the host communities had been peaceful – some even speak the dialects – but the interactions are usually strictly business. However, all these have changed dramatically.

Genesis of Trouble

When Muhammadu Buhari came to power in 2015, the age-old tradition began to be affected by new momentums, as “herders” unknown to the natives surfaced.  The new arrivals though difficult to distinguish from the ‘natives’, according to Samuel Ayodele, a native of Egbe town, the border community between Kogi and Kwara.

Ayodele confides in Business Hallmark, “subtle tension is often noticed between the new arrivals and the Fulani herdsmen we are used to.”

From Egbe to Kabba, a major town in Kabba/Bunnu Local Government, stealthily beginning from 2015, the two Fulani herdsmen fused into one, and with this came a new mode of relations with the indigenes that borders on the amorous, Ayodele says.

In the various communities of Okunland, according to many accounts,  herders started their own ” Sabongari” ( settler communities), where they set up small markets and where indigenes go to buy meat, cheese and other animal based things they sell.

“At first, we didn’t understand them, if we are selling a gallon of palm oil for N200, we normally sell it to them at the rate of N500, and they will buy it”, says  Madam Dorcas Amupitan, a community leader in Ejiba, a small town, about 15  kilometres from Egbe.

“They are friendly, and before we knew it, some of them learnt our dialects. Many of our daughters started having liaison with them. As I speak to you now in Egbe town alone herders have more than 20 children with our women. This is replicated in many Okun communities. Some married women secretly have affairs with them because of money.

An indigene of Aiyetoro, a town that nestles Kabba, who craved anonymity told Business Hallmark that “We can not blame these herders that are now kidnapping and killing our people, why?  We hear stories of how they compromised our chiefs through money inducement, and sleep with our women; now they can only murmur as the indigenes are suffering.

In Egbe alone, in the past three months, more than four people have been killed. We hear reports of the complicity of our daughters and women, and  even idle young men who have lost  sense of values, they cooperate with these kidnapping gang of herders because of money. They tell them who to kidnap in return for “a handsome return”.

New Strategies

This view is corroborated by many sources. In Kabba, many of the herders have audaciously rented apartments in the town where about 15 to 20 will crowd themselves into two room apartment, the sources hinted.

A story is even told of the Fulani creating a community within a community in Ebira land and installing one of their own as chief.

A retired photo editor, who is an indigene of Kabba, and preferred not to be named, told Business Hallmark that “Here in Kabba, our mature girls are more in love with herders than having a relationship with the indigenes because of money. They roam around with AK47 and they are not harassed by the police. If I carried AK47 now the Police will swoop on me. Many of our people are afraid to go to farm because of the fear of being kidnapped or even killed. Yet, these people are not doing it alone. Our people have joined them. In the past five months I have not left Kabba town for fear of being kidnapped. There was a marriage I was supposed to attend in Kaduna two weeks ago. I couldn’t go because of fear.”

Mojisola , a 27- year old lady, who refused to give her surname, told Business Hallmark in Egbe  that “If they are saying we go out with Fulani herdsmen I will say it is true, but to say we assist them to kidnap or kill our people I will say it’s a big lie. How can we assist them to kidnap our people? They are generous with money and they buy us all our daily needs. That’s why I agreed to be Musa’s girlfriend. He is the father of this my ten months old daughter.”

Mojisola said the communities are now waking up on how to combat the spate of insecurity, but according to her, the exercise will be difficult, given that “We have become fused, they have many children among us.

A chief in Effo Amuro, another Okun community, who craved anonymity, confides in this medium that the Fulani, many of them foreign Fulani, do not allow the people to go to farms.” The irony of it is that they will harvest our farms and come to our markets to sell the harvests to us.

“These Fulani that newspaper people call bandits have ringed Okun land, we are under siege. Look at what is happening in neighboring Kwara, especially in Igbomina land. Both the Kogi, Kwara and Federal governments are not doing anything, our local vigilantes are only armed  with dane guns, how can we confront these Fulani herdsmen with dane guns?”.

In many of the Okun communities, towns and villages, nightlife is erased for now, by 8 pm, as indigenes recede into their apartments for fear of being kidnapped by the same herders their women have fallen in love with because of pecuniary interest.

A mixture of commercial interest, charm, purchased love, greed and apathy has enmeshed the Okunland in a deadly insecurity that has not only threatened their social life, but has struck at the very heart of their  existence.