You may never have heard of this community called Ubulu Uku in Aniocha South Local Government area of Delta State. It is a sleepy, agrarian town which shares deep antiquity with the old Benin Kingdom. Many undisputable archaeological facts support the annals that link some descendants of the town to the mores of the Benin traditionalists. It has rich commercial deposits of kaolin and recently crude oil in commercial quantity has been discovered in the deeper recesses of the red-brown subsoil. It has historically been a reliable source of palm produce, latex from rubber plantations and timbre sourced from its surreal forests.

The people are largely peaceful; the town embodies all the totems of serenity and tranquility. Never one to go up in a wild orgy of violence; never associated with inter or intra-community skirmishes. For the Ubulu people, peace is cultural and peaceful co-existence is a normative emblem that indexes life and living. But recently, that peace, that halo of quietude shorn of the bustle of exploitative capitalism and the lashing whips of modern mandarins and merchants of lucre was punctured. Ubulu Uku swooned in baleful swagger. Pandemonium collided with panic among the people. Seething rage swaddled a people noted for their legendary happiness.

In context, joy of the morning paled into mourning. Men, young and old, beat their chests in morbid regret. The people grieved. They still do. They grieve because their Obi, their king in whom they were well pleased, has transited to join his ancestors. Kings don’t die, they say. And even when they do, it is usually through the natural course of life – old age – not via the whims of the goons. HRH Obi Agbogidi Akaeze Ofulue 111 did not exit mortality via this natural course. He was abducted, then murdered by persons said to be Fulani herdsmen. He was kidnapped at Igbodo town on his way to Asaba together with his Christian brother who later escaped to tell the story.

The Obi is dead, murdered by a marauding mob of human gorillas. To abduct an Obi is sacrilege; to murder same is a clear desecration of the royal diadem of the king, an affront on the people and an attempt to elevate evil over good. But evil can never triumph over good. Every victory scored by the murderers and their conspirators cannot endure; it’s transient, it’s momentary. The monarchy of Ubulu kingdom is deeply rooted in antiquity. Its long history has been void of horror of the magnitude that has befallen the kingdom.

Obi Akaeze Ofulue is dead; despicably killed by Fulani herdsmen. What a profane violation of the regal majesty of the monarch; what impudence and assault on the collective sensitivity of the decent people of Ubulu clan! And thou heartless Fulani herdsman, how dare you lift your scraggy, filthy finger at a lawyer, a royal blood, accomplished businessman and one presiding over a kingdom? What temerity?

The Fulani herdsmen have been rampaging in the Southern part of the country; far away from their homesteads in the North. There is nothing wrong with their nomadic lifestyle and the fact that they have to trudge across states with their livestock. I welcome such movement only in so far as it does not impede the free movement of other citizens; encroach on their farms and fields and imperil their lives as we now see in the case of the abducted and subsequently killed monarch. These same herdsmen have abducted clerics, professionals, politicians, business people and statesmen. Chief Olu Falae is alive to testify. They are mean and menacing as though on drugs. And they must be on drugs or propelled by a fiendish demon. They have no regard for life, human life. They have no respect for persons and institutions, not even the monarchy; such madcap primitive fury from a madding crowd of illiterate herdsmen. They rob, they maim, they kill. They embody evil.

The threat posed by these Fulani herdsmen has been on the increase in recent years. From Abia through Delta to Ondo State, they have done incalculable damage to the psyche of normal minds. Strangely, and this is very disturbing, the Federal Government has been silent on the dastardly acts being perpetrated by this group of Nigerians. Why is President Muhammadu Buhari quiet on this evil visited on Nigerians by Nigerians? Why has the government tolerated the bloodletting and brigandage of the Fulani nomads for years but would unleash full military arsenal against pro-Biafra agitators and irate militants in the Niger Delta creeks? Who arms these herdsmen with AK-47 rifles? The silence from the government seems to have pumped up the confidence of the herdsmen emboldening them to be more adventurous in their murderous mission.

The scourge of the herdsmen has hit a horrendously fatal note and somebody has got to press the alarm button. Somebody has got to take a decisive action to rein in these itinerant crooks flaunting the façade of herdsmen.

The manner Obi Ofulue was abducted and murdered raises a lot of questions. Why did it take Delta State government so long a time to rev into action? What did the state police command do in the early days of the abduction when the kidnappers made contact with members of the monarch’s family? I find the actions of the state government and the police questionable. There was no urgency. The distance between the spot of abduction and the spot where his corpse was found is such that could have been effectively policed in the early days of the kidnap. But we had to wait for two weeks before a combined search party could be dispatched into the forest.

But notwithstanding the cowardly showing of the police, it is obvious that the Fulani herdsmen are waxing bolder and more atrocious because somebody is beating the drum for them. They have inclined themselves on a devious mission to kill because they seem to enjoy some cover from somewhere. Silence cannot be said to be golden in this matter. The President, the National Assembly and the often conceited Nigerian elite class must rise up and condemn this seeping madness on the land. Buhari as chief security officer of the nation must put the herdsmen where they belong: restricted to grazing fields alone; not to people’s farms; not to ambush motorists on highways or undertake a bloody voyage of maiming, kidnapping and killing of innocent citizens. The death of the Ubulu Uku monarch is a wake-up call the government and people of Nigeria must not ignore lest it snowballs into a conflagration that will consume more than we could ever imagine.

Author: KEN UGBECHIE