Herdsmen and crabs swimming in Benue's river of blood - Newstrends
Connect with us

Opinion

Herdsmen and crabs swimming in Benue’s river of blood

Published

9 months ago

on

Tunde Odesola
Tunde Odesola

Herdsmen and crabs swimming in Benue’s river of blood

Tunde Odesola

(Published in The PUNCH, on Friday, June 20, 2025)

Long before man dug a hole in every inch of the earth searching for oil, the crab had been in the business of oil drilling. The crab’s house – I mean its burrow – not its shell, is an oil rig at work.

For many Great Akokites, the most beautiful site in the University of Lagos isn’t the 13-storey Senate Building or the golden auditorium – it’s the Lagoon Front. The Lagoon Front is the wide-armed rendezvous where the vast Lagos Lagoon kisses Akoka’s scholarly shoreline, ohing and ahing as water caresses the bank…swoosh, slosh, splosh.

By day, the Lagoon Front is home to thinkers. By night, it’s a love nest to Romeos and Juliets exploring a soft-lit Eden. I was both thinker and wanderer, often tracing the scenic curvy road past the Lagoon Front toward the vice chancellor’s lodge, feet shuffling, thoughts flowing. Great Akokites! Great!

As a student, I was a regular daytime visitor to the Lagoon Front. There, I encountered the crab in its natural habitat. Its burrows were filled with oil water, and I always wondered what the crab had to do with oil. It never occurred to me to research the phenomenon.

But the song of Adawa King, Admiral Dele Abiodun, the Juju maestro, keeps whispering to me, “Epo ti alakan won se, lati bi odun mejo, ko i t’agolo ofo lo ja si,” meaning: “The palm oil being produced by the crab since three years ago, has not filled a single tin – wasted labour.”

Does the crab produce palm oil? I have answers now. The crab does not produce oil. Science says the claw-bearer burrows into mudflats, mangroves or brackish wetlands, where there’s a high amount of decaying organic materials like leaves, algae, or animal waste.

READ ALSO:

As these materials decompose, they release natural oils, fatty acids and hydrocarbons, forming the shiny or oily film that cloaks the crab’s burrow. Also, some crabs produce mucus-like substances to reinforce their burrows or line the walls. These secretions can reflect light and appear oily, especially when wet. Science washes oil off the burrow.

However, a morality tale in African mythology tells a story of the crab known locally as Akan or Alakan. The Akan isn’t just an armoured crawler, it’s a drunkard, a debtor, a trickster, who frequents the bar of Adaba the Dove, a brewer and merchant of enjoyment.

Regularly, the crab crawls sideways to the dove’s bar, drinks and stands up to go. “Where’s my money?” the dove asks. “I’ll pay you when I come tomorrow,” the crab replies.

The next day, Mr Crab, carrying his pincers like armoured tanks, comes visiting, drinking and enjoying himself. Dove: “Where’s the money for the drinks?” Crab: “I’ll pay you tomorrow.” Days turn into weeks, and Akan fails to fulfil his promise. A shouting match ensues one afternoon. Then, friends advise Akan to go and tell a debt collector — the slithering, cold-blooded Ejo the snake, whose business nomenclature is ògò – debt collecting.

The snake agrees to help Adaba retrieve its money from Akan. So, before Akan arrives the next day to binge, the snake is already seated. After drinking, the crab gets up and heads for the door. “Hey! Where’s my money?” “I’ll give it to you tomorrow.” The dove pounces and calls on the snake to help retrieve all his money. Wahala!

No one has seen the crab run so fast. Maybe the drink was anabolic steroids to its 10 legs. But the snake followed in hot chase, with the dove flapping behind them, cooing, “Bere mu kun-kun, bere mu kun-kun,” meaning – Grab it tightly! Grab it tightly!” But the crab narrowly makes it into its burrow. And, the dove becomes even more agitated, cooing wildly, “Bere mu kun-kun, bere mu kun-kun.”

READ ALSO:

This is a tricky test for the debt-collector, who pauses outside the burrow. Eventually, the snake inches its head into the burrow slowly; there was darkness and silence, then a sharp snap – ‘pai’ – and the snake swirls back outside in severe pain, writhing on the ground without its head. The debtor decapitates the debt collector; the crab has done its worst.

Nigeria is a crab republic. Since 1999, corruption wore a green-white-green agbada and sat in the saddle of democracy inside Aso Rock, aiding and abetting the crabs called leaders. Nigerian crabby leaders share similarities with the storied crab. Both sets are debtors, drunkards and tricksters.

Though aeons set the fabled crab and Nigeria’s crab-leaders apart, both are experts in fakery – producing fake oil, selling fake hope, and repaying kindness with evil. Nigerian crab leaders are meaner than the devil.

Where else but in the crabholes of Nigeria do herdsmen slaughter villagers by the hundreds without a single arrest? The crab government knows the killers, but peasant lives don’t matter in the burrows, nor do they matter in Benue, the current scene of bloodshed. Herdsmen are gods. Peasants are dogs.

The serpent swallowed its tail a long time ago when Jona-Dumb looked for his shoelace while the nation burnt, and the skeletal tyrant handed over the country to herdsmen before heading to Katsina ranch. Now, the mafia lord, cigar between clenched lips, presses down his Chicago boots on the masses’ neck, toasting to his impending 2027 electoral victory. “It is my turn!”

Since Olusegun Obasanjo’s reign, herdsmen have painted Nigeria red. Yet no killer has ever worn handcuffs (except once), no machete has been brought to court. But the DSS – Department of Supression and Suffocation – is hounding the call for a shadow government.

READ ALSO:

There is a WIKEd crab in Abuja, roaming freely and wildly – claws up, ready to fight even its own shadow. He epitomises the crab mentality that defines Nigerian politics – drag others down, cling to power, oppress the oppressed, kill and loot.

For security purposes, the mythical crab safeguards its carapace with its protruding eyes, “oju ni alakan fi n sori,” but the crabs lording it over Nigeria don’t give a hoot if herdsmen level a whole state since they have armed escort, armoured cars and their hands in the till.

If you think that Nigerians don’t know that President Bola Tinubu’s visit to Benue was just a photo opportunity aka photo-op, which will not stop the next bloodbath, take a look at the photo of the mother sitting by the wounded child’s bedside in the hospital when the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, George Akume, came calling. Her stare was icy, helpless and distant as if Akume and his well-fed band never existed. The picture captures Nigerians’ regret and loss of hope in the Tinubu government.

Popular social media influencer, Martins Vincent Otse, aka VeryDarkMan, visited Yelewata and interviewed an unnamed resident in the aftermath of the pogrom. The resident said the police engaged the killers, who later used another route to enter Yelewata and massacre.

Specifically, the resident mentioned Fulani herdsmen as the perpetrators of the mass murder carried out on the rainy night. Yes, rain fell, blood flowed, and the government yawned.

As national leader of the All Progressives Congress, I remember Tinubu disagreeing with those accusing herdsmen of being the killers of the daughter of Pa Reuben Fasoranti in 2022. Tinubu had asked, “Where are the cows?” But the police later arrested the killers, and the court sentenced them to death.

I implore Tinubu’s DSS to carry out a nationwide investigation to unravel if the herdsmen rode into Yelewata on cows. Maybe they will find some chewing cud beside the burnt corpses.

In Nigeria’s crab empire, cows roam, killer herdsmen thrive, lands abound without food, and oil wealth is meaningless. What is the name of a big-for-nothing country?

Email: tundeodes2003@yahoo.com

Facebook: @Tunde Odesola

X: @Tunde_Odesola

Herdsmen and crabs swimming in Benue’s river of blood

HostArmada Affordable Cloud SSD Shared Hosting
Related Topics:
Advertisement

Opinion

The world dislikes the weak, by Hakeem Baba-Ahmed

Published

1 week ago

on

March 3, 2026

By

Former Northern Elders Forum spokesperson, Hakeem Baba-Ahmed
Former Northern Elders Forum spokesperson, Hakeem Baba-Ahmed

The world dislikes the weak, by Hakeem Baba-Ahmed

The world dislikes the weak, by Hakeem Baba-Ahmed

HostArmada Affordable Cloud SSD Shared Hosting
Continue Reading

Opinion

Our children must be kept away from Obi’s mob

Published

2 weeks ago

on

February 28, 2026

By

Vincent Akanmode
Vincent Akanmode

Our children must be kept away from Obi’s mob

Any Nigerian with an iota of conscience would be miffed at the content of a video that trended on the social media during the week. It was the motion picture of three children whose age ranged between 10 and 12 professing to be supporters of former Anambra State governor and presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP) in the 2023 presidential election, Mr. Peter Obi. Oblivious in their pristine innocence that they were being initiated into the triple crimes of lying, cheating and forgery by those who contrived the issuance of voter cards to them, they heartily flaunted the cards meant only for adults above 18 years, threatening to vote Obi in the 2027 elections like they did three years ago.

Instructively, it was Obi’s supporters, led by the then Chief Spokesperson for the Labour Party Presidential Campaign Council, Dr. Yunusa Tanko, who embarked on a peaceful protest in Abuja against alleged registration of underage voters in the build-up to the 2023 elections.

During the campaign rallies that preceded the 2023 elections, the world had watched with bated breath as a 15-year-old boy identified as Alabi Quadri jumped into the road arms outstretched as Obi’s convoy approached during a campaign rally in Lagos. I was personally alarmed at the stupidity of young man’s action, seeing the possibility of him being hit by the advancing convoy of vehicles. But while I thought it was the dumbest act anyone could muster, Obi, rather than rebuke Quadri’s foolery, alighted from his vehicle, walked towards the scallywag and embraced him in the full glare of cameras. Obviously, the Labour Party presidential candidate was in full agreement that the rascal did very well staking his life for his (Obi’s) presidential ambition.

READ ALSO:

Obi, who had earlier prided himself with not giving shishi (a dime), reportedly rewarded Quadri’s foolhardiness with an unspecified sum of money, which later put him into trouble with his colleagues and earned him a stay in Kirikiri prison for about three months after an alleged frame-up for armed robbery by some thugs in his Amukoko (Lagos) neighbourhood, who were said to be angry that Quadri did not deem them fit for a slice of Obi’s cake. They handed him over to the police, who kept him in custody until some human rights activists intervened and secured his release.

Not surprisingly, many other admirers of Obi celebrated Quadri’s display of obtuseness as a heroic act worthy of emulation by anyone worth the helm of the presidential aspirant’s black gown. Little wonder the teenager’s example has since caught on among his followers with other dumb actions and utterances. Last week, another youthful follower of the mob took the malady to the precincts of blasphemy, saying that Jesus Christ would lose if he contests an election with Obi in Nigeria. And rather than condemnation, this reckless delivery has enjoyed the approval of many Obidient members in a country where religion is as sensitive as the mimosa plant.

And before the dust generated by the sacrilegious utterance could settle, another teenager identified as Mc Aha from Imo State said he would gladly sacrifice his father and mother if that was all Obi needed to become the President of Nigeria. Commendably, the teenager’s obviously embarrassed father did not allow his son’s misguided utterance to go without a consequence. Convinced that the teenager’s outburst bordered more on crime than insanity, he ignored psychiatrists and psychologists and promptly handed his errant son over to the police.

I felt a sense of vindication on learning about the young man’s utterance, because a day or two earlier, I had been viciously attacked on Facebook for sarcastically posting that I once thought of becoming an Obidient but was discouraged by the long and tortuous process of having to undergo a surgery that would remove my brain and replace it with sawdust!

The question then arises: what exactly is the Obidient movement teaching our youths? What impact do Obi and his followers hope to make on the impressionable minds of innocent young boys and girls with the negative messages being passed to them by their mostly reckless, aggressive and abrasive older colleagues? A group that has turned discourtesy into an art. A group that has no place for the African culture of respect for the elder. A group to which age means nothing but sheer number. They address the elderly the same manner they do their apprentices and attack statesmen and eminent public office holders with the venom of a snake. A group whose leader is making a career of de-marketing his country and presenting his land of birth as the heaviest burden the rest of the world bears. What impact?

Our children must be kept away from Obi’s mob

HostArmada Affordable Cloud SSD Shared Hosting
Continue Reading

Opinion

History and psychoanalysis of El-Rufai’s troubles with Ribadu – Farooq Kperogi

Published

2 weeks ago

on

February 28, 2026

By

Kperogi is a renowned columnist and United States-based Professor of Journalism 
Farooq Kperogi

History and psychoanalysis of El-Rufai’s troubles with Ribadu – Farooq Kperogi

Given the depth and intensity of the friendship they cultivated over decades, many people are befuddled by why the personal conflict between former Kaduna State governor Nasir El-Rufai and National Security Adviser Nuhu Ribadu has burst into the open with such virulence. As I’ll show, it’s inspired by deep-seated envy, ego trip and bruised self-construal.

Both were born in 1960 (with El-Rufai being about nine months older), graduated from ABU in the 1980s (with El-Rufai graduating three years earlier), have a reputation for boldness and outspokenness, and were stars of the Olusegun Obasanjo administration.

From the outside looking in, it appears to me that although both men had mutual admiration for each other, the scale tilted a little in favor of El-Rufai. I say this for at least two reasons.

One, according to a recent social media post by presidential aide Gimba Kakanda, who appears to be close to both men, Ribadu named his son in honor of El-Rufai. I am not aware that El-Rufai requited Ribadu’s gesture even though he has had boys. If my assumption is wrong, I apologize. If it’s right, that bespeaks a deep, unspoken, but nonetheless significant inequality in admiration.

Second, on page 358 of El-Rufai’s 2013 autobiography titled The Accidental Public Servant, which has made the social media rounds, El-Rufai revealed that when the late Umaru Musa Yar’Adua sought Ribadu’s support to be president and said Obasanjo had already endorsed him, Ribadu rebuffed Yar’Adua, saying, “Well, Obasanjo has not told me, and as far as the presidency is concerned, I have my candidate for president, and that is Nasir El-Rufai. I am going to have to speak to Obasanjo about this.”

So, El-Rufai internalized the asymmetry in their admiration for each other. He took for granted that Ribadu thought higher of him than he did of Ribadu. There can be no greater endorsement of this fact than Ribadu’s perception that El-Rufai was the best Nigerian qualified to succeed Obasanjo.

READ ALSO:

However, in 2011, when Bola Ahmed Tinubu was shopping for a young northern candidate to fly the flag of the ACN, he commissioned a public opinion poll to determine which northern candidate enjoyed the most national acceptance, according to Akin Osuntokun’s February 20, 2026, Arise News interview.

Osuntokun not only worked with both men during the Obasanjo presidency, he is also friends with them. Plus, I’ve heard this story from several people close to El-Rufai and Ribadu, but this is the first time it’s out in the open.

Osuntokun’s revelation that the national poll showed Nuhu Ribadu with a significantly higher rating (about 45 percent) compared to Nasir El-Rufai (around seven percent) is consistent with what I’ve heard.

Based on that result, Tinubu backed Ribadu’s candidacy within the ACN. It also marked the beginning of Ribadu’s relationship with Tinubu.

El-Rufai’s exaggerated self-construal of his superiority over Ribadu was badly shattered, and he couldn’t take it. But I am not surprised by the outcome of the poll. It occurred at the height of Ribadu’s popularity in the country.

As I pointed out in a past column, my own paternal uncle, a UK-educated health professional, named his son Ribadu, not Nuhu, in honor of Nuhu Ribadu’s exploits at the EFCC. When I told him Ribadu is the name of a town in Adamawa State where Nuhu hails from, he was surprised. We still laugh over it.

El-Rufai’s ego was badly bruised because he had a hard time accepting that Ribadu, who didn’t think of himself as presidential material in 2007 and who instead thought El-Rufai should succeed Obasanjo, should be considered worthier of being president in 2011 by more Nigerians. As a result, the previously impregnable walls of friendship between them began to collapse irretrievably.

By 2015, El-Rufai rode on the coattails of Muhammadu Buhari to become governor of Kaduna State. According to people familiar with the dynamics of their relationship, El-Rufai studiously used his influence in the Buhari government to exclude Ribadu.

But by 2023, when Tinubu became president, Ribadu got his groove back. El-Rufai believes that the rejection of his ministerial nomination by the Senate on “security” grounds was inspired by Ribadu, who was retaliating for El-Rufai’s own underhanded exclusion of Ribadu during the Buhari presidency.

READ ALSO:

Most regular people with no hangups would take it in their stride and wait for their “time.” But El-Rufai isn’t a “regular” person. He must be in on the action or everything must be scattered. So, he set out to do at least three things to get at Ribadu: 1. Show that Ribadu is dangerous and vindictive. 2. Show that he is incompetent. 3. Show that he is a craven fellow who can’t return, much less match, El-Rufai’s lethal rhetorical salvos.

These points overlap. If you are vindictive but are afraid of being seen as such, then you’re a coward. If you’re a coward and you control the security of the country, then you’re also incompetent. If you don’t respond to my personal attacks, it’s because you fear that I’ll reveal more damaging information and also lack the rhetorical and intellectual firepower to fight back, which harkens back to your fitness for the job of protecting the country.

Of course, El-Rufai knows that Ribadu is anything but a coward. In The Accidental Public Servant, El-Rufai recounts an incident from their undergraduate days at Ahmadu Bello University to illustrate what he presents as Ribadu’s boldness.

According to El-Rufai, Ribadu was confronted by an armed robber who pointed a gun at him. Instead of complying or retreating, Ribadu slapped the robber and challenged him.

El-Rufai told the anecdote as an example of Ribadu’s fearlessness and impulsive self-confidence during their student years and to sketch Ribadu’s temperament early on, suggesting that Ribadu’s later public persona as an anti-corruption crusader was consistent with traits visible even as an undergraduate.

In his only public reaction to El-Rufai’s constant personal attacks, Ribadu was conciliatory and even-tempered. “Despite the incessant baiting and attacks, I have never spoken ill of Nasir on record anywhere,” he wrote on February 24, 2025. “This is out of respect for our past association and our respective families. I will not start today.”

El-Rufai’s supporters read the statement, whose grace should have disarmed anyone, as evidence of cowardice. But had he attacked El-Rufai back in the fashion that El-Rufai savaged him, the public, which tends to side with the underdog (in this case anyone outside the orbit of the reigning government), would see El-Rufai as the victim and Ribadu as the villain.

This gave El-Rufai the illusion that he was winning the war and led him to dig in even deeper with that self-sabotaging Arise News interview, which overstepped the bounds of reasonableness and landed him in the hot water he is in now.

In spite of people’s natural predilection to sympathize with the underdog, outside of partisan political circles, El-Rufai’s troubles aren’t eliciting the profusion of support, outrage and empathy anyone else would have received. And it’s because he is being given a taste of his own medicine.

For those who want to sympathize with him, which is perfectly legitimate, I leave you with these words he uttered on January 22, 2012, at the Yar’Adua Center, Abuja, at a presentation at the T2T (Transformed To Transform) Nigeria Conference for Youth Corps Members:

“We have no politics of public interest or public good. And you know the politicians proudly tell you that politics is about interest. If they don’t get what they want, they’re ready to collapse the system.

“Every military coup in Nigeria’s history was engineered by civilians. They have lost elections, right or wrongly. If a politician contests for a position and he doesn’t get it, he’ll not support a party member that got the nomination.

“He would rather move to the opposition and ensure that the person that defeated him fair and square loses the election. So, we have a political culture where the primacy of personal interest trumps everything else.

“Now, what is the difference between human beings and animals? So it is with most Nigerian politicians: everyone for himself, no one for the country, no one even for the party. It’s an interesting political culture. And it’s ingrained. Politicians believe that is the way, that is politics, and to change it will take quite an effort. This is a problem.”

History and psychoanalysis of El-Rufai’s troubles with Ribadu – Farooq Kperogi

Kperogi is a renowned Nigerian columnist and United States-based Professor of Journalism.

HostArmada Affordable Cloud SSD Shared Hosting
Continue Reading
HostArmada Affordable Cloud SSD Shared Hosting
HostArmada - Affordable Cloud SSD Web Hosting

Trending