The
apex Fulani social-cultural organisation, Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore, has
rejected calls for the sacking of the service chiefs.
The
Secretary-General of the group, Saleh Al-Hassan, said this during an interview
on Sunrise Daily, a Channels Television programme, on Monday.
A
large section of Nigerians, including the National Assembly and governors, has
called on President Muhammadu Buhari to sack the service chiefs for failing to
protect the lives of Nigerians.
However,
Al-Hassan said those calling for the sacking of the service chiefs “are corrupt
politicians.”
He
said, “We have documented 411 innocent pastoralists killed just in southern
Kaduna for nothing. We have documented all the crises but because we want peace
and want to promote the culture of peace and forgiveness hoping that our
neighbours will continue to allow us to do our business.
“But
the issue of arms and light weapons is a security one. I believe they (security
agencies) are on top of it. With the arrests they are making, we must acknowledge
the efforts security agencies have put in trying to contain criminality in this
country.
“That
is why people calling for the removal of service chiefs are either the corrupt
politicians or the ones working for them. We should not fall for that gambit.”
Says
foreign herdsmen can graze in Nigeria
Al-Hassan
also rejected suggestions that herdsmen from other countries should be
prevented from grazing their cattle in Nigeria.
He
said the ECOWAS “free trade protocol guarantees free movement,” adding that
herdsmen do not recognise international boundaries which he described as
“colonial creations.”
Al-Hassan
added, “You cannot just opt out of a protocol that is integrating the African
continent. The pastoralist movement is not for picnics. They go there to access
land resources. Also, these boundaries that you have are colonial boundaries.
“Some
of them (boundaries) don’t mean anything to the herders. So, what we need to do
is to domesticate the ECOWAS protocol, begin to enforce it and then we create grazing
reserves for trans-human pastoralists.”
He
said the solution remains ranching which must be partly funded by the
government and supported by all Nigerians.
Al-Hassan
lamented that every attempt by the Buhari government to establish ranches had
been rejected by selfish politicians.
He
said, “Policies aimed at solving these problems are strongly resisted. Attempts
were made to put up a commission for grazing reserves to see how it can be done
but it was shut down at the National Assembly. The minister of agriculture has
been trying all his efforts to see that solutions are brought to the table but
people read political motive to it and killed the policies.
“Today,
we have a national livestock development plan that is well articulated but the
same people saying we should ranch our cows are now saying they will not accept
ranches so what are we talking about? So, we must understand the
socio-political undercurrents.”
He
lambasted Governor Samuel Ortom of Benue State for initiating the anti-grazing
law, adding that most of the arrests by security agencies showed it was Ortom’s
men that were carrying out the killings.
Corrupt
politicians behind calls for service chiefs sacking – Miyetti Allah
Speaking
at another event in Abuja, Alhassan said the security agencies must identify
the perpetrators and sponsors of the killings in Plateau State, noting that
corrupt politicians were behind the massacre.
At
a colloquium organised by the Citizens Communication and Advocacy Centre, the
Secretary-General of the Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore said that the National Assembly was laden
with corruption and the legislators had not taken sufficient steps to address
the farmers-herders’ crises.
The
topic of the colloquium was, “Understanding democracy as instrument of
development, integration and national cohesion.”
Alhassan
said the association did not believe in the call for the sacking of the service
chiefs, noting that the association usually shared “critical intelligence” with
the agencies.
He
said, “The spate of insecurity in this country is worrisome to anybody that
loves this country and I think our security agencies should be up and doing.
They should be able to identify the perpetrators and their sponsors and then
ensure that justice is meted out to them. We must watch closely our
politicians, their utterances and their body language because some of them are
the ones promoting violence we are having in this country.
“We
are not responsible for the killings in Plateau State. There are crises between
farmers and herders all over the country, particularly in the North-Central
geopolitical zone. We must recognise that it is a crisis that borders on land
resources and we are calling on the government to put mechanisms in place for
sustainable management of the land resources.
“But
first, our security agencies must be supported to identify the perpetrators and
the promoters of this violence. We must closely monitor some of these evangelicals
that preach hatred in churches and mosques and desperate politicians that are
facing corruption charges. We must be able to get all of them and watch them
closely so that they don’t set this country ablaze. They are the drivers of the
conflict.
Alhassan,
while faulting calls for the sacking of the nation’s security chiefs, argued
that corrupt politicians were behind the campaign.
He
said, “Most of these politicians own armed thugs and militias across the state.
The government should also find those behind the importation of large arms into
the country. Who are the people importing these arms?
“We
need to overhaul the security architecture of the country but the service
chiefs and the Inspector-General of Police are doing their best. We should not
listen to what desperate politicians are saying. It is the corrupt political
elite who are creating crises in this country.
There
are attempts by our group to assist the security agencies. We have been
partnering the security agencies in terms of giving them critical intelligence
where we suspect there are cattle rustlers and criminals.
“The
calls for the removal of the service chiefs are empty calls. Desperate
politicians and politicians facing criminal charges are the ones making that
call.”
‘N’Assembly
laden with corruption’
“Which
legislation has this eighth National Assembly made to ensure that there is
peace? Particularly, I refer to this eighth assembly. This Eight Senate is a
washout. They are rippled with corruption. Look at the way they mutilated the
budget. Nigerians should be marching to the Senate to demand accountability
from these legislators.”
Miyetti
Allah a terrorist group, says Middle Belt Forum
In
his reaction, however, the National Publicity Secretary of the Middle Belt
Forum, Dr. Isuwa Dogo, described Miyetti Allah as a terrorist organisation.
He
said the Miyetti Allah members should not be walking free but be jailed.
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Dogo
said, “If security agencies were alive to their responsibilities, these guys
talking here should not be walking free on the streets of Nigeria because they
are terrorists.”
He
said the media should stop tagging the conflict as farmer/herder crisis but
terrorism.
The
Middle Belt spokesman said there was a deliberate attempt to exterminate his
people.
Dogo
added that the herdsmen like pretending to be victims but never revealed photos
of their slain kinsmen.
“How
many of our people have gone to kill Fulani people in their (Fulani) villages?
How many Fulani have been burnt?,” he asked.
Dogo
said 268 people were killed in the Plateau attack as opposed to the 86 being
reported in the media.
Arrest
masterminds of Plateau killings, AANI tells FG
Meanwhile,
the Alumni Association of the National Institute of Policy and Strategic
Studies, has called on the Federal Government to apprehend the masterminds of
the killings in Plateau State.
This,
the association said, was the only way to forestall reprisals and end the
ongoing bloodshed in the Middle-Belt region.
Addressing
a press conference in Abuja on Monday, the AANI President, Khaleel Bolaji,
stated that his association was shocked and saddened by the magnitude of the
killings which he described as reprehensible.
He
noted that the needless killings had demeaned the essence of humanity and
rubbished the succour guaranteed by the Nigerian constitution.
The
AANI President said, “We call on the federal and state governments to
immediately redouble whatever efforts that could be deployed to forestall any
reprisal while perpetrators must be found and brought to book to serve as a
deterrent.
“These
needless losses have demeaned the essence of our humanity and rubbished our
succour as guaranteed under the Constitution of the Federal Republic of
Nigeria.”
Bolaji
commiserated with the government and people of Plateau State, noting that the
attacks came at a time the security agencies were “doing their best towards
stemming the endless violence in the hands of disgruntled elements.”
Without
justice, there won’t be peace, Onoja warns FG
An
AANI member and former military governor of Kaduna and Katsina states, Gen.
Lawrence Onoja (retd.), insisted that there must be justice, without which he
said there could be no peace.
“Some
people who threatened to carry out the attacks are still walking on the streets
and nothing happened to them. What the communities are asking for is, there
should be justice because without justice, there would be no peace. I hope the President
would put this into consideration and make sure there are changes,” he stated.
The
Secretary-General, National Union of Garment and Textile Workers, and AANI
member, Issa Aremu, noted that the killings could lead to food scarcity in the
country, stressing that the attack on farmers was affecting food production.
Southern,
M’Belt Forum knocks Presidency for insensitivity
However,
the Southern and Middle Belt Leaders Forum has accused the Presidency of
insensitivity for comparing the number of deaths under the current
administration to the ones under the previous government.
It
stated that the government was bereft of emotion and empathy by seeing the
death of Nigerians as mere statistics.
The
forum in a communique issued at the end of its meeting in Abuja and released on
Monday, attributed the Plateau killings to professional killers, noting that
the pattern of the massacre indicated that it was a well planned operation.
The
group in the statement co-signed by Yinka Odumakin for South-West, Senator
Bassey Henshaw (South-South), Prof. Chigozie Ogbu (South-East) and Dr. Isuwa Dogo (Middle-Belt), stated that
they were pained by the loss of hundreds of lives in Plateau State.
It
also knocked the government for blaming cattle rustling for the violence
“without any form of regret over the deaths of hundreds of our citizens whose
lives would appear to be inferior to those of cows in the estimation of highest
authorities in the land.”
The
forum added, “Apart from the clear failure of leadership in a country that
withdraws $1bn not appropriated to buy fighter jets but whose President asks
citizens to pray to God to come and do
the job of their Commander in-Chief, we are full of rage over the official
irresponsibility the Presidency has displayed over this carnage in the
following ways:
“The
Presidency first reaction as dead bodies were still being counted was some
noxious narration of how the killings were caused by the missing of 100 cows.”
“The
follow-up to this ranking insensitivity was the declaration in Jos by Mr.
President that the number of deaths in Zamfara is more than Benue and Plateau
put together making Nigerians to wonder if he was the ‘Statistical General of
deaths’ and not the Commander-in-Chief who should ensure deaths do not occur at
all.
“To
cap the festival of mockery of the deaths in the land ,the Presidency issued
another statement saying there were more deaths under the Peoples Democratic
Party than under the present administration; What a morbid sense of insensitive
comparison?
“Are
we to award some medal to the government in power for keeping the number of
deaths in three years lower than what occurred in 16 years? We hope we do not
see this in the book of achievements of this government.”
Presidency
blames power contest, anti-graft war for killings
However,
the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Mallam
Garba Shehu, has said the fierce competition for power and President Muhammadu
Buhari’s unrelenting war on corruption are responsible for an upsurge of
violent conflicts across Nigeria.
Shehu
said this while speaking to reporters at the National Secretariat of the All
Progressives Congress, in Abuja, on Monday.
He
explained that competition for power had become fiercer and the stakes had
become very high hence the upsurge in cases of violent attacks.
The
presidential aide noted that many people, especially the rich and the powerful,
had thought the war against graft was a joke until the President with the
support of a reformed judiciary, showed no sign of backing down.
Shehu
said, “The problem is that the competition for power in the country has become
fiercer and fiercer because the stake is very high. I will give you one
example. The President has unleashed on the country the war against corruption,
the type that had never been seen before. Assets are being recovered from
powerful people.
“The
President is lucky. He has a judiciary which is transforming itself, which is
on the same page with the President in fighting corruption. As I speak to you
now, you know that two former state governors are in jail.
“A
lot of people thought this war against corruption is a joke, and that the back
and forth that has characterized this over time will continue. One of the two
cases we are talking about is determined after eleven years of back and forth
with lawyers and judges, kicking the ball from this hut to that hut.
“Now,
they have descended on the country. A new era and a new aura that is ensuring
the conclusion of these cases – a lot of these hash attacks against the
President, are coming from people who had become used to lifestyle they can no
longer sustain.”
PUNCH.
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