From Fred Ezeh, Abuja
Fulani socio-cultural association, Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore, has accused the Ondo State Governor, Rotimi Akeredolu, of being responsible for alleged “genocide” against herdsmen and northerners living in the southwest.
The group said that Akeredolu created ethnic militia group (Amotekun) for the sole purpose of being used to unleash terror and mayhem on innocent herders and northerners living in the south-west.
National Secretary of the association, Saleh Alhasan, in a statement released in Abuja yesterday, called for calm among the people, assuring them that efforts are on to proffer permanent solution to the challenges.
He asked state governments to stop enacting laws that widen cracks in the unity of Nigeria, and promote steps that would further strengthen the fragile peace and unity of the country.
He, however, lauded Bauchi State governor, Bala Mohammed, for constantly speaking for the Fulani pastoralists who, he said, are being persecuted across many states through enactment of obnoxious laws against their means of livelihood, and issuance of illegal eviction notices from their places of abode in contravention of constitutional provisions.
He said: “Bauchi governor has gradually emerged as the only lone voice in the North to openly defend the Fulani pastoralists. His intervention in the ongoing raging herders/farmers conflicts was to simply situate the conflicts within the proper context devoid of politicization, with the hope to finding sustainable solution.
“He treaded where angels were scared to tread in the past with reference to the role the governor, as a Senator in 2010, played when late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, was incapacitated, and the making of then Vice President, Goodluck Jonathan, the acting President.”
“He took what politicians consider as political risk when he held divergent views where others failed or chickened out. So, his current position on the herders/farmers conversation is not strange or out of context.
“This was because he believed in the unity and peaceful co-existence of Nigeria as one indivisible entity where every citizen has equal right and privileges. Despite the loud hues and cries from the dissenting voices across the country and threats from then cabals that held sway at the villa, he did not shake. He did it out of conviction and to douse the rising tension in the country then.
“He was never scared nor intimidated of speaking the truth. Governor Mohammed should be applauded for providing purposeful leadership particularly to the north at this trying moment in our nation’s history.
“Those attempting to silence him are only undertaking an exercise in futility as the majority of the northern masses particularly the pastoralists that have seen a leader and saviour at this critical time are solidly behind him.”