Rose Ejembi, Makurdi
The People’s Democratic Party (PDP) has said that a vote for its presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar in the February 19, 2019 presidential election would mark an end to Fulani supremacist agenda and the killing of innocent Nigerians.
“A vote, therefore, for Atiku Abubakar at the February 2019 Presidential election, is a vote for an end to Fulani supremacist agenda and mindless killing of innocent Nigerians, whereas a vote for Muhammadu Buhari is a vote for continued herdsmen killings of farmers and forceful annexation and occupation of their ancestral lands, as being currently witnessed.”
The Benue State chapter of the party, in a statement signed by its Publicity Secretary and Chairman, Publicity Sub-Committee, Benue PDP State Campaign Organisation, Bemgba Iortyom, made this assertion on Saturday.
Speaking against the backdrop of the recent endorsement of the candidature of President Muhammadu Buhari by the Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore (MAKH), the PDP said it was not surprised that the Fulani socio-cultural groups had found a friend in Muhammadu Buhari and a foe in Atiku Abubakar adding that the groups had only come out to openly align with the one who believes in their ideology of extremism.
READ ALSO: Dissecting Osinbajo’s comment on the 2023 Presidency
“The extremist turf is where Miyetti Allah and Buhari have found each other. Atiku Abubakar on the other hand, though a Fulani by ethnic origin, is not an extremist.
“All through his (Atiku) public life, he had never been found in the extremist religious melee which Buhari and others of his bent muddied themselves in, and in the recent Fulani supremacist upsurge he has maintained a balanced stand, much to the admiration of the watching world, but to the chagrin of his Fulani kinsmen.
“Atiku Abubakar has refused to be sucked into the wave of Fulani supremacist agenda being championed by Miyetti Allah with the support of Buhari and APC, and by so doing, he has incurred their wrath provoking them to come out in open and reckless declaration of war on his candidacy, while at the same time drumming support for their real-time patron, President Buhari.
“Miyetti Allah’s endorsement of Buhari’s candidacy is a clear statement which Nigerians must understand lucidly for what it truly is: that with Buhari as president, the bloodshed and carnage being wrecked on them by Fulani herdsmen are sure to continue.
“Their declaration of war on Atiku’s candidacy on the other hand has only one interpretation: that even though they know that with him as president their nefarious agenda and criminality which have so far gone unchecked under Buhari, will have no place in Nigeria.