From Fred Ezeh, Abuja
Fulani Socio-Cultural Association, Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore, has accused the Ondo State Governor, Rotimi Akeredolu, of being responsible for the ongoing “genocide” against innocent pastoralist and northerners living in the southwest.
The Fulani socio-cultural group said that Akeredolu created ethnic militia group (Amotekun) that is being used to unleash terror and mayhem on innocent herders and northerners living in the south-west including the unconstitutional and blanket eviction notices for herders to vacate places where they make their livelihoods.
National Secretary of the Association, Saleh Alhasan, in a statement released in Abuja, on Thursday, called for calm among the people, assuring them that efforts are on to proffer permanent solution to the challenges.
He asked states government to quit enacting laws that widen cracks in the unity of Nigeria, but promotes steps that would further strengthen the fragile peace and unity in Nigeria.
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 negative obnoxious laws against their means of livelihoods, and issuance of illegal eviction notices from their places of abode against the 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 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 moments 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 times are solidly behind him.”