Herdsmen Crisis: There Won’t Be Peace If Our Rights Are Being Violated – Miyetti Allah

The Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN) has linked the continuous killings and a peace-less country to some communities depriving herdsmen of their indigenous rights.

In the past six months, the country has been converted to poll of blood due to the incessant killing of humans by suspected Fulani herdsmen with the freshest case in Plateau State which wiped out 136 people from the face of the earth.

However, speaking in an interview with TheCable, chairman of the Plateau state chapter of the cattle breeders association, Mohammadu Nura, said the only way to halt the bad blood between the herders and the local farmers that have in past months triggered brutal conflicts between the two parties is to give the herdsmen their right.

“The Fulani villagers were ransacked by the Biroms (the locals). They are very many villages that were ransacked. Like in Kuru Janta, when they went there, they killed over 150 persons including women and children. This was in 2010. In Heipang, 83 persons were killed including the chief imam of Heipang. In Sabongida Kanan, 78 persons; in Kim Kim, 28 persons; in Waram, 19 persons,’’ Nura claimed.

“So many of the Fulani villages were ransacked, and now they have occupied the lands, claiming they are their own lands, whereas they are hereditary lands; customary lands belonging to the herdsmen. Some of the lands they are accusing Fulanis of chasing them away from belonging to us and some of them belong to Biroms. I must not be biased. The larger portions of the lands belong to Biroms, but there are portions that belong to Fulanis. And Fulanis should not be denied their rights.

“Those that are not in Plateau think that Fulanis are not indigenes of Plateau. We have the history of Plateau state. Fulanis were one of the people who originated from Plateau state. Depriving Fulanis of their rights will never help us in Nigeria. It will never help peace in this country.”

 

Nura further retracted the reports that the villagers in Plateau were attacked by the herders, stating that those killed in the crisis were herdsmen and not villagers.

“We had privileged information before that Saturday that people will block roads and search for Fulanis. So we informed our people that they should be alert and nobody should use those roads. Unfortunately, on that very day, at 6 am, they started blocking roads and were holding sophisticated weapons including rifles, machetes, and shouting that they must kill a Fulani man.

“They were there till around 1 pm (when) they went on rampaging, moving into the hinterland; looking for Fulanis in their villages and cows to kill. They went into the bush and started killing them and their cows. That is the genesis of the crisis. And I said this thing before the vice-president and the community leaders. Nobody disputed the fact.”