The pan-Yoruba socio-cultural organization, Afenifere has frowned at the continued silence by President Muhammadu Buhari over the series of violent attack by the Fulani herdsmen across states in the country, urging him to take urgent action towards addressing the menace.
Leaders of the group,
who made this call after its monthly meeting in Akure, the Ondo State capital,
specifically condemned the latest killing of over 40 Nigerians by the rampaging
Fulani herdsmen in a community in Enugu.
Reading out the communique of the group at the meeting, Afenifere’s Publicity Secretary, Yinka
Odumakin said the group expressed worries over the position of the government
on the orgy of violence perpetrated by the herdsmen, insisting that the federal
government was indifferent to the plight of those at the mercy of the herders.
According to the
communiqué, “The meeting is worried about the recent spate of killings by
Fulani herdsmen across the country as evident in Agatu killings, the murder of
Olu Falae’s guard in his farm, the killings in Ibadan and the latest being the
heinous murder of over 40 Nigerians in cold blood in Enugu.
“We are worried that
Federal Government seems to have maintained indifference to the wanton killings
going on across the country against the provisions of the constitution.
“That the Federal
Government has a duty to protect the lives and properties of every citizen of
Nigeria and we call on President Muhammadu Buhari to speak up on this matter
and to take urgent action to restore the sense of people of Nigeria, especially
in the South and Middle Belt.”
Afenifere equally
condemned the report of the Department of State Services, DSS, which claimed
that the bodies of five corpses buried in a mass grave were Fulani herdsmen,
saying the statement was made to create tension in the land.
The communique reads:
“We are also worried that the DSS, which highly went to the press to say that
they discovered a grave in the South-East where they said they found bodies of
the Fulani men without any DNA has continued to maintain silence also over
these killings across the country.
“The DSS had failed to
establish that the bodies are from any ethnic group. It’s an organization for
all Nigerians and, therefore, should be concerned and should make the report on
the killing on across the country not just what they called the killing of
people from certain ethnic group among the over 250 groups in Nigeria.”
The group called for
an urgent meeting of all the governors in the South-West states to deliberate
on how to put an end to the Fulani herdsmen activities in Yorubaland, stressing
that, “In view of the fact that Yoruba nation has had more than fair share of
this siege in the country by these Fulani herdsmen, we demand immediate meeting
of all South West governors irrespective of their party affiliation and ensure
that they meet to device means and ways to protect the lives of their citizens
and properties against these invaders who are rampaging everywhere.”
It also called on
lawmakers at the National Assembly to wake up to defend the people who voted
for them , stressing that: “now is the time to defend them.”
Comments