National President of Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore, Alhaji Bello Bodejo, has said that fulani herdsmen were forced into taking arms against the government and some communities due to years of deprivation, injustice and neglect.
Speaking during the maiden interactive policy dialogue and cultural festival with the theme “the future of Fulani Pastoralists in Nigeria”, he said fulani Pastoralists have been for years neglected and treated badly despite calls change.
“Unarguably, the affairs of the Fulani pastoralists in Nigeria have been relegated to the background with no one talking about issues of concerns that have been raised by the people. No one can doubt our contribution to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Nigeria, and yet, Fulani pastoralists have been neglected, relegated and pushed to the wall, hence they are reacting their own way.
“Obviously, the aggrieved Fulani in the bush allegedly making trouble are the ones that might have ran out of patience. If not that I was lucky, I would have been armed with AK-47 rifle or what is more than that, our interest are not considered in the plans of the government.
“For an average herdsman in Nigeria and beyond, his cattle is all he has, in addition to his family. But lately, he has been forcefully dispossessed of his wealth with no justice coming from neither the government nor the communities.
“Many of them have lost their sources of livelihood, family and other inheritances and nothing is being done about it by the government. Rather there are perceived conspiracy between courts, communities, security agencies to profile the herdsmen in order to get justification for their planned terror against them, but it won’t continue anymore.”
He called on those concerned to reach out to the fulani herdsmen and listen to their grievances through their trusted channels like traditional rulers.
“We have tried to make peace, but it seems the government is not interested in doing that because many suggestions that we have made have not been implemented.
These aggrieved herders have leaders, traditional and religious, that they listen to, so, those people should be invited to intervene in the peace building process.”
