Nasarawa: Group tasks incoming govt on disarming Fulani terrorists

Civil Rights Advocacy Group, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), yesterday, called on the incoming federal administration to prioritise practical and foolproof disarming of Fulani insurgents, who are waging war against farming communities.

The group also told the President-elect, Bola Tinubu that the quantum of military-grade weapons in the possession of Fulani herdsmen in the different forests, spread across the country, can be used to threaten the stability of his administration and to blackmail his administration intermittently.

According to HURIWA, the best approach for the next government to free itself from the gangsterism and terrorism of armed Fulani herdsmen is to forensically disarm them and prosecute their known sponsors in the current Central government.

The group in a statement by its national coordinator, Emmanuel Onwubiko, stated that the outgoing administration of President Muhammadu Buhari, incubated, motivated, and tolerated the growing army of Fulani herdsmen who have constituted the second largest threat to Nigeria’s national security since 2015 and are responsible for the massacre of over 10,000 farmers across Nigeria.

HURIWA said armed Fulani terrorists also made kidnappings for cash payments to become huge franchises in Nigeria, which the incoming administration must dislodge without further ado.

Besides, the group listed the government of Kaduna State as one of the few state governments, including Bauchi State Governor, as persons who have defended the right of Fulani herdsmen to bear arms. HURIWA said armed Fulani herdsmen have continued to kill, including the killing of an Evangelical Church Winning All (ECWA) pastor and 38 other Christians in Nasarawa State, only this weekend.

HURIWA recalled that the Pastor-in-charge of the ECWA in the area, Rev. Daniel Danbeki, and 37 others were gruesomely murdered by the assailants during the attack, which lasted from 9 pm on Thursday night till the early hours of Friday.

The group reminded the President-elect of the existence of empirical evidence of the existing high profile sponsors of the Fulani herdsmen inside of the topmost echelons of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration just as Fulani herdsmen have claimed that the government supplies them with weapons.

HURIWA recalled that in a viral video recorded during one of the several meetings between popular Islamic clerics, Sheikh Ahmad Gumi, one of the herdsmen, addressing the crowd, pointed out that cows don’t give birth to guns.

He said that they were only herdsmen and did not know what guns were until the government started supplying them with AK-47.

It said: “For lasting peace to reign, for national stability and national security, the incoming president must take transparent, open, comprehensive and speedy steps to crush the ongoing Fulani insurgency and armed rebellion all across Nigeria, including the arrest, prosecution and punishment of highly placed government and military officials behind the arming, re-arming and procurement of military-grade weapons being deployed by Fulani herdsmen to take over communities.

“The indigenous Christian communities of Southern Kaduna and Tiv-speaking communities of Benue State have lost their native farms to armed Fulani invaders.

“Specifically, at the weekend, at least 38 residents of Takalafia and Gwanja communities in the Karu Local Government Area of Nasarawa State were killed by herdsmen who stormed the area.

“However, a mass burial was held on Saturday for the victims of the attack, which included women and children.”