Frederick Fasehun, President of the Oodua People’s Congress, OPC, has predicted that if President Muhammadu Buhari does not stop herdsmen killing innocent Nigerians now, he would lose the February 2019 presidential elections.
Consequently, Fasehun warned the President to take steps in curtailing the herdsmen because “nobody has a monopoly of violence; and in the face of threats to their very survival, people will eventually resort to self-help.”
Speaking in Lagos, the OPC President noted that should Nigerians resort to self-help, such, “move can tear this country apart and turn Nigeria into a free-for-all killing field.”
According to him, “As far as OPC was concerned, clearly, the pastoral nomadic lifestyle of the Fulani herdsmen was no longer fashionable and sustainable, and they should be compelled to embrace modern ranching as obtained worldwide. This cannot continue. Killers must be brought to book and made to feel the full weight of the law.”
The OPC founder called on Buhari to ensure that the $1 billion security loan the government is canvassing for be employed in fighting killer Fulani herdsmen, saying that the first duty of government was to provide security, a task Buhari has woefully failed to discharge, especially with regards to killings by Fulani herdsmen.
Fasehun recalled, “In the wake of this ugly genocides came the shameless and insensitive pronouncement by the government’s spokesman, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the Minister of Information and Culture, on no less a medium than the BBC, that the Fulani herdsmen were a lesser threat than the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB.
“It was an uncanny statement. For the government to have this unperturbed attitude to Fulani herdsmen, internationally reputed as the fourth deadliest terrorist organisation in the world, amounts to ignoring a dangerous viper on the bed. Ranking after Boko Haram, ISIL and El-Shabaab on the Global Terrorism Index, armed Fulani militias today constitute the real threat to national unity, with their rapacious evil campaigns throughout the length and breadth of this country.”
He cautioned “The military and other security forces must tackle the menace of Fulani militias by declaring a security emergency, disarming Fulani herdsmen and bringing Fulani killers to justice.”
Source: Daily Post
