Herdsmen With Ak-47 Is For Self-Defence, Mohammed
The Governor of Bauchi State, Mr. Bala Mohammed has said that,. Fulani herders carry AK-47 rifles owing to frequent attacks by people who steal their cows,
According to him, the herders had to resort to self-help because society and the government did not do enough to protect them.
He lambasted some governors from the South-West and South-East, particularly Benue’s Samuel Ortom, over the way they handled the farmer-herder crisis.
Mohammed said every tribe has criminals, therefore it was wrong for all Fulani to be criminalised.
The Governor was speaking Thursday February 11 at the 2021 Press Week of the Correspondents’ Chapel of the Nigeria Union of Journalists, Bauchi State Council, the Punch reports.
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He faulted the quit notice given to Fulani herders in some southern states, particularly Ondo, saying the “southern governors are wrong”.
Mohammed said: “We have Yoruba people in Bauchi for over 150 years, even before the birth of Nigeria. Nobody has told them to go; some of them have risen to become permanent secretaries in Bauchi, Gombe and Borno.”
He went on: “But the person that is most wrong is the Governor of Benue State, my brother and my colleague, Governor [Samuel] Ortom; he started all these.
“If you don’t accommodate other tribes we are also accommodating your people in Bauchi and other places.
“It is not his fault, it is the fault of the government and the people; you don’t criminalise all of them because in every tribe there are criminals. You should be very sensitive.”
He added: “And now, the Fulani man is practicing the tradition of trans-human, pastoralism, he has been exposed to the dangers of the forests, the animals, and now, the cattle rustlers, who carry guns, kill him and take away his commonwealth, his cows, he had no option than to carry Ak-47 and defend himself because the society and the government are not protecting him.”
