Bodejo, Miyetti Allah leader: Why we’re setting up vigilantes in 36 states, FCT
•Rising dollar exchange rates responsible for high cost of cows
The National President of Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore, Alhaji Abdullahi Bello Bodejo has dismissed the notice given by Sunday Igboho to Fulani herders to quit Yoruba land.
In an interview with VINCENT KALU, the leader of the Fulani socio-cultural group also spoke on why his association is planning to set up vigilance groups across the country.
You are about to set up nomadic vigilantes. What is it all about?
For all most a year now, I have been preparing to set up Fulani vigilantes. And in this direction, I have been soliciting advice from different well meaning Nigerians in various areas of security. With Fulani vigilantes, it would be concerned with the Fulani. But we changed it to nomadic vigilantes because the Fulani are everywhere in the bush and forest with their cows.
We are starting with 2,140 personnel at Nassarawa State, and from there to the other states and Federal Capital Territory where the Fulani are. The reason for this nomadic vigilante is that all the farmers are doing their activities in the bush, and also the herdsmen’s areas of operation are in the bush. This security outfit can secure the farmers and the herders, and we can ask them to collaborate with any farmer in the bush to secure his farm. The Fulani are also into farming like other people; they are farming and also rearing their cows. About 75 per cent of the herders are also farmers.
When you see somebody shouting that Fulani did this and that, such a person doesn’t understand how Nigeria is today. Herders and farmers are in the bushes doing their activities. This nomadic vigilante would really help to calm down the problem between the farmers and herders. They will protect both the farmers and the herdsmen.
Are you saying the herders and also into crop farming?
Yes. I took time, about one year and two months to think of how under my leadership, to end the crisis in Zamfara, Katsina and all over the country because people are accusing Fulani herders of being responsible for the crisis in the country, which is not true. There is crisis everywhere, people who are under the influence of drugs engage in kidnapping, robbery. Check very well, if there is any Fulani boy among them, they would give him a very insignificant amount from the ransom they collected. Some people are using the Fulani boys to commit crime and that is why with this nomadic vigilante, we intend to stamp out this crime. We intend to collaborate with the army, police and DSS so that the nomadic vigilantes can lead them into the bushes to arrest criminals.
When are you launching the security outfit?
Everything is ready. By God’s grace, it will be in the next few days. And we are starting with 2140 personnel in Nasarawa for now, and then extend to other states. I want to tell Nigerians that under my leadership of the Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore, I want to see how to end the insecurity in the country. I therefore call on the federal government, state governors, the security agencies and well meaning Nigerians to support us to launch this vigilantes outfit not only in Nasarawa, but to extend it to every part of the country, and I’m assuring within six months time, there won’t be any crisis in the country.
The Fulani herders have suffered enough in the hands of kidnappers; they have been killed, their children and wives have been raped in their presence, but they are scared to face these kidnappers, but with this nomadic vigilante in collaboration with the security agencies, they would comb everywhere in the bushes and forests to arrest kidnappers.
Recently, Sunday Igboho was quoted as issuing another quit notice to herders to leave Yoruba land. What is your position on this?
Nigeria has a constitution, which gives every citizen the right to live in any part of the country to pursue his or her legitimate endeavours. So, Sunday Igboho was released to come and start his madness again, and start giving some people quit notice; it seems that some people are trying to use him. If he were from another country, he could have been ignored, but since he is a Nigerian, he is supposed to know that Nigeria has a constitution that says everybody has the right to stay anywhere in the country.
However, if that person commits any crime, the security agencies are supposed to arrest and charge him to court.
I don’t know the reason Sunday Ighoho is acting like this; he wants to be a Yoruba hero. He should realise that the current president is a Yoruba man. Yoruba have very intelligent elders and they would not act the way Igboho is acting. I call on the president to use the security agencies to call Ighoho to order. Fulani have lost so many lives and property in that area.
Are you people going to obey his directive?
No Fulani person will listen to him or relocate to another place because they are aware of their right to stay anywhere in Nigeria. They obey laws and order. Nobody can ask Fulani men to leave and go any other place. Before he was born, Fulani were in that area doing their legitimate activities. No Fulani man takes him seriously. He should be very careful with his utterances. We are law abiding and we are making the Fulani t understand that Nigeria is one and everyone has the right to stay anywhere. There are Yoruba in Kano, Nasarawa and other parts of the North, and nobody has asked them to leave the North. What Igboho has said doesn’t in anywhere make sense.
Recently, Sheik Gumi said that Abuja belongs to the North, and only a northerner and a Muslim should be the FCT minister. What is your reaction to that?
Sheik Gumi is an elderly man, a Malam who knows what he is doing. Like I said earlier, Nigeria is one, and it is for everybody. In respect of the FCT Minister, Nysom Wike, I don’t think it was for nothing that Gumi said that Abuja is for northerners. I think it was an issue concerning the central mosque, which I read in the social media. Maybe, it was that thing that brought about the issue. Many Malams talked, but why is it only Sheik Gumi that people are talking about? The man is very straight forward. Maybe, it is just to make Wike to understand that the way he talks about demolishing here and there is not the way to go. He is a person who would say something that people would react.
Malam Gumi is a person that can’t close his mouth if he sees something that is not right; he will talk to make everybody understands his position. The time Wike was appointed FCT minister nobody said anything or opposed him, and the time he talked about the mosque and demolishing, then everybody started saying something about him.
The time Gumi said that Abuja belongs to the North, but the Middle Belt Forum (MBF) countered by saying that Abuja doesn’t belong to the Fulani, but it belongs to the Middle Belt. What is your take on this?
The people who say they are Middle Belt have something they are pursuing. Before I got to this age, I have been hearing Middle Belt this and Middle Belt that and they have been running up and down. They are saying Middle Belt Forum; it is one man who stays in his sitting room to do the write up as leader of the group. Am I not a Middle Belter? If you are fighting for the Middle Belt as an association, why have you not involved me? Am I not among the Middle Belt people?
How are you among the Middle Belt people?
Which states make up the Middle Belt? Taraba, my state, is it not in Middle Belt? Plateau is among, so also Nasarawa, Benue and others. You say, there is Middle Belt Forum and you didn’t bring us in? Are we not Middle Belt people? If there is an association, are we not supposed to be members? I don’t know anything about Middle Belt Forum, so I don’t take them seriously.
What is your view on the state of the nation?
The removal of fuel subsidy has caused so many problems and people are finding it hard. Then came the naira, whose fall has made the prices of everything to go higher. Maybe the federal government is working to arrest the dwindling of the national currency. It has not been long that Tinubu became the president; just about six months, and so it a short time to assess his performance so far. Time is coming to look at his record.
You mentioned naira falling and dollar going up. What has the dollar got to do with cows whose price has skyrocketed?
While the prices of every other thing are increasing, there is always marginal increase in the price of a cow. When they close the border, the price of cow increases, but when the border is opened, you see cows coming in from Chad, Niger Republic, Sudan and other countries and the price of Nigerian cows will go down.
If the exchange rate is high as we have it now, and the border is open, the price of cow will be high – the ones in Nigeria and the imported ones. It is traded in dollars or CFA in the neighbouring countries, and so by the time they arrive here the price is high. It is the problem of the exchange rate.
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