The pan-Yoruba socio-cultural organization, Afenifere has frowned at the continued silence by President Muhammadu Buhari over the series of violent attack by the Fulani herdsmen across states in the country, urging him to take urgent action towards addressing the menace.
Leaders of the group, who made this call after its monthly meeting in Akure, the Ondo State capital, specifically condemned the latest killing of over 40 Nigerians by the rampaging Fulani herdsmen in a community in Enugu.
Reading out the communiqué of the group at the meeting, Afenifere’s Publicity Secretary, Yinka Odumakin said the group expressed worries over the position of the government on the orgy of violence perpetrated by the herdsmen, insisting that the federal government was indifferent to the plight of those at the mercy of the herders.
According to the communiqué, “The meeting is worried about the recent spate of killings by Fulani herdsmen across the country as evident in Agatu killings, the murder of Olu Falae’s guard in his farm, the killings in Ibadan and the latest being the heinous murder of over 40 Nigerians in cold blood in Enugu.
“We are worried that Federal Government seems to have maintained indifference to the wanton killings going on across the country against the provisions of the constitution.
“That the Federal Government has a duty to protect the lives and properties of every citizen of Nigeria and we call on President Muhammadu Buhari to speak up on this matter and to take urgent action to restore the sense of people of Nigeria, especially in the South and Middle Belt.”
Afenifere equally condemned the report of the Department of State Services, DSS, which claimed that the bodies of five corpses buried in a mass grave were Fulani herdsmen, saying the statement was made to create tension in the land.
The communiqué reads: “We are also worried that the DSS, which highly went to the press to say that they discovered a grave in the South-East where they said they found bodies of the Fulani men without any DNA has continued to maintain silence also over these killings across the country.
“The DSS had failed to establish that the bodies are from any ethnic group. It’s an organisation for all Nigerians and, therefore, should be concerned and should make the report on the killing on across the country not just what they called the killing of people from certain ethnic group among the over 250 groups in Nigeria.”
The group called for an urgent meeting of all the governors in the South-West states to deliberate on how to put an end to the Fulani herdsmen activities in Yorubaland, stressing that, “In view of the fact that Yoruba nation has had more than fair share of this siege in the country by these Fulani herdsmen, we demand immediate meeting of all South West governors irrespective of their party affiliation and ensure that they meet to device means and ways to protect the lives of their citizens and properties against these invaders who are rampaging everywhere.”
It also called on lawmakers at the National Assembly to wake up to defend the people who voted for them , stressing that: “now is the time to defend them.”
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