The National Chairman, Gan Allah Fulani Development Association of Nigeria, GAFDAN, Alhaji Sale Buyari, has alleged that most Fulani youths across the country are involved in forms of criminal acts because their means of livelihood have been tempered with.
He added that worst of all is that herdsmen in the country have nobody to lay their complaints to.
Speaking in Kaduna Thursday at the Annual General Delegates Conference of Gan Allah Fulani Development Association of Nigeria, Alhaji Sule Buyari said, “We have nobody to lay complaints to, the federal government has not through any agency or government personality invited us to discuss with us of the numerous problems we are passing through in the country.
“Nigerian government has not made any provision for the herdsmen in the country, there is no provision in the budget of this country for the herdsmen but only to crop farmers, yet we are over 20 million traditional pastoralists in the country.
“We have had the worst nightmare in the past three years in the history of this country under the present administration. The federal government has failed to address our problems.
“Our freedom as citizens of this country has been infringed upon. We have never thought that there will be a time we will wake up that Nigerians don’t want us any longer.
“Laws in the land are meant to infringe on our rights as traditional herdsmen. The laws are meant to affect our means of livelihood as Nigerians and make state laws that supersede the Nigerian constitution that gives every Nigerian that freedom of movement.
“Today, there is no open grazing, no ranches, no cattle colonies to take care of the over 20 million herdsmen. We have nothing.”
Buyari added, “That is why today we have about 2,000 Fulani youths in various detention facilities across the country that have never look for another means of livelihood besides the jungle life they are known with.”
He lamented that all of a sudden that means of livelihood was taken away from them as a result of herdsmen/farmers’ clashes, stressing that most of their cows have been taken away through rustling, stealing, kidnapping and other forms of criminality.
As a result, he explained, “the herdsmen have to sell their cows to pay ransom. Our youths have gone into armed robbery and other criminal acts as a result of the arms they have gotten as a result of the clashes with their enemies.”
The GAFDAN national chairman expressed the fear that terrorism could be on the increase among the Fulani youths following the change of their traditional lifestyle of pastoralism to something different else.
He lamented the wrong assumption Nigerians ascribed to Fulani herdsmen as criminals even before they are proved guilty of any offence.
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