Members of the Northern Elders Forum and the Coalition of the Northern Groups have asked Fulani herdsmen to leave the southern part of Nigeria.
They said the herdsmen should return to the North where their (herdsmen) safety and that of their property could be guaranteed.
The northern elders and the youths said they were worried that some southern leaders had allegedly openly threatened war against the Fulani herdsmen.
They claimed that for this reason, all the herdsmen from the North living in the South should return home.
Recall that the controversial Ruga policy suspended by the Federal Government generated various reactions with southern leaders rejecting it.
The southern leaders had argued that it was wrong for the Federal Government to take people’s land by force and give it to herdsmen who were operating personal businesses.
The rejection was further fuelled by kidnappings and killings of innocent men and women by the suspected herdsmen.
Also, the Coalition of the Northern Groups had given the Federal Government a 30-day ultimatum to resolve the objection raised by the southern leaders.
However, at a press conference after a meeting of the NEF with the CNGs on Tuesday in Abuja, where the youths demanded the return of all the Fulani herders to the North, the NEF’s chairman, Prof. Ango Abdullahi, also backed the youth’s position.
However, Abdullahi said the call on the herders to retrun to the North was borne out of the alleged realisation that their lives had allegedly been put at risk due to the recent actions and utterances of the southern governors.
Source: Punch Newspaper
