Senator Iroegbu in Abuja

The Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar, has disclosed that the lingering clashes between herdsmen and farmers across the county are more about economic survival than ethno-religious struggle.
Abubakar stated this yesterday during the presentation of the book titled: ‘Dynamics of Revealed Knowledge and Human Sciences’, written in honour of the Registrar of Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Prof Is-haq Oloyede.
He warned that if the people in government and Nigerians continue to look at the crisis as a religious or ethnic issues, it would continue to persist.
The Sultan also stated that ascribing the word criminal to a tribe or ethnic group was wrong, and urged the government to fish out and deal with criminals who had continued to kill the citizens.
He said: “Nowadays, the worst word you can hear is Fulani. There are millions of Fulani who doesn’t even know how to train cows. I am Fulani. I was never a herder. Now when everybody sees a Fulani man, he is a killer. To ascribe a particular ethnic group as criminal is wrong. All over the world, there are criminals. Let us give criminals their due name, not Christian criminals, Muslim criminal or Yoruba criminals. Call them criminals and deal with them. That’s what we are telling the government. If the government has failed, they should tell us where to come in and help.
“We don’t have statesmen any longer. We only have men of state as people just align with their states and religion more. A governor only see his immediate surrounding as their constituency. We must be allowed freedom to go where ever we want and live wherever we want. We don’t accept criminality. If a criminal is in our midst, we must fish them out and deal with them.â€
Sultan also spoke concerning the missing money in JAMB vault, expressing sadness over the high level of corruption in the country adding that Nigerians ought to come together to chat ways and means on getting out of the corruption that had continue to threaten the country.
“The snake issue has been a humorous thing but it is just a sad reality of our country. Where is out moral value? Somebody will just come up and take government money and go away scot free and nobody challenged him.
“The earlier we wake up the better for us. Corruption is at a high level and it is left for us to fight it to the end. We cannot just sit down and be thinking that things are ok. Things are not ok. It is left for us to sit down and find out ways and means to getting things back on track,†he said.
He urged Nigerian leaders to emulate the JAMB registrar who was honest and incorruptible, adding that he has become a symbol in the fight against corruption in the country.
