* Insists Fulani herders carry AK-47 for self-defence
Segun Awofadeji in Bauchi
Following series of backlash trailing his recent comments on the herders’ controversy, Bauchi State Governor, Senator Bala Mohammed has defended himself, saying that he was misunderstood, insisting however that carrying of AK-47 by Fulani herders was a last option for self-defence.
Mohammed had alleged that his counterpart in Benue State, Mr. Samuel Ortom, started the herdsmen’s crisis by not accommodating the herders.
The governor, who justified the carrying of AK-47 by herdsmen, saying it was for self-defence, had also accused the southern governors of mishandling herdsmen’s crisis.
He insisted that all forests belong to Nigeria and that the Nigerian Constitution guarantees all Nigerians to settle in any place of their choice.
Reacting to Mohammed’s comments, Ortom asked him to cite the section of the Constitution that empowers the herders to carry AK-47, stressing that he found it shocking that a colleague, who took the oath of office as he also did, to protect and preserve the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, took the lead in violating provisions of the same constitution by calling for lawlessness.
Also reacting, the Ondo State governor, Mr. Rotimi Akeredolu criticised Mohammed for defending the use of arms by herders.
“The Bauchi governor has by his conducts and attitude, ushered us into the next level on the path to anarchy. He’s not fit for public office; persons of such impecunious disposition and character is not fit for public office,” Akeredolu said, according to the Ondo State Commissioner for Information and Orientation, Mr. Donald Ojogo.
But in a clarification made yesterday, the Bauchi State governor in a statement issued by his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Communication, Comrade Mukhtar Gidado stated that, “to the extent that not every herdsman is a criminal, the reference to AK-47 was simply to put in perspective, the predicament and desperation of those law-abiding Fulani herdsmen who, while carrying out their legitimate cow-rearing business, have become serial victims of cattle rustling, banditry, kidnapping and assassination”.
The governor argued that these are the people who, in the absence of any protection from the security agencies, are forced to resort to self-help, to defend both their means of livelihood and their lives.
The statement argued that as a constitutionalist which he has proved over time, all through his political career, Mohammed will be the last person to advocate a subversion of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
“The primary objective of the governor was to avert the dangerous prospect of nation-wide backlash as tempers were flaring up and given that the phenomenon of inter-ethnic migration, is a national pastime involving all ethnic groups in Nigeria.
“First, at no time did the governor set out to justify criminality by anyone, no matter the person’s ethnic nationality. Rather, he admonished us, in the interest of national unity, to avoid wholesale branding of any ethnic group as it is inconceivable that any one group can be made up of only criminals,” the statement explained.
The statement added that the governor made it abundantly clear that it will be inappropriate to label any one tribe based on the crimes of a few members of the ethnic group.
On the issue of forest, the statement stated that, “Governor Bala Mohammed’s description of forests, as “no man’s land”, (please read as gift of nature), is a carry-over from his own geo-political environment where a pastoralist could set up camp, in any forest, for a few weeks without causing any uproar or opposition”.
“To interpret such a temporary stay as a form of ‘land grab’ by the Fulani herdsmen is completely incorrect. In actual fact, neither does such temporary habitation of the forest inconveniences anyone nor does the itinerant Fulani sojourner, bother anyone about his plight in the forest characterised by life without assess to electricity, pipe borne water, good roads or hospitals”.
The statement added that Mohammed is very familiar with the Land Use Act, including the criteria for land acquisition and cannot therefore seek to undermine the statute which, as governor, he has sworn to uphold.
