Onuminya Innocent In Sokoto
The Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Muhammed Sa’ ad Abubakar III, has lamented that some Fulani children are still involved in banditry and kidnapping, adding that he cannot sit and allow the country to go into fractions.
Abubakar, also the President-General, Nigeria Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA), challenged the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN) to help find a lasting solution to the issue of banditry and kidnapping in the country.
He spoke at the inauguration and swearing-in of the new national executive officers of MACBAN, held at the National Mosque, Abuja at the weekend.
According to the monarch, the threat to divide the country is because of certain things Nigerians are not doing right.
He said: “People do not want to know the history of this great country. If we had known the history of the Fulani movement in various parts of the world definitely, we would not have gotten to the situation we are in now.
“Everybody knows that Fulani move from point A to B. They move everywhere and they inter-marry. And we are peace loving.
“But how did we come to the situation we are in now, we find our children who are Fulani, but not all of them Fulani have been involved in banditry and kidnapping. What happened?
“When we meet with the executives we will discuss how to tackle this. How do we resolve them because it is high time we did.
“Because, we cannot sit down and look at this country and go into fractions just because of certain things we are not doing right. And I assure you that two major challenges to these new executives are constitutional amendments.
“Over 48 years of this MACBAN, we need to have some new input and new ideas into the constitution. We need funds to sustain our activities. We used NDLEA to test all the aspirants of drugs and they passed the test.”
The President-General of the Nigeria Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA) urged the executives to reposition the association to address the emerging contemporary challenges confronting the Fulbe within and outside the country.
“MACBAN by its reach across the entire Nigeria and the Sahel should aspire to be a balance factor to the instability in Nigeria and across the Sahel.
“MACBAN could do this in articulating a Fulbe perspective in response to the present level of violence as a natural reaction to deprivation, marginalization and balkanization of the Fulbe into different nation states in West Africa.”
He, therefore, enjoined the executives of MACBAN along with Fulbe Civil Society Organisations, NGOs and stakeholders to come up with an education policy that recognises and reflects the peculiar requirements of the Fulbe in the knowledge-driven of the 21st century.
Also, Yobe State Governor, Mai Mala Buni enjoined the new leadership of the association to adopt a new approach to addressing farmers and herders clashes.
He also emphasised the need for the new executives of MACBAN to address incidence of social injustice among its members.
