Socio-cultural Yoruba group, Afenifere has condemned President Muhammadu Buhari’s statement on herdsmen killings during his visit to the White house.
Buhari was quoted telling Trump that, “The problem of herders in Nigeria is a very long historical thing. The Nigerian herders don’t carry anything more than a stick and occasionally a matchet to cut down foliage and give it to their animals, these ones are carrying AK-47.
“So, people should not underrate what happened in Libya. 43 years of Ghaddaffi, people were recruited from Sahel and trained to shoot and kill. With the demise of Ghaddaffi they moved to other countries and region and carried the experience with them.”
Afenifere, in a statement by its spokesman, Yinka Odumakin, stated that Buhari disappointed Nigerians by absolving Fulani herdsmen of involvement in the killings, stressing that he spoke as “the patron of Miyetti Allah, not as the President of Nigeria.”
“Buhari should not have gone to the international stage and say Fulani herdsmen don’t carry AK 47; that destroyed everything for the President.
“This is why Afenifere said he should make a choice between the Presidency and being the patron of Miyetti Allah. He spoke in America in defence of Fulani herdsmen as their patron, not as the President of Nigeria and that is conflict of interest,” Odumakin said.
Odumakin further faulted the US president’s statement on the killings of Christians in Nigeria.
He described Trump’s advice to Buhari as good admonition, noting however that it was not only Christians that were being killed.
Also on Buhari’s approval for recruitment of 6,000 policemen, Afenifere dismissed the president’s announcement, stating that it would not make much difference to the security situation in the country.
What a shame…that this president is going around making foolish and unwarranted excuses about the killings of his fellow countrymen by whatever group. It does not matter who President Buhari thinks trained these people, as long as they are terrorizing and killing fellow Nigerians, the president should have condemned it. If President Buhari really thinks that these killings and attacks are carried out by former Gaddafi trained soldiers, then, who is letting them in Nigeria? Had Col. Muammar Gaddafi been alive today, would our president be blaming these killings on his countrymen? Who would Buhari be blaming then?
Cash Ezimako