Enough is enough! Probe killer herdsmen’s sources of weapons, Sultan tells FG
Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Sa’ad Abubakar III, has urged the Federal Government to probe the sources of weapons of herdsmen, who have been killing residents across the country.
Abubakar spoke in Sokoto on Sunday in his Eid-el-Fitr message to the Muslims in Nigeria.
The Sultan stated, ‘‘The real herdsmen do not carry guns, but they only move with their cows and sticks.
‘‘Agreed, there are bad eggs among the Fulani, but those carrying arms and perpetrating heinous killings are not herdsmen. Those carrying arms are criminals and they should be treated as such.
‘‘The government should therefore probe the sources of these weapons and take appropriate action; they should face the wrath of the law.
“Government should probe the sources of these weapons and take appropriate action so as to minimise these attacks.”
Abubakar commended the Federal Government for measures so far taken to combat insurgency in the North-East, adding that “the problem is not yet over.”
The Sultan urged Nigerians to complement the efforts of the security agencies to make Nigeria more secure.
‘‘The issue of security is a collective responsibility and not that of the security agencies alone,” he said.
Herdsmen dislodge farmers in Ondo village
Meanwhile, residents of Ileyo village in the Akure North Local Government Area of Ondo State have called on the state and federal governments to come to their aid as Fulani herdsmen have allegedly sent them out of their farms.
They said since the police had flushed out the herdsmen from the farm of a former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Chief Olu Falae, the cattle rearers had been destroying the crops in their farms.
The village is a few kilometres to Falae’s farm.
The villagers, who a protested on Friday along the Igbatoro-Akure Road, alleged that the herdsmen killed one of them on the farm penultimate Sunday.
They identified the deceased as Linus Ogbee, saying he was shot while working on his farm.
Speaking on the development, the Baale of the Ileyo Village, Chief Taiwo Ogunleye, said the villagers could not go their farms for the past one week because the herdsmen had taken over the farms.
Ogunleye added, “We discovered that some herdsmen, who were chased out of Chief Olu Falae’s farm, are now in our farms with their cows. One of the villagers was shot dead; we know they were the ones that shot him. Our youths wanted to go and fight them but we calmed them down.
“That is why we are calling on the government to flush the herdsmen out of our farms. We don’t want chaos in our land, we don’t want fighting; so, the herdsmen should leave our land.
“For the past one week, no one could go to farm so as not to be attacked by these herdsmen.”
The Police Public Relations Officer of the state police command, Mr. Femi Joseph, however, said the command was aware of the development.
Joseph stated that the command had deployed some operatives in the area to forestall a breakdown of law and order.
The PPRO explained that the command was not sure of the cause of death of the deceased farmer, saying the autopsy report of the death was not yet out as of press time.
“It is when the report of the autopsy is out that we can ascertain the cause of the death. We could see that the man was shot but we cannot say yet that the herdsmen killed him,” he added. Punch
