The Pan-Yoruba socio-political group, Afenifere has chided the Federal Government for maintaining indifference to the wanton killings by Fulani herdsmen across the country.
It, however, wondered why government, through the Information Minister, Alhaji Lai Mohammed said it was working silently on the matter while killings were done openly by the herdsmen.
Rising from its monthly meeting in Akure, the group rejected the statement credited to the minister saying several killings “cannot be going on openly and government will be working silently.”
In a communiqué issued at the end of the meeting, read by its spokesman, Yinka Odumakin, Afenifere said: “We reject the statement of the Minister of Information, Alhaji Lai Mohammed that the Federal Government is working silently on this matter. Several killings cannot be going on in the open and the government says it’s working silently. It is unfortunate that that statement is coming from the federal government.
“There can’t be any silent working over these killings; the action of the Federal Government must be opened.”
Calling on President Muhammadu Buhari to speak up on the matter, Afenifere said urgent action must be taken “to restore the peace of people of Nigeria, especially in the South and middle belt.”
The meeting was attended by leaders of the group across the states at the country home of its chairman, Pa Reuben Fasoranti.
According to the communiqué “The meeting is worried about recent spate of killings by Fulani herdsmen across the country as evident in Agatu killings, the murder of Olu Falae’s guard in his farm, the killings in Ibadan and the latest being the heinous murder of over 40 Nigerians in cold blood in Enugu. We are worried that Federal Government seems to have maintained indifference to the wanton killings going on across the country against the provisions of the constitution.
“That the Federal Government has a duty to protect the lives and properties of every citizens of Nigeria. We call on President Muhammadu Buhari to speak up on this matter and to take urgent action to restore the sense of people of Nigeria, especially in the south and middle belt.
“We are also worried that the DSS which went to the press to say that they discovered a grave in the South East where they said they found the bodies of some Fulani herdsmen without any DNA has continued to maintain silence also over these killings across the country.
“The DSS had failed to establish that the bodies is from any ethnic group. It is an organization for all Nigerians and should be concerned and make a report on the killings across the country not just what they called the killing of people from certain ethnic group among the over 250 groups in Nigeria.” (Vanguard)
