‘Provide Evidence How You Own Benue Land’- MAFO Dares Fulani Herdsmen

The Movement Against Fulani Occupation, MAFO, has challenged Fulani herdsmen in Benue State to provide evidences to backup their claims that Benue land belongs to them.
MAFO, while describing the recent claim by the Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore, that they own Benue land as untrue and mischievous, called on the relevant security agencies to arrest and prosecute Garus Gololo, Chiroma and Saleh Bayari

The herdsmen had recently condemned the recent Anti Open grazing Law of Benue State and vowed to mobilize their arsenals to resist it.

Reacting, however, MAFO in a statement on Sunday, said it was regrettable that “these open threats and previous cases of open admittance to the killing of Benue People by the Fulani militia under the excuse of cattle business is happening under the watch of the Federal Government and her security apparatus, in a federal charter that places equality at the Centre of Its treatment of all ethnicities, groups and individuals.”

The group said, “It has come at the heels of similar utterances by various splinter groups of the Fulani’s beginning with one Garus Gololo, then Chiroma and Saleh Bayari of MACBAN and GAFDAN respectively which in totality is clear revelation of their intentions to contravene a law Passed after the due processes of public hearings during which their inputs could have been received and perhaps processed. These statements are hateful, inciting and treasonable.

“MAFO has received the threats to mobilize and resist this law as an open declaration of war on the Government and people of Benue State who have been under the savage attacks, plundering of our natural resources, sacking of our communities, killing of our unarmed people and occupation of our ancestral farmlands and homesteads since 2013.

“We, by this statement, adopt in totality the Position of the new Anti-grazing Law of Benue State, as well as the response from the state Government, the Benue State House of Assembly and all socio cultural groups on the recent threats. We also call on other neighboring states to lock arms with Benue State in a territorial synergy against the terror of Fulani herdsman.

“We wish to remind the world that this same Fulani herdsmen militia have been profiled and indexed as the 4th deadliest terrorist group in the world by global security experts. Therefore we call on the Federal Government of Nigeria to designate them as such and treat them with the same military attention as accorded Boko Haram in the North Eastern part of the country.

“We, by this statement, call for the immediate arrest and prosecution of all individuals credited with treasonable statements, these include Mr. Garus Gololo, Mr. Chiroma and Engr. Saleh Alhassan and to deploy security to Benue borders and communities to forestall the execution of such threats to resist the law and cause mayhem.

“We, by this statement, dismiss all claims of ownership of our lands by the Fulani people as false, baseless and mischievous. The Fulani who have always claimed to be nomadic when challenged, have not provided sufficient evidences either by conquest or long stay to lay claims on a land that historically belongs to Benue tribes long before the jihads of the 19th century saw the Fulani into Middle Belt territories.”