Handle herdsmen attacks like Boko Haram, civil society tells Buhari

Two civil society groups – Committee for the Defence of Human Rights and the Centre for Anti-Corruption and Open Leadership – on Wednesday said Buhari-led Federal Government had not shown enough determination to stamp out killer herdsmen as it is doing to the Boko Haram insurgents.

The CDHR President, Malachy Ugwummadu, said, “These killings call for the attention of President Muhammadu Buhari and the military who is over-celebrating the measured victory over the Boko Haram insurgents.

“It is a call to the President and the government of the All Progressives Congress that as they are tackling insurgency in the North-East, they must also pay serious attention to other variants of violence, which are culminating in daily extra-judicial killings by ways of the herdsmen’s attacks.

“Section 33 of the Constitution, dealing with the right to life, is on a daily basis abused in this country and we have witnessed this in the most bizarre form.”

The Executive Director of CACOL, Debo Adeniran, said, “If lives are being destroyed, it means the presence of the government has been jeopardised. If these killings continue, it means that the Federal Government is complicit.

“I think the people have to protect themselves. If they are exposed to such dangers, they should put their hearts together. These ethnic clashes may degenerate into ethnic cleansings such as the incident in Rwanda.”

Also, a security analyst, Ben Okezie, expressed surprise that the President failed to mention the killings by Fulani herdsmen.

The analyst observed that Buhari had never ordered the police and other security agencies to tame the attackers, stressing that he was the President of the whole nation and not just the Fulani.

Okezie stated, “The President has not done enough. The police too have been sleeping on duty; they have not been doing what they are supposed to do.

“So, why would the President keep quiet? If he continues keeping quiet, then the constitution should be invoked against him because he has not upheld the constitution he swore to uphold.

“The police IG should resign for not being able to protect Nigerians. He does not know what he is supposed to do.”

In similar vein, a lawyer and human rights activist, Victor Giwa, expressed disappointment with the lackadaisical attitude of the Federal Government to the killings by Fulani herdsmen, noting that the issue of illegal arms possession must be frontally addressed.

He said, “Possession of firearms is criminal unless you have been licensed to own it, but nobody has told us that they have licensed Fulanis to bear arms and if they have been licensed, then the farmers too should be licensed so that they can carry arms too and defend themselves when necessary.”