- Restructuring’ll end killings, says Afenifere
The Founder of the Pan Yoruba group, Oodua Peoples Congress, Dr. Fredrick Fasehun, has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to ensure that the Fulani herdsmen involved in the killing of innocent Nigerians pay for their crimes. This is just as the spokesman of the Pan Yoruba socio-political group, Afenifere, Mr. Yinka Odumakin, insisted that only the restructuring of the country would permanently stop the killings of innocent Nigerians.
Fasehun accused the government of showing a total disregard for the activities of the killer Fulani herdsmen in several parts of the country, including Southern Kaduna, Plateau, Taraba and Benue.
The OPC founder said, “The Nigerian government has continued to shield these Killer Fulani herdsmen, excusing their killings as a clash between herdsmen and farmers. However, the Killer Fulani herdsmen’s resort to slaughtering unarmed church worshippers and clergymen, as well as soldiers and policemen, shows that government has been playing politics and nepotism with this grave issue. “Enough is enough; President Buhari must comply with the global index that has ranked the killer Fulani herdsmen not just as a terrorist organisation, but the fourth most deadly in the world. He must immediately mandate the military and the police to ensure that killer Fulani herdsmen pay for their crimes.”
He also said that people’s right to defend themselves against attackers by all possible means must be recognised and encouraged.
Fasehun further said that the current structure of the country’s security architecture was skewed in favour of the President’s ethnic group and religion, against others.
He said, “This is a clear violation of the Constitution, which says in Section 14(3) that: “The composition of the Government of the Federation or any of its agencies and the conduct of its affairs shall be carried out in such a manner as to reflect the federal character of Nigeria and the need to promote national unity, and also to command national loyalty, thereby ensuring that there shall be no predominance of persons from a few states or from a few ethnic or other sectional groups in that Government or in any of its agencies.”
“Violation of this or any other section of the Constitution constitutes an impeachable offence.
“We demand that the National Assembly, as a matter of urgency, compel President Buhari to immediately review this biased, lopsided and unbalanced security structure to reflect Nigeria’s Federal Character, failing which it should immediately commence impeachment processes against him.”
Also, the spokesperson of the Yoruba socio- political group, Afenifere, Mr. Yinka Odumakin, said the killings of innocent Nigerians could only be permanently stopped through the restructuring of the country.
Odumakin said contrary to President Buhari’s assertion that those calling for the restructuring of the country have ulterior motives, “the killings, especially the recent one in Plateau, shows that we must sit down to agree on how we are going to live together as a nation.
” Anything contrary to this, we are just deceiving ourselves. A situation where some people value the lives of cattle as more important than the human soul, is unacceptable.”
