The Coalition of Pastoralists’ Associations of Nigeria, CPAN, has drawn the attention of the Federal Government and the international community to the plight of pastoralists.
The agency, at a press conference in Abuja on Tuesday, alleged that the Nigerian state and other tribes are trying to destroy cattle ranching businesses and drive away the Fulani.
CPAN members include the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria, MACBAN, Tabbital Pulaaku International, TPI and the Jonfe Jam Youth Development Association of Nigeria.
Others are the Fulbe Development Association of Nigeria, GAFDAN, Bandiraku Fulbe Youth Development and Right Initiative, FGRDI and Farmers and Hunters Initiative for Peace and Development.
MACBAN President Baba Othman Ngelzarma said the most effective way to suppress a group of people is to destroy their sources of income.
The CPAN leader accused authorities of seeing the cattle business “fall down the drain due to natural and man-made disasters.”
Backed by the “conspiratorial silence of the government”, many citizens, especially subnational entities, have embraced the culture of intolerance towards the Fulani and their endeavors, he alleged.
Ngelzarma stressed that global warming, which has severely affected Lake Chad, forced herders to move to southern Nigeria in search of water and feed for livestock.
“While the Nigerian government hasn’t lifted a finger to recharge Lake Chad and make it habitable for our people, it has watched helplessly as different communities and governments treat the Fulani as irritants.
“State governments make hateful laws. They prohibit open grazing without providing infrastructure for alternatives. They seize our cows and recklessly arrest our people and impose unreasonable fines on them.
“The Fulani have been subjected to stereotyping, ethnic cleansing and mass murder in almost every state. The Fulani people have been the object of hatred, annihilation for unjustifiable reasons,” he stated.
CPAN condemned the killing of dozens of herdsmen and butchers last week in the village of Rukubi on the border between Nasarawa and Benue states.
While regretting that no high-ranking official has visited the families of the victims to comfort them despite the public protests, the MACBAN president also recalled similar airstrikes against innocent herdsmen in Keana and Awe in Doma local government areas. in Nasarawa.
The herders called on the federal government to immediately investigate “the murder of herders, punish the offenders, compensate the families of the victims, and disband the militias that attack the Fulani.”
