Farmers/Herders Crisis About Economic Survival, Not Ethnicity – Sultan

The Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar, declared yesterday that farmers/herders crisis, which has claimed many lives in the country of recent, borders on economic survival and not ethnicity or religion. He warned that if the government and Nigerians continue to treat the incessant clashes resulting from the crisis as religious or ethnic issues, it would continue unabated.

The sultan spoke during the presentation of a book titled, ‘Dynamics of Revealed Knowledge and Human Sciences’, written in honour of the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board’s (JAMB’s) Registrar, Prof Is-haq Oloyede. The royal father cautioned that ascribing the word criminality to a tribe or ethnic group is wrong, even as he urged the federal government to fish out and deal with the criminals who have continued to kill the innocent citizens.

He said, “Nowadays, the worst word you can hear is Fulani. There are millions of Fulanis who don’t even know how to train cows. I am Fulani. I was never a herder. Now when everybody sees a Fulani man, he is a killer. To ascribe a particular ethnic group as a criminal is wrong.

“All over the world there are criminals. Let us give criminals their due name, not Christian criminals, Muslim criminals or Yoruba criminals. Call them criminals and deal with them. That is what we are telling government. If the government has failed, they should tell us where to come in and help.

“We don’t have statesmen any longer. We only have men of state as people just align with their states and religion more. A governor only sees his immediate surrounding as his constituency. We must be allowed freedom to go wherever we want to and live wherever we want to. We don’t except criminality. If criminals are in our midst, we must fish them out and deal with them”.

On the missing money in JAMB office, Abubakar expressed dismay over the high level of corruption in the nation, noting that Nigerians should come together to chat ways and means of getting out of corruption, a societal malaise that had continued to threaten the nation. He said, “The snake issues has been a humorous thing but it is just a sad reality of our county. Where is our moral value? Somebody will just come up and take government money and go away scot-free and nobody challenges it.

“The earlier we wake up the better for us. Corruption is at a high level and it is left for us to fight it to the end. We cannot just sit down and be thinking that things are okay. Things are not okay. It is left for us to sit down and find out ways and means of getting things back on track”.He urged Nigerian leaders to emulate the JAMB registrar who proved he is honest and incorruptible.

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