Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) on Saturday accused the Inspector General of Police, (IGP) Mohammed Adamu of partiality and double standards by ordering the Oyo State Commissioner of Police, Mrs. Ngozi Onadeko to arrest the Yoruba Ethnic Rights Activist, Mr. Sunday Ighoho.
But, HURIWA said IGP has refused to order the immediate arrest of the leader of a faction of Miyetti Allah Association, Bello Badejo who has threatened to take over lands of communities across the country unlawfully.
HURIWA in a statement issued by the National Coordinator, Emmanuel Onwubiko, said: “May be the IGP is lobbying for extension of tenure and can do everything to please the powers that be that have unambiguously made it known that the Fulani Ethnicity and Fulani herdsmen are sacred cows who are above the laws of the land. Otherwise, the retiring Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Adamu, should also arrest one Bello Bodejo, the national president of Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore, who says nobody can chase herdsmen away from the forest reserves in Ondo state. As we know, Mr. Rotimi Akeredolu (SAN), the governor of Ondo, ordered herders to vacate the forest reserves over rising insecurity in the state.
“As governor he is exercising a lawful authority but Bello Badejo has threatened fire and brimstone but the President Muhammadu Buhari who controls the Police and all other security forces has seen nothing untoward and unlawful with the violent tendencies of Bello Badejo just because he is the kinsman of President Muhammadu Buhari who is running the administration like a pro-Fulani platform. Governor Akeredolu had said “bad elements” have turned the forest reserves into hideouts for keeping victims of kidnapping, negotiating ransom and carrying out other criminal activities.
“But in an interview with a national daily, Bodejo said the herders will not obey Akeredolu’s directive because he has no right to issue such orders, as the Fulanis have been in the area for over 250 years.He said the herders do not need anybody’s permission to use a forest for grazing so far as it provides the nutrients needed by their cattle. According to him, the Ondo state governor, Rotimi Akeredolu, doesn’t have any right to give such ultimatum to our people. People, including Fulani, voted for him to be the governor; so he should be the governor of everybody in the state,” he said.Fulani have been in the forests he is talking about even before he was born; they have been there for over 250 years. After staying there for a long time and their cow dung turns the place fertile, people would begin to come there to farm and to settle and from then, they begin to make claims that our cattle were destroying their farms.”
The group said the IGP who reportedly through the mouth of Garba Shehu stated that he had ordered the arrest of the Oyo State based YORUBA activist Mr. Sunday IGBOHO for allegedly asking Fulani herdsmen to: “quit the South West of Nigeria is being clever by half by not also ordering the immediate arrest of the National leader of this troublesome wing of the Miyett Allah COWS’ owners group Bello Badejo who has for 5 years made threats against diverse Ethnic communities to take over their lands and threatening civil war in Nigeria but the Police, the DSS and all other security forces have consistently looked the other way whilst armed Fulani herdsmen continued to unleash mayhem and violence.”
HURIWA maintained that the order to arrest Chief Sunday Adeniyi Adeyemo popularly known as Sunday IGBOHO whereas Bello Badejo of MIYETTI ALLAH roams about freely threatening the corporate peace of Nigeria shows that the heads of the security forces are compromised ethnic and religious warriors and bigots who are determined to drag Nigeria down the routes of Somalia of former Ethnically divided Rwanda.
