Babatope Okeowo Leaders of the Southern and Middle-Belt Forum (SMBLF) said it has lost confidence in the ability of the Nigeria State to defend the people of Plateau and Benue States who have been ravaged by killing and homelessness.
Consequently, the group asked the people of Plateau and Benue States who are in the Middle Belt of the country most affected to defend themselves against aggressors who have killed and rendered many of them homeless.
The group of elder statesmen said the call became necessary because of the failure of the Nigerian government to defend the people against the aggressors who have killed several people and rendered them homeless.
In a statement signed by the leaders of the SMBLF, including Oba Oladipo Olaitan (Afenifere), Dr. Bitrus Pogu, (Ohaneze Ndigbo) Senator John Azuta-Mbata (Middle-Belt) and Godknows Igali (PANDEF) said the residents of the affected stated should not lament again but defend their lives and territories against suspected Fulani aggressors.
The SMBLF said the planned, coordinated, and unrelenting genocidal massacre by suspected Fulani militias in various communities across Nigeria, particularly Plateau and Benue states, has pushed all patriotic and well-meaning Nigerians beyond the threshold of mourning for decisive action by people of different nationalities and groups.
The group said the latest cold-blooded murder of not less than 50 innocent citizens of Irigwe ethnicity in Zike and Kakpa villages in Kwall District, Bassa Local Government Area of Plateau State last Sunday following similar killings of over 80 innocent lives in Bokkos Local Government Area a few days earlier have left the people with no choice than to take their destinies in their own hands severally and jointly.
According to the elder statesmen, “These terrorist killings wiping out entire families and villages hypocritically branded “farmers/herders clash” on the farmers’ land have become such commonplace that officials of the Nigerian state on each occurrence only indulge in comparative statistical analysis of the number of lives lost. The only crime of our people is being Nigerians with their ancestral land and its reach for resources on which they live peacefully.”
The SMBLF noted that only a day after the directive of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for security agencies to pursue the perpetrators of the Bokkos killings and in an astonishing display of impudence, a group calling itself the “Coalition of Registered Fulani Organisations in Plateau State” led by one Garba Abdullahi held a press conference in Kaduna wherein they issued conditions for peace.
The SMBLF said the demands of the Fulani group was the removal of certain military commanders from Plateau State, saying days after these threats, as the condition was not met and knowing that the Presidential Order was of no consequence, blood were unleashed on parts of Benue State by the same Fulani militias.
The group said, “While we may acknowledge that many Nigerians of Fulani origin may not support these heinous crimes perpetrated by their kinsmen from all over the West African sub-region, the continued silence of their prominent leaders is suggestive of complicity in a clear Fulanisation agenda of Nigeria.
“It has become undeniable that Nigeria is under siege by these well-coordinated, well-armed Fulani militias bringing with them kidnapping, murder, and chaos. Their activities are no longer random acts of violence; they are part of a deliberate strategy of territorial expansion and ethnic cleansing.
“In every community attacked, the Fulani militias not only destroy but also settle on the lands often without resistance from the very security forces deployed to protect citizens.
“All the Federal Government does is condone these modern-day territorial conquests while the land owners are packed in camps of Internally Displaced Persons as rescued slaves with no hopes of returning home.
“It is undeniable that the Nigerian state has surrendered its sovereignty and territory to the wanton violation by an ethnic nationality which members are acclaimed to have no respect for the territorial boundary and integrity of modern nation-states.
“The Nigerian security forces, once respected even in international peace-keeping and enforcement operations, have been over-stretched by multiple engagements in several fronts across the country.
“All proposals and resolutions by well-meaning Nigerians which have even enjoyed national consensus for the security of life and property including the end to open grazing, the establishment of State Police, restructuring and true federalism have been rejected by the Federal Government.”
The SMBLF noted that even the salutary Amotekun Security Initiative by the South West States was being deliberately rendered impotent by a timid and complicit Nigerian state that continues to deny the outfit’s necessary capacity to confront terrorism.
Their words, “As leaders, SMBLF can no longer remain in a state of lamentation and idle mourning while our people are in their numbers butchered in cold blood. The soil of our homelands has drunk enough of our blood.
“As a minimum demand, we call on the political representatives of our people, particularly at the National and State Assemblies, for legislations in support of State Police and an immediate end to open grazing without prejudice to the Governors immediately putting in place security structures with the capacity to withstand terror in our respective states.
“To the people: Rise, stop mourning and lamentation; organize according to your respective cultural and Indigenous ways of community defense; seek necessary capacity wherever possible and available.
“If our people were not conquered before Nigeria, we will not allow Nigeria to subject us to destruction and slavery. Take back every inch of your land now. In the face of the failure of the Nigerian state to protect you, all acts and weapons in self-defense are lawful and legitimate.
