The Kaduna State Governor, Mr Nasir El Rufai on Wednesday said lives were lost during the post-election violence resulting in displaced Fulanis turning to castle rustling and a series of reprisal killings in Southern Kaduna.
Speaking on Channels Television’s flagship programme, Sunrise Daily, the former minister said “killings in Southern Kaduna have more or less stopped”, adding that “there has been no killing in the last six months”.
About 300 villagers were killed last week by Fulani Herdsmen in Agatu, Benue State..The Representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to Nigeria and Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), Mrs. Angele Dikongue Atangana described the level of killings and destruction perpetrated in Agatu local government by herdsmen as the worst in history.
In his interview, the Governor attributed the success to the “intervention of a committee we set up under the leadership of Gen. (Martin Luther) Agwai (Rtd), who did a very good job by going round and tracing the root of these killings and found that most of those who come in to do those killings are from other countries like Cameroon, Chad, Mali and Senegal.
“This happened in April and these cattle rearers had come from these countries and were going back, because they move across the West African sub region and were going back with their cattle and this problem happened, if you remember the elections of 2011 and they were just victims that were passing through.
“And of course you know the Fulani have a long memory of revenging any killings; so there relations were coming from other countries to revenge the killings and we had to reach out to some of these countries outside Nigeria telling them this cannot continue”, he said.
He further noted that they offered to compensate those affected “and do anything” to bring the killings to an end, insisting that “there is no sense wiping out an entire village just because something happened five years ago”.
Mr El-Rufai said these tactics have brought about the needed result, maintaining that “there has been no killing in the last six months, since Agwai did that job and reached out to these people and talked to them.
On cattle rustling, Mr El Rufai said a joint military operation was funded by himself alongside governors of Zamfara, Niger, Katsina and Kebbi – states where they use as refuge – “to flush them out and so far, we have recovered cattle and many of the rustlers have been killed”.
According to the global terrorism Index, Nigerian Fulani militants named as fourth deadliest terror group in world.
The fourth deadliest known terrorist group has been named as the Fulani militant group operating in Nigeria and parts of the Central African Republic.
The little-known group, formed of individuals from the semi-nomadic pastorial ethnic group Fula people existing across several West African nations, has seen a dramatic escalation of its activities in the past year.
In 2013, the Fulani killed around 80 people in total – but by 2014 the group had killed 1,229.
Operating mainly in the middle belt of Nigeria, opposed to the north which is dominated by Boko Haram, the group recorded 847 deaths last year across five states, and has also been knonw to stage attacks in the Central African Republic (CAR), according to the latest report from the Global Terrorism Index.
Little is known about the group, despite the high toll they are inflicting on local civilian populations, but it is supposed the increased instability in CAR and Nigeria – despite some government successes against militant groups – has facilitated the group’s expansion.
