Last week, Afenifere leader Chief Olu Falae was abducted by Fulani herdsmen who held him for two days until a ransom of N5m (£17,000) was paid. Chief Falae, 77, a former finance minister, secretary to the federal government and presidential candidate, was abducted from his farm near the Ondo State capital, Akure.
For several years, he had been involved in an ongoing dispute with cattle herders who wanted to water their cattle on his farm and it believed his kidnapping may have been related to this. Chief Falae once took the herdsmen to court and got compensation after he proved that their cattle had eaten his crops.
Across Nigeria there have been numerous incidents of cattle rearers clashing with local communities amid concerns that livestock were destroying farmlands. Fulani cattle herders are heavily armed across Nigeria and many of the recent clashes have been brutal bloody with heavy death tolls.
Yesterday, Afenifere leaders met at the home of its leader, Pa Rueben Fasonranti in Akure, where it issued a call to the federal government to ban nomadic cattle herding across the country. Afenifere publicity secretary Yinka Odumakin, decried the state of insecurity in the country, describing the kidnap of Chief Falae as shameful, insensitive and disrespectful to Yorubas.
He warned that if the federal government failed to stop the herdsmen from attacking the Yoruba people, the people of the southwest might have to defend themselves. Former aviation minister Chief Femi Fani-Kayode had earlier described the Fulani cattle herders as the new pests of the nation, accusing them of terror, intimidation, theft, murder, rape, abduction, mutilation, the violation of the rights of others, the destruction of the land and crops of farmers and the destruction of property.
Mr Odumakin added: “Our people are everywhere in the country and they don’t destroy the business of their hosts, so why should the Fulani people be destroying our own businesses? Our demand is that the federal government should arrest the perpetrators and prosecute them as Yoruba people will not tolerate this any longer.
“So, while we await the arrest of the criminals, cattle rearing should be stopped in Yorubaland. The meeting noted that the 2014 National Conference, to which Chief Olu Falae led the Yoruba delegation, extensively discussed this matter of nomadic cattle rearing and the conference resolved that it should be stopped and instead have ranches for cattle business.”
Afenifere said the report contained the abolition of nomadic system of cattle rearing, which it described as primitive. Chief Fani-Kayode had likened Fulani herdsmen to the Janjaweed militia in Sudan.
He added: They are like the East African tse-tse fly as wherever they go they suck the life blood out of their hosts and like the locust, they destroy everything in their path. They are like leeches as they indulge in a parasitic mode of nutrition and they suck the blood of the carcass until their victim is left for dead."
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