Take Firm Action On Herdsmen And Farmers Clashes- Sultan Of Sokoto Tells Buhari

Sultan of Sokoto, Sa’ad Abubakar III, yesterday lampooned the Federal Government over its attitude to the constant clashes between Fulani herdsmen and farmers. The Sultan, who spoke at the Northern Traditional Rulers General Assembly 2017 in Kaduna, also called on the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration to wake up to its responsibilities. According to him, the prevailing security situation in the country is as a result of failure of government to live up to its responsibilities.

Abubakar, who is also the chairman of the Northern Traditional Rulers, said that any Nigerian who took up arms to kill another person, was a criminal and must be treated as such, no matter his tribe or religion. Those present at the event included all the state chairmen of Council of Traditional Rulers from the 19 Northern states and Abuja with representatives from the South-East, South- South and South-West. Speaking at the opening session before going into the closed-door meeting, the Sultan said, “Our comments are meant to alert our political leaders to their responsibilities of what they should do.

As a Fulani leader, I am the leader of Fulani in this country, and in the West African sub-region, I live with so many people and I know their problems, and I will never call on any Fulani to pick up arms to kill anybody. I have said it so many times at so many fora; those people picking up arms and killing people are criminals and whoever you are, whether you are Igbo, Hausa, Yoruba or Fulani, you have no right to take up arms and kill anybody. If you see such things happening, then they must be a failure of government. But if governments wake up to their responsibilities, some of these things will not happen. We keep on calling on everyone to please maintain peace and allow the constituted authority to take up these issues and we will continue to put pressure on them, until they find solution to this dastardly act.”

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