(Plateau Map. Photo Credit: Daily Post)
Under the name “Concerned Fulani Youths in Plateau,” a Fulani youth organization has provided explanations for why the state’s ongoing violence and instability won’t go away anytime soon.
The group claims that if local gangs, particularly the “Berom Militias,” continue to assault and murder innocent herders and their livestock their sole source of income true peace and reconciliation between host towns and Fulani people will not be possible.
The group, after a meeting in Jos on Tuesday, said that while the Fulani people desire peaceful coexistence with their hosts, they would also not sit back and watch their people being k!lled and their livestock stolen by local gangs.
In a communique issued at the end of the meeting, signed by its convener, Saleh Umaru, the Fulani group insisted that most of the att@cks attributed to Fulani herdsmen have largely been reprisal att@cks carried out either to avenge the k!llings of their people or to recover stolen cows.
Umaru said that following wide-ranging consultations with different Fulani groups, communities and individual herders across Plateau State, the Concerned Fulani Youths in Plateau had unanimously concluded that a major cause of the lingering violence between herdsmen and local communities.
Particularly in Barkin Ladi and Riyom Local Government Areas, which are predominantly Berom lands, stemmed from att@cks and k!llings of Fulani people by Berom militia gangs.
He said that while the group was not completely exonerating herdsmen, noting that some had taken criminality as a way of life, their consultations revealed that most of the violence amounted to reprisal att@cks.
He described the Fulani people as generally peace-loving and focused on rearing cattle, but argued that no community would remain calm while its people are k!lled, their wives and daughters violated, and their settlements destroyed, adding that such circumstances would naturally provoke a reaction aimed at self-protection and preventing further att@cks.
He further stated that many Fulani settlements have been invaded and destroyed by Berom militia gangs, with hundreds of herders k!lled and thousands of livestock stolen, asserting that such situations would naturally result in reprisal reactions.
Umaru called on the Plateau State government, under the leadership of Governor Caleb Mutfwang, to enact a law criminalising ethnic militia gangs, and urged security agencies to clamp down on them as a deterrent.
He warned that without these measures, lasting peace on the Plateau would remain elusive.