In this interview by ISAAC SHOBAYO, a former national president of the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN) and now national president of Gan Allah Fulani Development Association of Nigeria (GAFDAN), Alhaji Sale Bayari, speaks on the controversy trailing Monday’s meeting of South West governors with MACBAN and other stakeholders, among other issues.
Are you not disturbed that the Fulani, especially the herdsmen among you, have become endangered species, given the killings, banditry and kidnapping often associated with them around the country?
The position of Gan Allah Fulani Development Association of Nigeria is that these problems we are having in this country are purely political. They equally have regional, economic, social and tribal undertones. The problems have been made worse by the insecurity in the country. The government said they had been trying their best but we can see that their best is not good enough. In all these, what I don’t particularly like is the ethnitisation and tribalisation of crime. We know those who were first shot in this country as armed robbers, especially in the southern part of this country when we had no reported case of armed robbery in the North, but the entire people were not branded as thieves or criminalised. So, if you treat people on the basis of tribe, it would not help the situation but if you isolate and treat a criminal on the basis of the crime he committed and prosecute him accordingly, that might be the end of him or the end of that crime he has been committing. The position of Gan Fulani is that there are criminals in every tribe, there are criminals in every religion; there are criminals in every part of this country. What I am trying to say is that a crime committed by any person from the South South, South East or any part of the country only represents the person behind the crime and not these sections. We feel that if one person commits an offence and you punish a hundred people, if these people discovered that they have been surcharged and they attribute that to hatred for them either as a tribe or a religious group, I think under the circumstance, these people might get involved in the crime. What we are saying is that as Nigerians, we should treat ourselves according to the good things or the bad things we have done.
What is those in leadership positions, especially at the level of various Fulani associations, doing to fish out the criminal elements in their midst?
There was a time great leaders in this country were accused of certain things but they stood up and vindicated themselves. Fishing out criminals and bringing them to book is the constitutional responsibility of security agencies, not leaders of any tribe, group or region. It is the responsibility of the government to find and prosecute criminals. For example, I founded Gan Allah Fulani Development Association of Nigeria in 2016. I have been preaching for peace and for things to be done differently. Those behind other tribal associations in the country like Afenifere, PANDEF, Ohanaeze Indigbo, people like Pa Ayo Adebanjo and Chief Edwin Clark, are well educated. We should be emulating them to ensure that we have educated people around us because these are the people we should be interacting with. We have Professor Jubril Aminu and others, why is Miyetti Allah not looking to such people? I went to the university, yet when I appear before other people that are highly educated, I feel intellectually and educationally inferior. So, I wish we had a professor in Gan Allah that would be leading the association, while I function at a lower level, whether as PRO or deputy chairman. But who do we have in Miyetti Allah Hore, Miyetti Allah, Gan Fulani and other Fulani associations? We have people who have not seen the four walls of school in their lives. For the Middle Belt and other tribal associations, there are people like Dr Bitrus Pogu, because they want to educate their people. If we had this kind of leadership, our people would speak with one voice and our agenda would be the same at the national, zonal and state levels. But Miyetti Allah will never call for any meeting, Gan Allah will call for a meeting but they would not come; they just concede everything in the eyes of civilised people.
Miyetti Allah went to Katsina when over 300 students were abducted in Kankara to embarrass Mr President. In the process of trying to rescue the students, the governor of Zamfara State, through the media such as BBC, Radio France, Dauchefela, thanked Miyetti Allah for coming to the rescue of the students. Earlier, we heard that there was an exchange of money to rescue the students. What I want to say is that nobody, including the people of Kanuri, have identified with Boko Haram. So, why would the president of Miyetti Allah be involved in the rescue and the government would expose his involvement in it? And tomorrow if any Yoruba or Igbo man is kidnapped, Miyetti Allah will be held responsible and they will have to do the same thing they did in Zamfara and Katsina to get those people released. But the unfortunate thing is that it is not every Fulani herdsman that is Miyetti Allah. Membership of the association is voluntary. It is not decreed that every Fulani man should belong to Miyetti Allah. If that is the case, my association, Gan Fulani, and other Fulani associations would not have been registered.
Under PANDEF, Afenifere and Ohanaeze Ndigbo, there are many smaller associations but in the case of Fulani, it is not so. It has never happened in Fulani associations. Miyetti Allah has never called Gan Allah to say let us form one body. Even in Miyetti Allah, there are two factions. So, why should the South West governors call Miyetti Allah and go into an agreement with them? In the agreement, they conceded not one thing to Miyetti Allah. It was about the seven-day ultimatum given by the Ondo State governor. We thought they were going to concentrate on the reason for the ultimatum and what should be done about it, but before we knew what was happening, the governor of Ekiti was brought in and that broadened the agenda. They said there would be no more underage grazing. They tabled about seven items and decisions were taken as if the Miyetti Allah they had with them represents every Fulani man and is, therefore, liable in case of a breach of that agreement. But the reality is that Gan Allah members have not been consulted and we were not there. What we are saying is that if you want to get the list of Fulani associations, go to the Corporate Affairs Commission. Why should the governors invite one association? Is it because they were involved in the rescue of kidnapped students or what?
There is an allegation of collaboration between indigenous herdsmen and foreign migrant ones over myriad of crimes like killing, kidnapping and banditry…
If you protect everyone on the basis of the constitution and ensure equity and justice, no foreigner will have the gut to come in and collaborate with your citizens to commit atrocities. If you persecute and repress the Fulani man on the basis of mere sentiment, you are exposing him to be assisted and you are also assisting him to go and help other people so that if the need arises, there would be fraternity. So, if I protect an Ijaw man as a Nigerian, I am protecting myself but if I say because he is an Igbo man, let him be persecuted, he may have a brother in Cameroon, Togo and other places willing to address the perceived injustice being meted out to him.
What is your view on the way the presidency reacted to the ultimatum of the Ondo State government?
I think it was very wrong for the Fulani under the leadership of Miyetti Allah to have identified with the ambition of the president on the basis of the fact that he is a Fulani man. When [former President Goodluck] Jonathan was there, I never saw Ijaw people giving that kind of support. Obasanjo did eight years and I never heard Afenifere say ‘we have come to endorse you’. That is what caused those two to be president of everybody in this country. But because of the illiterate leadership in Miyetti Allah, they had to endorse President [Muhammadu] Buhari. If Nigerians did not vote for Buhari, would endorsement by Miyetti Allah have produced him as president? If you endorse him, whatever he does, either good or bad, will affect you.
Whatever you do on the basis of religion or ethnicity is not going to favour you. In that regard, the presidency reacted as if Miyetti Allah is an agency of the Federal Government and to that extent, they decided that as far as they were concerned, there was only one association, whether it is good or bad, because they were looking at the antecedent of the people for saying that they were with them. It is unfortunate that the South West governors would hold such a sensitive meeting and invite one association and say they have an agreement with the association when other vibrant associations were not carried along. How can that agreement be binding on my association when our heads were shaved in our absence? MACBAN did not have the consent, authority or approval of our association or herders to go into any such contract or agreement on issues bordering on our members’ lives or livelihood as cattle-rearing Nigerians. It appears that our heads were shaved in our absence and we have the right to disassociate ourselves from the agreement, especially as there was nothing the governors conceded to us as GAFDAN or MACBAN for the sake of peace and order except that MACBAN surrendered to the anti-grazing ideas. We are a law-abiding group of Nigerians but we are not a party to the agreement.
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