As insecurity continues to ravage the country, a coalition led by a US- based self-determination movement, the United Indigenous People of African Foundation (UNIPAF), have called on governors in the South and Middle-Belt regions to start equipping their respective regional security outfits with arms and ammunition, including training and re-training of local vigilantes and hunters in their domains so as to safeguard their people.
The coalition for self- determination, including OPSOM, Ohaneze Youth Council, CONDEF, Middle-Belt Groups alongside UNIPAF made the call in a statement made available to newsmen on Sunday, saying that the affected governors should embark on move by invoking the Doctrine of Necessity and the provisions of Chapter VII, Article 51 of United Nations Charter on Self-Defense.
The coalition expressed worries about continued deterioration of security in the country, resulting in destruction of lives and properties amid threat to Abuja, the Federal Capital, with not a few people already likening Nigeria to Afghanistan, however, commended the Benue State governor, Samuel Ortom, for what it described as a “bold step taken to confront a state of terror” to arm the State Security Outfit, known as Community Volunteer Guards.
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The self- determination groups called on other governors in the South and Middle-Belt zones to establish their state security outfits backed by laws for state and self-defense, urging them to start expending the resources they were currently expending on the funding of Nigeria Police, Military and Civil Defense to fund, “for instance, Amotekun Corps in the Yoruba territory and trained passionate local hunters and vigilantes within their territories.”
On the State Indigene Bill currently being sponsored on the floor of the National Assembly by some representatives as an affront on the Indigenous people and a “smart” move to formally legalize the land-grabbing agenda of the Fulani Oligarchy in the South and Middle-Belt of Nigeria and to also legitimatize the presence of illegal foreign Fulani militias that would now operate freely within all states and turn the country into a battle ground as was seen in Sudan, Rwanda, among others.
They, therefore, enjoined the governors and traditional rulers in the two regions to stop the installation of Fulani Chiefs in their domains with immediate effect, saying that to continue doing that “is an affront on the traditions of indigenous people within their domains.”
“As a matter of urgent importance, governors in the South and Middle-Belt of Nigeria should mobilize the National Assembly members in their territory to ensure that the State Indigene Bill that some Representatives of Fulani background want to pass in the National Assembly of Nigeria which enables non-indigene to become indigenes of where they reside after five years of residence is foiled and rejected.
“The bill, if allowed to be passed into law, will formalize the complete overtaking of all the land in the South and Middle-Belt of Nigeria by a group that already boasted that all the land in Yoruba land belongs to their great-grand fathers. Being indigenes, they could become kings and kingmakers in the South and Middle-Belt lands. It is basically an extension of the land-grabbing agenda of the Nigerian Government after failing to foist RUGA on the indigenous people,” the coalition said.
“Lastly, without prejudice to the rights to association of everyone, we state without any fear or favour or intimidation that the culture of installing Sarkin or Seriki Fulani in the South and Middle-Belt regions of Nigeria should be abolished by Governors from these zones. All these positions are not religious but traditional leadership positions, therefore, imposing these foreign ‘leaders’ on the traditions of the Middle-Belt to South appears to be an act of conquest,” they warned.
and then