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No Fulani will go back to rearing cows after collecting millions in ransom – El Rufai

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Bandits abduct 10 students in Kaduna

 

BY NICHOLAS ABE


Kaduna State governor Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai says no Fulani cattle herder, involved in banditry and kidnapping, will ever go back to rearing cows after collecting millions of Naira in ransom.

El-Rufai who spoke to BBC Hausa Service on Monday in Kaduna, was explaining why the effort by a Kaduna based Islamic scholar, Sheikh Ahmad Gumi, to convince bandits to lay down arms and embrace peace, may be an exercise in futility.

The governor said the criminals are used to getting big money and will not repent, reiterating that Kaduna State was at war with bandits and kidnappers and as such will not negotiate with them. “Eliminating them is the only solution to banditry,” he affirmed.

As far as El-Rufai is concerned, Gumi might as well be wasting his time as, according to him, there won’t be any forgiveness and compensation for bandits.

“I never believed that a Fulani herdsman who ventured into banditry and is collecting millions of Naira as ransom will repent. I spoke to Dr Gumi who is my friend, I explained that majority of these bandits don’t believe in the religion. That is why they kill mercilessly.

READ: Restructure Nigeria not Sharia, Sheik Gumi

“Anybody who thinks a Fulani herdsman that was used to only getting N100,000 in a year, after selling a cow, but now is getting millions through kidnapping for ransom will stop, is only wasting his time,” he said.

On the synergy to confront the criminal elements in the region, the governor lamented over the division amongst governors in the Northwest region.

According to him, while some of the governors prefer dialogue with the bandits ‎as a solution, he and others did not see that as a solution.

His said: “We the governors, lack unity among ourselves in this region in working as one to neutralise the bandits. We in Kaduna and Niger state are talking on how to end the problem. The governor of Niger state calls me and we are discussing. Anybody that thinks a Fulani man that ventured into kidnapping for ransom and he is earning millions of Naira would go back to his former life of getting N100,000 after selling a cow in a year, must be deceiving himself.

“Why should they be compensated after killing people, they destroyed their houses. Who offended them? Ahmad Gumi is my friend and this is what I told him.

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“I told him that the majority of these Fulani bandits don’t believe in religion. Therefore, I don’t believe in what he is doing, that they should be forgiven and compensated. If any ‎bandit is arrested in Kaduna state, the bandit will be killed because Kaduna is in war with bandits.

“They kill without mercy; they don’t believe in the religion.”

In 2016, Mallam El-Rufai told Nigerians that his government had traced some violent, aggrieved Fulani bandits outside of Nigeria and paid them to stop the killings of Southern Kaduna natives.

“Fulani herdsmen from across Africa bring their cattle down towards Middle Belt and Southern Nigeria. The moment the rains starts around March, April, they start moving them up to go back to their various communities and countries.

“Unfortunately, it was when they were moving up with their cattle across Southern Kaduna that the elections of 2011 took place and the crisis trapped some of them.

READ: Herdsmen, Bandits kill 1,165 persons in Kaduna, Katsina, Sokoto in 8 months

“Some of them were from Niger, Cameroon, Chad, Mali and Senegal. Fulanis are in 14 African countries and they traverse this country with the cattle.

“So many of these people were killed, cattle lost and they organised themselves and came back to revenge,” El-Rufai told an inquisitive group of journalists in his office in Kaduna.

He added: “We took certain steps. We got a group of people that were going round trying to trace some of these people in Cameroon, Niger republic and so on, to tell them that there is a new governor who is Fulani like them and has no problem paying compensations for lives lost and he is begging them to stop killing.

“In most of the communities, once that appeal was made to them, they said they have forgiven. There are one or two that asked for monetary compensation. They said they have forgiven the death of human beings, but want compensation for cattle. We said no problem, and we paid some.”

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