THE Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association (MACBAN) says its members have no hands in the recent killings in Plateau State, but rather it was their members that were being killed.

The Nigeria Police Force confirmed that 100 people were killed in the attack that took place last week while over 50 houses were razed down. Residents of the area, however, said the dead were over 200.

But Muhammed Nura, Chairman of MACBAN Plateau State chapter told journalists that his members were the ones killed in the attack, contrary to the reports that they were the attackers.

“As at now, we have been able to bury 19 persons of our own in different places. We have declared 73 persons missing,” The Cable quoted Nura as saying.

“We have not seen them nor their corpses. So people are taking our corpses, going around the world and telling people that it is their corpses that the Fulani killed.

“These corpses they are saying, they are propagating (doing propaganda) against us. They are our corpses. We are calling on the government to go and exhume the corpses, let us see their faces. The corpses are our corpses, I believe that.

“I tell you with authority that we have not taken part in the killings. No herdsman killed anybody. If they say they are Fulanis, let them produce those Fulanis, we want to see them.

“In most of the villages, Fulanis were chased out. It was when fragile peace was returning that people started coming back.”

However, Nura refused to accuse any group or tribe of carrying out the attacks, but said the police should be in a better position to say who the attackers are, especially since the attacks have been recurring in the state.

“The police are in a good position to tell you who carried out these killings. Because there is tension in Plateau, their eyes must be everywhere. So their personnel must be everywhere,” Nura said.

This is coming a day after popular online newspaper, Premium Times, apologised to Danladi Ciroma, a chieftain of MACBAN, for publishing a report where Ciroma was quoted as saying that the recent Plateau killings were in retaliation for some 300 cows that were stolen from a fulani settlement.

Ciroma had denied ever making such comments to any reporter either over the phone or through a press statement, and Premium Times confirmed that its reporter could not produce any evidence to support his story. The newspaper said appropriate sanctions have been taken against the reporter,