By Oluwatobi Enitan and Fatunbi Olayinka
THE Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore has said that it has commenced plans to set up its own security outfit.
The National Secretary of Miyetti Allah Saleh Alhassan disclosed this in an exclusive interview with The ICIR in Nasarawa State.
Alhassan was reacting to the recent establishment of a Volunteers Guard by the Benue State government.
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He accused Benue State governor Samuel Ortom of using the vigilante outfit to lock up their members.
He said, “All these vigilantes the state governors are creating are not helping the country. What they are trying to show is that there is a lack of confidence in the authority of the state to maintain law and order, so you now begin to create your own small-army.
“If the Fulanis decide, they will create their vigilantes, which our organisation have started working on. Do you know how many millions we will have? It is not thousands, and we have them in millions. Will that go well for the country?
“When you have non-state actors carrying arms, all the volunteers Governor Ortom has recruited, who profiled them? Who knows their real background? Some may be hardened criminals. You come and dress them in Khaki uniforms and begin to hand over weapons to them, that they are the ones to secure the state.”
The association accused the Benue State governor of violent crimes against Fulani herdsmen, adding that a petition has been filed against him at the International Criminal Court (ICC) at the Hague.
“We laugh at Ortom as he may be running from his shadow. After he leaves power, he thinks those vigilantes will be his personal security. I assure you that he will be arrested and taken to the Hague. We will make sure that happens because he has committed a lot of violent crimes against Fulani herders, he has caused the death of many of them in his dungeon.
“Are you supposed to detain somebody for more than 48 hours? If he does not have a counsel, you go to the Legal Aid Council and charge him to court. But Ortom has kept many of them there. He dares to go to the media and say that he has jailed them and locked them up in detentions. Does that make him a governor? Does he think that reduced the Fulani nation?”
Alkali also accused Ortom of fueling disunity amongst the Fulani and the Benue people.
“He has destroyed the good relationship that existed between the Tivs and the Fulanis, and we have a culture of playing together; we call it ‘Munchi’. Ortom wants to destroy that good relationship by force because he doesn’t understand the history, or he is being mischievous, being used by his aides.”