Fears of reprisals rise in southern Kaduna rise as Macban claims 54 Fulani herdsmen were killed

FEARS over possible horrific reprisals have risen in southern Kaduna after the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (Macban) claimed that 54 Fulani cattle herdsmen were killed in a recent attack on its members.

Over the last year, southern Kaduna has been a hotbed of violence, with constant clashes between herdsmen and local farmers believed to have led to about 1,000 deaths. Over the last few days, there has been a resurgence of violence in some communities in Kajuru Local Government Area, which Macban said resulted in the killing of 54 of its members, while a further 15 others are still unaccounted for.

Macban's assistant national secretary Alhaji Ibrahim Abdullahi, traced the genesis of the crisis to an incident of kidnapping in which both the native Adara and Fulani were victims. he added that after the incident, they called on security agencies to arrest and bring all the culprits to justice.

Kaduna State police commissioner Agyelo Abeh, said: "Some local youth attacked a young Fulani boy grazing cattle for no known reason and that the father of the boy was equally assaulted when he came to his rescue. The father later died in the hospital due to the injuries he sustained from the youth."

According to the police commissioner, a total of 33 people including 27 Fulanis and six locals were killed‎ in the violence. Alhaji Ibrahim said the Fulani are portrayed as the aggressors while actual aggressors are mischievously being portrayed as victims.

He added: “We called on our members to exercise self restraint and not to take the laws into their hands. As of at Friday 21/07/2017, we have buried 54 corpses of Fulani attacked and killed by the Adara community in Kajuru Local Government Area.

"For three days we woke up with another circle of killings and the destruction of Fulani and their properties to which the media turned a blind eye. This deliberate distortion and misrepresentation of facts makes us to suspect that there is a grand design and conspiracy to give a dog a bad name in order to hang it."

Alhaji Ibrahim also decried what he described as the inability of the security agencies to arrest those accused of perpetrating and masterminding the crisis. He added that their names have already been handed to the security agencies but up to now they are still moving freely as if nothing happened at all.

“For the avoidance of doubt, we have the full list of all those killed, 54 in number, and ready to take you to their graves and about 15 others are still missing. Thousands of cows are still unaccounted for and over 500 hundred displaced persons mostly women and children whose husbands have either been killed or missing are in Kajuru and Kasuwar Magani.

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“You may wish to visit them to see for yourselves their plight and deplorable condition. Those insinuating that Fulani killed over 40 people should please take you to their graves,” Alhaji Ibrahim added.