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Sen Sani suggests El-Rufai is part of root cause of killings by Fulani herdsmen

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Sen Sani suggests El-Rufai is part of root cause of killings by Fulani herdsmen

Apparently alluding to Kaduna State governor, Nasir el-Rufai’s claim sometime ago of paying some foreign Fulani herdsmen who kill Nigerians, Senator Shehu Sani, has suggested that the governor and his other colleagues who appease killer herdsmen with cash, are the root cause of mass murder in Nigeria.

According to the outspoken senator from Kaduna State, some Nigerian governors with the policy of “paying Fulani Herdsmen” cash to appease them cause the killings and kidnappings of Nigerians by the herders.

The lawmaker, who represents Kaduna Central at the Senate, stated this in a series of tweets on his Twitter handle, alleging that any state governor, who operates the policy of conditional cash transfer to killer herdsmen, is their patron.

“The roots of herdsmen mass murder and kidnappings in other parts of Nigeria is in the policy of ‘Paying Fulani Herdsmen’ by some Governors. They appeased a monster with public funds and now the monster is going door to door; Sahel, Savanna and mangrove forests.

“Any Governor of a state operating the policy of Conditional Cash transfer to Killer Herdsmen is their patron. And he must be seen and treated as a national security risk,” Senator Sani tweet read.

Recall that el-Rufai had in December 2016 while speaking with some newsmen in his state explained how his government traced some violent, aggrieved Fulani to their countries and paid them to stop the killing of Southern Kaduna natives and the destruction of their communities.

On what his government did to stop the killings the governor had claimed, “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.

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“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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