Nigerian groups back US plan to designate Fulani militias as terrorists

Wants US to target Sultan, Gumi

Regional groups in Nigeria have expressed support for the Bill before the United States Congress which seeks to designate Fulani militia as terrorists.

Five US lawmakers are proposing the bill. Some of those listed for sanctions in connection with the Fulani militia are Former Governor of Kano State, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso who is the leader of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP); Fulani ethnic nomadic militias; the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN); and Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore.

In a joint statement on Wednesday, made available to Irohinoodua, the Alliance for Yoruba Democratic Movements, [AYDM], made up of 130 Pan Yoruba groups, the United Middle Belt Indigenous Peoples Congress, (UMBIPC), TIV Congress, Supreme Egbesu Assembly, [SEA] Niger-Delta Indigenous Peoples Congress, [NDIPEC],Ijaw Peoples League, and the Hausa Natives Congress, [HANC]; Igbo National Association, [INA] praised the proposal describing the Bill as a “Godly intervention in the struggle of Nigerian Indigenous people to preserve humanity.”

The statement was signed by AYDM officials, Popoola Ajayi and Rasaq Arogundade; UMBIPC’s Abukar Onalo; Digifa Werinipre for SEA Sulaiman Aminu for HANC. Others who signed were Tank Ibrahim, Douglas Ebibre and Mathew Donga

The groups said the Fulani militia represents the most dangerous missile against democracy, rule of law and economic development in West Africa and the Sahel.

The groups urged the US Congress to include other names as sponsors of Fulani militia.

“We call on the US to include the names of the Sultan of Sokoto
Alhaji Muhammadu Sa’ad Abubakar III, the 20th Sultan and Ahmad Abubakar Sheik Gumi on the list of those to be sanctioned or sought to appear before the International Criminal Court, [ICC],” the groups said.

The Fulani militia in 2014 was identified by the Global Terrorism Index as the deadliest terror group in the world.

No fewer than 60,000 people have been killed by Fulani militia while millions have been displaced. The militia targets Christians and non-Fulani Muslims making the militia an ethnic group driven by the lust for blood and genocide.

“The Bill has confronted evil headlong. In Nigeria, the Fulani militia operates a brutal, merciless and spineless regime of terror. Children are killed, infants are butchered, pregnant women are raped and ripped of their unborn babies, young girls are raped somtimz in the mud while old and young people have their skulls chartered into pieces by Fulani militia that holds Nigeria and West Africa to ransom.”

The group said if the bill sails through, millions of West and Central Africans who are at the mercy and violent grip of terror control by Fulani militia would see a gleam of light in a long tunnel of enduring long night of misery and anguish.

The groups said the Fulani militia was emboldened and empowered by state institutions while many of their kinsmen are historically entrenched in strategic institutions.

They said the past eight years in Nigeria witnessed the capacity building of armed Fulani militia that has spread its vicious tentacles across Nigeria with acts of terror are carried out daily against innocent people.

The groups said the latest killings in Worro in Kwara State were carried out by Fulani militias including the killing of 13 people at Ifelodun Local Government in Kwara State.

In the South West of Nigeria, four traditional rulers were killed by Fulani militia.

They said the Fulani are not only engaged in cold-blooded murder, they cause climate havoc through the burning down and violent destruction of economic trees across indigenous territories in West Africa describing the Fulani militia as a big threat to regional and global peace