The Secretary-General of the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN), Othman Ngelzarma, has said the Fulani youths are being lured into crime because of poverty and ignorance.
He disclosed this on Thursday while addressing the NEC meeting of Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), led by Chief Audu Ogbe, in Kaduna.
“The merchants take advantage of the ignorance of the young Fulani and their poverty to engage them in crime. Crime is everywhere, when you catch criminals, you always get the Fulani among the group because of their lack of education.
“We all see on social media when these Fulani who are engaged in crimes are asked about how much was given to them out of the five million ransom collected from their victims, they will tell you N30,000, N40,000 because of their ignorance. This is to show that some
big merchants are behind this,” he said.
The Miyetti leader explained that there are merchants of crimes in the cities benefiting from the criminal activity of Fulani .
Ngelzerma said there will be problems in the North because most of the Fulani in the South are now leaving due to killings of their livestock and returning back home.
“The Fulani Cattle breeders have lost over three million cows to cattle rustling. We sleep as wealthy people with plenty of animals, but wake up as poor people due to cattle rustling.
Ngelzarma solicited for ACF’s support to create a pressure group to prevail on the government to establish settlements for pastoralists in the country.
Chief Ogbe said the acronym RUGA, was not a coinage of the present administration and not a Fulani language, but an initiative of the British government who saw the problems coming since 1946.
“We have to improve upon and solve the issues of Farmer/Herder clashes and on the challenges that they put on us. When we spoke of RUGA the last time, people were very angry. Meanwhile, RUGA is not a Fulani word, it is an acronym of an English word, Rural Grazing Areas introduced by British in 1946.
“It was the British who saw this coming, that there is a need to put cows in a good place where we can give them water and grass and secure them so that we can get better meat and milk. I thank the Miyetti Allah for the education they have given us and we assure them that we will continue talking,” he said.
