Herdsmen under the aegis of Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore Fulani Socio-Cultural Association have risen in defence of the Bauchi State Governor, Senator Bala Mohammed, over his comments that herders possess AK-47 rifles for self-defence.

The comment from the Bauchi governor had incurred wide criticisms and condemnations from Nigerians.

The National Secretary, Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore, Mr. Saleh Alhassan, described the Bauchi State helmsman as the only lone voice among his peers in the North in defence of Fulani pastoralists being persecuted across Nigeria.

The statement titled, ‘His Excellency Abdulkadir Bala Mohammed – Executive Governor, Bauchi State: The gradual emergence of a courageous northern leader’, was authored by the association’s scribe and released in Kaduna on Thursday.

But the Fulani organisation carpeted Governor Samuel Ortom of Benue State over his perceived hatred for the Fulani race, saying that Ortom’s achievement in office since 2015 to his “impoverished” citizens was his “obnoxious” anti-open grazing law in the state.

Also, the Miyetti Allah group attacked the Ondo State Governor, Rotimi Akeredolu, whom they said, claimed to a senior lawyer but proved to be a “disgrace to the legal profession”.

They also accused Akeredolu of being the brain behind the creation of ‘Amotekun’ allegedly unleashing terror on herders and Northerners in the south-western states of Ondo and Oyo.

According to the statement, the Bauchi governor is the only northerner that came out in the defence of Fulani pastoralists in many states.

It noted that Bala Mohammed’s intervention on the ongoing farmer/herders’ conflict was simply to state the obvious devoid of the current “politicisation.”

The statement read, “Governor Bala Mohammed has treaded where angels are scared to tread in the past. He has taken what every politician will consider as political risk in the past by holding divergent views where others have failed or chickened out. So, his current position on the herders/farmers conversation is not strange or out of context.”

On governors Ortom and Akeredolu, the association said, “Governor Bala Mohammed has refused to be like Governor of Benue State H.E. Samuel Ortom, whose only achievement is the rising of ethnic militia and gang leaders that have been visiting mayhem of killings in his state.

“Akeredolu will be held accountable for the ongoing genocide against innocent pastoralist and northerners living in the South-West.”

PUNCH