Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media & Publicity, Garba Shehu has come under fire for saying that pan Yoruba socio-cultural group, A
Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media & Publicity, Garba Shehu has come under fire for saying that pan Yoruba socio-cultural group, Afenifere and its Ndigbo counterpart, Ohanaeze are in the same league with Miyetti Allah, the Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria adding that they should not be criminalized.
However, the two socio-political organisations, Afenifere and Ohaneze Ndigbo said it was wrong to compare them with Miyetti Allah. While Ohanaeze said it was in the same pedestal with the Arewa Consultative Forum, Afenifere on other hand described the comparison as unfortunate and unfair.
The police had come under fire recently for holding a meeting with the herders and urging them to assist in curbing the insecurity in the nation. The President’s aide, however, said, “It is a mistake to say the Nigerian government is talking to bandits. The Miyetti Allah group is like the Ohanaeze and Afenifere. It is a socio-cultural group. There are criminals within the Yoruba race and you cannot say because of that, Afenifere is a group of criminals. The Nigerian government is speaking with the leadership of the Fulani herders association, Miyetti Allah.”
Ohanaeze Ndigbo spokesman, Uche Achi-Okpaga, said it was bad for the presidential spokesman to compare a regional organisation committed to the unity of its people with “a group of criminals.”
He said, “There is no justification for such comparison. It is a bad comparison. If he is comparing Miyetti Allah with Ohanaeze, then what is Arewa Consultative Forum compared to?
“Ohanaeze is a regional body that is promoting the unity of the Igbo; so also is Afenifere to the Yoruba and the ACF to northerners. We also have the Middle Belt Forum in the North-Central and PANDEF for the South-South. You can never put Ohanaeze and Miyetti Allah on the same pedestal. Even at that, Miyetti Allah members are herdsmen who are tormenting Nigerians and you are hobnobbing with them, what are you telling Nigerians?
“These people are invading villages, killing people, and you are telling us that they are on the same page with Ohanaeze. There is no justification for that. This is an organisation that the Global Terrorist Index has described as the world’s fourth deadly terrorist organisation. Where is the money the government has agreed to give them coming from? From which sub-head will it come? Does the President have the power to just give out money to any organisation that comes to negotiate with him? These people are just negotiating with criminals. We are in a state of lawlessness.”
In its reaction, the Afenifere socio-cultural group berated Shehu for the categorisation which it described as unfortunate and unfair. The group’s spokesman, Yinka Odumakin, said Afenifere could not be likened to the Miyetti Allah which he said was responsible for killings and bloodshed across the country.
Odumakin said, “We are surprised that the spokesperson (Shehu) was talking like someone under the influence of drugs. In Afenifere, we don’t kill, we don’t abduct people. How can you compare us to a group of people who have been killing in Enugu, Benue, Ogun and other states?
“Why did the government meet Miyetti Allah as part of plans to stop banditry and kidnapping in the country? Why didn’t they meet Afenifere? We reject that categorisation. For anyone to compare us to a group of Fulani herdsmen which had been described by the global terror index as the fourth deadliest terrorist group in the world is most unfair and very unfortunate.”
