Ohaneze Ndigbo Youth Council says they must get Igbo Radio if Fulani Radio is launched

OHANEZE Ndigbo's youth wing has challenged the federal government to also establish an Igbo radio station if it proceeds with its plans to open one for Fulani herdsmen that will involve it communication to them in Fulfude.

Over recent years, Fulani herdsmen have mounted a murderous campaign against rural farming villages across Nigeria, allowing their livestock to run riot and destroy farmlands. When villagers complain about this destruction, they are attacked by heavily-armed gangs of herdsmen who ransack their villages with AK47s, sometimes leaving hundreds dead after such raids.

President Muhammadu Buhari has come under intense criticism for failing to address the issue and being an ethnic Fulani himself who breeds cattle, he is seen as sympathetic to the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (Macban). Last week, the government announced plans to launch a Fulani radio station that will broadcast in Fulfude in an attempt to reach out to the herdsmen.

However, this move has been condemned by critics as evidence of further government bias, saying the murderous herdsmen should be made to face the full wrath of the law. Adding its voice to the condemnation, the Ohanaeze Ndigbo Youth Council (OYC), said that if the federal government opens such a station for the Fulani too, it must do likewise for other ethnic groups.

OYC president Mazi Okechukwu Isiguzoro, said: “The leadership of Ohanaeze Ndigbo Youth Council Worldwide encourages the federal government to build Fulani Radio for herdsmen so far as they will also be setting up Igbo Radio, Oduduwa Radio, Ijaw Radio and other tribal radios. Anything short of that will bring Nigeria’s version of Rwanda genocide through the proposed Fulani Radio.”

“With the alleged full mobilisation of N100bn grant to Miyetti Allah, when the federal government is yet to reach out to Biafra agitators and Niger Delta Militia, this will be severely detrimental. Ohanaeze youths call for caution over the Fulani Radio, as it will further divide Nigeria along tribal lines and likely spark civil disobedience in the polity.

“This is as the federal government’s good intentions for setting up the Fulani Radio will be possibly hijacked to disseminate falsehood, hate message and outright information against other tribes. This is not the period for appeasing one tribe ahead of another using government machinery, more so when Radio Biafra was closed down for allegedly spreading hate message.”