Southern and Middle Belt leaders say Fulani radio station is similar to the creation of Hutu hate medium in the 1990s

SOUTHERN and Middle Belt leaders have issued a joint statement condemning the proposed floating of a Fulani radio station by the federal government aimed at reaching out to cattle herdsmen saying it was similar to the creation of the Hutu hate media in the 1990s.

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 it, 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 owns cattle, he is seen as sympathetic to the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (Macban). This week, the government upped the ante, saying it 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. Yesterday, several socio-cultural groups issued a statement signed by Yinka Odumakin (southwest), Senator Bassey Henshaw (south-south), Dr Isuwa Dogo (Middle-Belt) and Professor Chigozie Ogbu (southeast), condemning the latest government move.

It said the announcement came at a time the federal government had been acting as the information arm of Boko Haram and Fulani herdsmen by dismissing the correct interpretation of these groups' activities by former president Chief Olusegun Obasanjo. He had described their activities as an attempt to Fulanise Nigeria.

“We totally reject this insensitive decision of the government on the following fundamental grounds. It smacks of hypocrisy and deception for a government that has in the last four years denied responsibility on behalf of the Fulani herdsmen for crimes they even owned up to, to now tell us it wants to set up a radio for them to address the same issues.

“Section 55 of the 1999 constitution recognises English, Yoruba ,Hausa and Igbo as languages in which the official business of the National Assembly can be conducted .There was no mention of Fulani, which is not a language most northerners even understand.

“Why it’s sudden promotion to a language the federal government will set up a radio to promote? Will it also set up radio stations for the officially recognised languages and the over 250 languages spoken in different parts of Nigeria?

“We fear seriously that the proposed radio will become a weapon of spreading hate propaganda against other nationalities in Nigeria given the kid gloves treatment with which the Buhari administration has handled the killings of thousands of Nigerians in the last four years. We are guided the genocide-aiding role radio played in inciting ordinary citizens to take part in the massacre of Tutsis and moderate Hutus during the Rwandan genocide from1993 to late 1994 , as RTLM was used by Hutu leaders to propagate an extremist Hutu message and anti-Tusti disinformation by identifying specific targets and areas where they could be found and encouraging progress of the genocide.

“In 1994, Rwanda Radio began to advance the same message by issuing directives on where to kill Tutsis and congratulating those who had already taken part. Using the instrumentality of the federal government to set up a radio for Fulani herdsmen will throw a knife at the tiniest of the threads still holding Nigeria together as all illusions of an inclusive country would be removed and the rest of the country would conclude we are now under the Fulani government of Nigeria.

“We therefore demand that the federal government should perish the thought of a Fulani radio sponsored by government if it cares in any form about the corporate existence of the country,” their statement read.