Igbo National Council urges Buhari to declare Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association a terrorist organisation

PAN-cultural organisation the Igbo National Council (INC) has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to declare the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association (Macban) a terrorist organisation.

Over recent years, Fulani herdsmen have mounted a murderous campaign against rural farming villages, allowing the 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.

Macban, the herdsmen's umbrella organisation, has been accused of being behind these attacks but so far, none of its leaders have been arrested or questioned by the police. INC president Chilos Godsent, has attacked the Buhari administration over its poor handling of the security challenges ravaging parts of the country, saying they were pampering the terrorist group Macban.

Mr Godsent said: “With recent inflammatory statements and hate speeches credited to the leadership of the Miyetti Allah against the Igbo race in Nigeria since the formal inauguration swearing-in of President Muhammadu Buhari for his second term, it has become very necessary that the federal government of Nigeria declare Miyetti Allah, a terrorist organisation. The government should immediately order the inspector-general of police to arrest and prosecute them with immediate effects as their statement to attack and invade the southeast region of Nigeria is capable of igniting an ethnic war.

"The Igbo National Council will take every proactive step to resist and defend Igbo territories against any form of attack, aggression or invasion by group in whatever disguise or name. These orchestrated unholy conspiracies and gang up against the Igbo race in Nigeria must stop."

Macban, has, however denied recent reports, in which it was quoted as threatening to soon attack the five southeastern states over the purported stubbornness of their governors. Alhaji Gidado Sidikki, the chairman of Macban southeast, said that the reports ascribed to him, in which he was quoted to have said that states of the southeast would be attacked by herders, were blatant falsehoods.