Senior Special Assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu has revealed that the Federal Government is collaborating with the Miyetti Allah group to map out a plan to end the activities of killer herdsmen.
The battle for land and water between farmers and nomadic cattle herders has led to a lot of murder in Nigeria since 2018.
Nearly 1,700 violent deaths have been linked to Fulani herdsmen in attacks carried out between January and September 2018, according to the 2018 Global Terrorism Index.
Speaking on Channels TV recently, Mr Garba revealed that no cash was given to the Miyetti Allah group as bribe to stop the killings and the main topic of discussion was how they could be of assistance to collect weapons from members that are misusing them.
His words, “Nothing about money was discussed. All of the issues were about the involvement of the leadership of this group in getting them to prevail upon their errant members, and how do they assist government to recover weapons that are widely-owned by a lot of these elements.”
“A lot of them, for instance, also had come forward to say that criminality is growing among some of their young people because they had been dispossessed of their livelihood, cattle. They’ve been dispossessed because of rustling.
“These things are being addressed. In states like Kogi, Benue, Kaduna, Zamfara, Katsina, and Niger, they’ll be talking to their governments so that they can help to control some of these things that are unfolding.”
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