Saraki’s Watery Statement On The Faceoff Between Fulani Herders And Indigenous Yoruba People Of Oyo, Ondo
The Oasis Reporters
January 25, 2021
Senate President Ahmed Lawan bows to greet Buhari during the visit. File photo.
Former Senate president, Dr. Bukola Saraki has said that he has “watched with concern the recent development in Oyo and Ondo States in which quit notices were given to Fulani herders, with the subsequent burning of the property of Fulani herdsmen in some parts of Oyo State”.
“These happenings have increased the tension and unduly raised the temperature in the country”, and he went on to add that the ugly development in these two states are symptomatic of the continued threat to the unity of our country that we have witnessed on a higher scale in recent times and in different parts of the country — including the South-East and South-South zones”, Dr. Abubakar Bukola Saraki continued. In what sounded like a homily, readers noted in their comments, that he has carefully sidestepped the core of the matter, or better still, what is at the root of the crisis.
Saraki strongly appealed to all “of us to work for peace and take initiatives that can douse the tension. All Nigerians have a responsibility to begin to take measures that will reassure people across board that a united Nigeria will benefit everybody better than a disintegrated country”.
“The deafening silence by key stakeholders, leaders and others who we think should speak out is worrisome. This silence is a dangerous tell-tale sign that things are wrong. This is not good for our country.
“We must all speak out and talk about the solutions to the twin-problems of insecurity and the threat to our national unity.
We do not have another country to call our own other than Nigeria. We need to live in peace with each other. Hence, it is my prayer that Almighty God will continue to preserve the unity of the country”.
Bukola Saraki’s politically correct treatise seems meant to be relevant without driving the nail into the head of the insecurity which is actually the main threat to the unity of the country, and it has no ” twin” whatsoever.
As a direct antithesis to Saraki’s politically correct treatise, Reno Omokri posted a video that shows how Fulani herdsmen militia slaughter other Nigerians
Watch How Herdsmen Kill Nigerian Travellers Like Chickens Everyday #RenosMasterClasshttps://t.co/4idbRQd96Z
— Reno Omokri (@renoomokri) January 24, 2021
In two paragraphs of frank talk, Bukola Saraki’s says that he is “affected on all sides by any inter-ethnic tension in this country. I am sure that there are many Nigerians that are in similar situations.
Let me use my case as an example of why this country should continue to grow as one united and progressive entity. I am of Fulani origin and have a Yoruba mother. My father was a Muslim and mother is Christian.
The question now is, as a Fulani and a national leader, what efforts has he put in place to ensure that kidnappers of Fulani origin resident in his mother’s homeland stop that ugly business that has survived since and before the kidnap of Bishop Samuel Ajayi Crowther in the 19th story whereupon he and his family members were sold into slavery?
Bishop Crowther wrote a book on his experience as a captured slave, specifically mentioning the Fulani as the kidnappers. Those kidnapped in this dispensation equally mention the same Fulani. That makes it a generational business. Acts of this nature continued to depopulate as well as destabilize Yoruba land.
But can the ugly trend be finally and permanently ‘discredited and abandoned’, according to late Bob Marley?
The business of kidnapping has been perpetrated in Yoruba land by Fulani in the bush for at least 200 hundred years, since the Fulani Jihad. Let the devastation end at once and national unity would be guaranteed.
