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| Miyetti Allah Leaders |
The National President of Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore, Alhaji Bello Abdullahi Bodejo has said that his association was not going to support any presidential candidate from the south in 2023.
The leader of the Fulani socio-cultural association, in an interview with Saturday SUN, was reacting to the assertions by Southern and Middle Belt leaders who, after a meeting earlier in the month, declared that they would not support any presidential candidate from the North. Their reason was that power should rotate to the south in 2003.
He stated that no Southern presidential aspirant would get the support of the Fulani people unless they pledge to repeal laws banning open grazing and bring back the controversial grazing routes that had been outlawed in many states in the South.
He said, "Even though Nigeria is one, we are not going to support a Southerner as president. A president from the North is better because northerners are better managers of the nation than Southerners. The North has demonstrated that there is no difference among them in the region; they don’t show this is Fulani, this is Hausa, and this is this and that, unlike in the South. Northern people have managed the country better than southerners.
"If your enemy asks you to join him to scatter your father’s house, can you support him to break your father’s house? You shouldn’t do that, but if he overshadows you and you help him to accomplish that, you would cry later. It will be very difficult for a southerner to manage Nigeria the way a northerner would. The northerners that are ruling or governing were trained by our leaders that ruled the country before.
"The Afenifere and others that are jumping up and down should know that political power is not collected by force. If you know that your mind is clean, you meet others to get power and not be talking tough. The EndSARS that happened and the Biafra issue will affect the South in asking for power.
When asked if a Southern candidate approach them to seek for their support they will consider he said: "The southern governors and other political leaders have said that they don’t need Fulani in their land, so if they come to seek our support to be the president, we are not and we cannot support them. We cannot support any person from that region because they have shown hatred towards Fulani. If you hate Fulani in your state, you hate yourself, you hate your family and you hate your politics.
"I have not seen anybody from there who can come boldly and say that we should support him. Maybe, before I see the person I would have been convinced by northern leaders, who can explain to me or give me reasons my organisation should support such person. But, I’m yet to see up till this moment. When electricity is taken, darkness descends, and you won’t see anything until light is restored. So, we are still inside darkness, especially how everybody over there hates Fulani.
"Talking on what can be done to the Fulani, Mr. President mooted the idea of ranching, but even though I’m not inside government, go and see how many, including governors, that applied. None of them is interested in setting up a ranch, they want to collect the money and use it for something else. So, I call on the president not to yield to them by giving them any money in the name of ranching.
"You hate Fulani, but you want to collect money on their behalf to do ranching. Maybe it is where your children will be playing or ranching for your dogs, pigs. I don’t understand these people. They just want to collect the money for ranching and embezzle it. Anybody who collects money for ranching and misappropriate it will not last long.
"RUGA is politicians’ language, while Cattle Colony is the language of people who want to eat government money. We have grazing reserves. All these governors, before they were born, we had these grazing reserves. Some were gazetted, while others were not. Why they don’t want to give us back the grazing reserves is what I don’t know. Last two weeks, the governor of Jigawa invited me to come and see the kind of grazing reserves they have and I spent five days visiting them.
"The first thing we look at, is the person seeking our support. Who is that person and who are the people around him from the North? And then we also look at the characters of the people in the North who will call us to support that person.
"If you hate Fulani and 2023 is approaching and you are coming to ask for our support, which role have you played to support the Fulani cause, whether as a sitting vice president, senator, governor? If you are a sitting governor, what have you done for the Fulani in your state? All these people running around to be president are apostles of anti-grazing laws.
"For any aspirant who wants our support, he must have a firm commitment to bringing back all the grazing reserves which transverse the entire country, build houses, provide water and other amenities in the grazing reserves, and allow our people to do their businesses freely in the South. Such grazing reserves should be gazetted.
"However, I don’t see any of them coming because of their mindset against the Fulani. We are not asking for tarred roads, and other things in the cities, we are just asking for grazing reserves. You are not the one to teach us how to do our businesses. While you are in your mansion, our own mansion is the bush.
"I reemphasise my call on President Buhari not to approve money for all these governors who say they want to do ranching, especially those who had earlier enacted anti grazing law in their states. It is all scam; how can they do ranching for the Fulani they don’t like? All we want is grazing reserves; put solar light, small school, and veterinary health centre. How much does it cost? But if you are watching TV, you would be hearing billions of naira voted for RUGA, Cattle Colony. Where are they? I don’t know what is happening in this country. It is very funny.