The Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Mr. Femi Adesina, has said that the government would not leave any stone unturned in its desire to find a lasting solution to the problem of killings by Fulani herdsmen in the country.
He faulted those who claimed that President Muhammadu Buhari had been silent on the matter herdsmen/farmers clashes, saying it was unfortunate that people only chose what they wanted to hear.
He said, “It is not true that the President is sectional and that he has been silent on the Fulani herdsmen crisis because he is a Fulani.
“That is not true. The President has not been silent on the matter. It is unfortunate that some people choose what they want to hear.
“The President has spoken against the crisis many times. We also issued a press statement on the matter.
“No stone will be left unturned in finding a lasting solution to the crisis.”
Meanwhile, an Abuja-based group of young professionals of Tiv extraction under the aegis of Club De Pals, on Friday, faulted President Buhari’s failure to tackle the on-going killing of farmers by Fulani herdsmen in Benue State.
In an open letter to the President, the group expressed concern that despite the global attention which the genocidal attacks had generated, the Federal Government continues to pay lip service to the crisis.
The group said, over 3,000 people had been killed and property worth hundreds of millions of Naira destroyed since the crisis broke out.
It called on President Buhari and the APC-led Federal Government to urgently treat the crisis with the same seriousness it was tackling the insurgency in the North-East.
The letter partly read: “The latest round of the crisis, which started in Agatu local government area with the killing of over 400 people in one single attack, has spread to Tarka, Makurdi, Guma, Logo, Katsina-Ala, Buruku, Gwer West, Ukum and Kwande Local Government Areas of the state.
“We state emphatically that the continued silence of Mr. President on this very significant national security matter, the response of the Minister of Interior, Lt-Gen Abdurrahman Danbazzau, to convene a ‘town hall meeting’ without any specific date, the comments credited to the Inspector-General of Police, Mr. Solomon Arase, during his visit to Agatu community that he could not see the bodies of the 400 people massacred in 10 villages, have all combined to give us the message that we are not liked, we are unsafe and unprotected by the Federal Government.
“It is appalling that the Nigerian security forces delayed deployment of their men and officers to stem the bloodletting until hundreds of people had been killed by the Fulanis.”