Bala Mohammed, the Governor of Bauchi State has defended the comment he made concerning the use of firearms like AK-47 by Fulani herdsmen.
Governor Mohammed has said that he actually meant ‘AK-47’ as a ‘figure of speech’ and not the fire arm in actually sense. According to him, what he said was taken out of context by the media people.
Speaking in Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily on Friday, February 19, he described the problems faced by the Fulanis. The governor said that the Fulanis are dehumanised and even demonized.
In his words;
“It is a figure of speech to show you the despondence, the desperation and frustration and the agony that this particular person is exposed to by his own people, by his own tribe and by other tribes who have all seen him as a criminal and therefore, he has the inalienable right to protect himself,
“What I said in that context, I was addressing the media people. And the topic was the use of the media to foster national unity and I was trying to situate the problem,” he explained.
Speaking further, he said;
“The Fulani man is so exposed, dehumanised, demonised in fact, because he is being seen as a bandit and so, anywhere he goes, he is being pursued. Not only in the southwest or the southeast, even in the north because he is in the cattle route, his commonwealth which I call his cows, are being taken and rustled and of course, sometimes, they are fined beyond your imagination. If one cow strays into the farm because the cattle route has been taken away illegally without the authority giving permission, he will be fined seriously, mercilessly.
“And so, he is exposed and then he has no option but to protect himself. We have so many vigilante groups in Nigeria even at the level of government, subregional groups, sub nationals are establishing vigilante groups to make sure that their communities are protected. Why wouldn’t the Fulani man protect himself? And if he carries a gun in order to protect himself, it may not be a legal carriage, it may be legal. He may also register and carry it to protect himself.”
See video below;
The Fulani man is so exposed, dehumanised and his commonwealth (cows) taken away… when we mention AK-47, it is a figure of speech, says Gov. Bala Mohammed.@SunriseDailyNow#CTVTweets pic.twitter.com/o25aEXAVgU
— Channels Television (@channelstv) February 19, 2021
