Fulani Herder Speaks Out on Insecurity, Rejects Collective Blame for Banditry
—A Fulani man has shared his experience with insècûrity and the challenges faced by members of his community amid rising concerns over b@nd!try and vi0lènce in parts of Nigeria.
“In this country, we the innocent Fulani, the challenges that we are facing, it is like incomparable to the others, seriously.
Like, for instance now, I’m here in the bush, feeding my cows, and my fear, my big fear now is to not meet the b@nd!ts.
Unlike some people now in the town are always blaming that all Fulanis are the same.
In the bushes we are facing the challenge that b@nd!ts, they are ste@ling our cows, they k!dn@p our brothers and ask for a r@ns0m and when we come out and say that we Fulanis we are facing the same challenges, they will be like, how? Some people will be like, how?
How Fulanis will face this kind of challenge? And like, I would be if I tell some people, like in the town, we the Fulanis, the challenges that we are facing is more than you guys are facing. They will be like, Ibrahim, you are lying. Tell me, how your people will also come and k!dn@p you or come and pursûe your cows?
I say, how? Cr!me has no religion. Cr!me has no tribe. You know? Cr!me has no religion, has no tribe, has no language. So we are not escaping from them. They are always pursûing our cows, destr0ying our properties, and also k!dn@pp!ng us just for no reason.
When we take it, like to any security agency, like it will always be silent. It will always be silent because we Fulanis, we don’t have anyone that will come out and talk about it or post it or like tell the world our problem. Like that’s our major problem with innocent Fulani, seriously.
You know something? 100%, like 95% of Fulanis, they are all innocent. I swe@r to Almighty God, 95% of the Fulanis, they are all innocent. That 5%, with the mixture of some tribe, you know, it’s not only the Fulanis, I know.
The Fulanis who basically born in the bûsh, we are rearing the cows, will never have an idea how to enter a town in the middle of the night or how to go and, like, att@ck some tonw.
So with the collaboration of some b@d people in the town, it will happen. You know? And I can tell you something, all the ar*ms, ar*ms where they are using, like the, you know, I don’t want to mention the names, where they are using the ammûnit!on and the remaining things that they are using, where are they getting it from? I always ask my question myself.
I always, I always question myself, where are those, who give them, eh? Who, who give them this thing?
So, please, you people should stop blaming Fulanis in everything that you are blaming as a person.
We have bad people in Hausa, we have, in Yoruba, we have, in Igbo, all these tribes, all languages that we have, we have the good people and the bad people.
So please, stop, stop putting the blame to a Fulani.
Now a Fulani, when we are travelling, you know, as a Fulani man now, when you are travelling in this period, in this time, now when you are travelling, Wallahi, it is very, very big challenges to you. It is very, very big challenges because in the road, you know, still, the more they see you, hey, you are a Fulani, they will start challenging you.
As some local vigilantes still, they will start challenging you, Imagine.
Please, you need to stop this, stop, stop this, please you need to be stop.
Let us face the bad ones, let us fètch out the bad ones, and let innocent ones live peacefully. I’m innocent, I’m also facing a challenge that the bad one did not face. Imagine”
