Following the spate of killings and kidnapping across the country, the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, HURIWA, has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to urgently declare the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria, MACBAN, as a terrorist group.
In a statement issued on Saturday, January 8, 2021, by its national coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, the rights group said there is no difference between the MACBAN and bandits who were recently designated as a terrorist group.
According to HURIWA, President Buhari must arrest the national and regional leaders of the group across the nation to ensure the end of killing and kidnapping in Nigeria.
The statement said President Buhari must declare the “terrorists supporting platform known as Miyetti Allah as a terrorist group and apprehend the national and regional leaders of this warmongering group of persons that have in the recent past vocalised active support for the terrorist groups made up of armed Fulani herdsmen who are on rampage in different parts of the country.
“There is no difference between Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria and the armed bandits of the North West recently declared terrorists by the Federal High Court Abuja division even as the rights group backs the call by the Benue State Governor Samuel Ortom that Miyetti Allah ought to have been declared a terrorist group.
HURIWA blamed the MACBAN for the action of the gunmen suspected to be herdsmen that reportedly shot three persons dead in Molege, an agrarian settlement in Ose Local Government Area of Ondo State.
According to reports some gunmen were on Thursday, January 6, 2021, stormed the area, setting some houses and farms ablaze.
HURIWA said it is no secret that the national leadership of Miyetti Allah had consistently made threats in the media to make Ondo State ungovernable because the Governor expelled armed Fulani herdsmen occupying forests ìn the State.
Samuel Ortom, the Benue State Governor, had also called on the president to designate Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria as a terrorist group following their alleged criminal activities.
