National President of Gan Allah Fulani Development Association (GAFDA), Alhaji Sale Bayari has promised that the association will flush out all criminal elements in Fulani settlements throughout the South west states.
Alhaji Bayari stated this in Ibadan while speaking at the secretariat of the Oyo state NUJ correspondents’ chapel, Mokola on the insecurity in the region.
The national president of the association pointed out that as part of the efforts at ensuring security, there has been a reduction in the spate of kidnapping in the South west states since the association met with former President Olusegun Obasanjo.
He said members of the association across the South west states are law abiding, obedient and respecter of rule of law and lovers of their host communities.
“We pledge today that we shall ensure that our members are law abiding, obedient and respectful to constituted authorities while promising to go all out to ensure that criminal elements are flushed out of our communities and ethnic group which may even make the enactment of the anti-open grazing law no longer necessary or absolute,” he said.
Speaking further, Alhaji Bayari stated that there are over 300 clans of Fulani extraction of which Bororo is just one of them, and that generalising the crime of a few on the majority would be tantamount to injustice.
On the planned anti openg razing bill which is now at the second reading stage, association urged the Oyo state government to look for an alternative grazing space before the passage of anti grazing law in the state.
“We call for a human face to this law in the event it becomes absolutely necessary to promulgate and pass it into law. We appeal for an alternative gazing space for our means of livelihood, which is the cattle, which we are rearing as peasant traditional stockowners, not as commercial livestock or cattle business stakeholders.”
