Fulani are not indigenous people in Yorubaland, ARG faults Miyetti Allah
By Samuel Ogunsona
Claims by Mitetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria, (MACBAN) that the Fulani are indigenous in Yoruba territories are dangerously false, Afenifere Renewal Group, (ARG) has said.
ARG said Miyetti Allah is bent on living in Yorubaland on her terms instead on the terms of the Yoruba people
In a statement made available to Irohinoodua, ARG disagreed with MACBAN describing the claims as false.
MACBAN had said that Fulani are indigenous in Yorubaland, a claim that sparked a major crisis in the Middle Belt where Fulani and indigenous peoples are currently at daggers drawn.
The Statement signed by Afenifere Renewal Group (ARG) Publicity Secretary,
Mr Kunle Famoriyo
frowned at the deliberate misrepresentation of the indigenous demography of Yorubaland in Southwest Nigeria by the Secretary General of Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria, Usman Baba-Ngelzerma.
Mr. Baba-Ngelzerma was quoted to have, during a live TV interview, said “In Ondo and most of the Southern states, we have indigenous pastoralists whose fathers were brought up in those states and those who are there today were also brought up there. So, if you ask them to go, they won’t know where to go because they know these states as their own states.”
ARG quoted the Merriam-Webster dictionary on indigenous people which means “of or relating to the earliest known inhabitants of a place and especially of a place that was colonized by a now-dominant group.”
Famoriyo said “There is no Fulani settlement in any part of Southwest Nigeria that fits this dictionary’s definition. ARG would like to put it on record that there is no indigenous Fulani settlement in any part of Southwest Nigeria.”
ARG said in addition, there is no Fulani man or woman living in any part of Southwest Nigeria that can own the ancestral history of the community as his or her family’s history. Conversely, there is none among the Fulani families that first settled in Yorubaland whose history of migration cannot be told by the indigenous Yoruba people.
ARG emphasised that the deliberate use of words that confer on the Fulani people a status that is not theirs constitutes a security threat and does not portray MACBAN and its members as peace-loving people. The subtlety in Baba-Ngelzerma’s choice of words is another confirmation of MACBAN’s alleged surreptitious plan to grab and claim ancestral land for its members through inappropriate means.
ARG says without equivocation that there is no one that is genuinely born of a father and mother that will not know his or her parental ancestry. Baba-Ngelzerma’s claim that there are Fulani people who do not know any other place as their ancestry other than their place of birth owes its plot to mischief, deliberate distortion of facts, and a devilish plan to warp the indigenous demography of Southwest Nigeria.
ARG acknowledges that migration is a global phenomenon and anyone should be able to live in any part of the world that suits his or her ambition. Yoruba people pride themselves as one of the most welcoming nationalities in the world.
However, the ease of integration of a settler into a society is never determined dependent on the settler’s terms, but on his or her readiness to abide by the laws and norms of the society. As the saying goes, when in Rome, do as Romans do. MACBAN members and other Fulani herdsmen want to settle here on their own terms and by employing the most repugnant and vicious strategy, which the Ondo State governor, Arakunrin Rotimi Akeredolu SAN, has stood firmly against using the instrumentality of the Rule of Law.
