Presidency to Akeredolu: You can’t order herders to vacate Ondo forests

Jennifer Ugwueke

In what it described as a constitutional breach, the Presidency has asked the Ondo State Govern­ment to rescind its directive on Fulani herdsmen to leave the State’s forests within sev­en days.

Governor Oluwarotimi Akeredolu on Monday hand­ed down a seven-day ultima­tum to all herdsmen to vacate all the forests in Ondo State.

This followed a series of kidnappings and killing of some personalities by sus­pected Fulani herdsmen on the Owo/Akure highway and the Ilesa/Akure highway last week.

Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, on behalf of the Presidency, Tuesday night cautioned the Governor, saying the Presiden­cy has been keenly monitor­ing events occurring in Ondo State and the “orders” by the Government of the State, “asking herders to vacate the forests in seven days.”

According to the Presiden­cy, what is clearly emerging, is a lack of consistency in messaging which in turn leads to various contradic­tions regarding accuracy and the intent behind the message.

He said there is little to be said other than to call for restraint on both sides and urge the State Government and the leadership of the Fu­lani communities to continue their dialogue for a good un­derstanding that will bring to an urgent end the nightmar­ish security challenges facing the State.

“Governor Rotimi Ak­eredolu, a seasoned lawyer, Se­nior Advocate of Nigeria and indeed, a former President of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), has fought crime in his State with passion and com­mitment, greater sensitivity and compassion for the four years he has run its affairs and, in our view, will be the least expected to unilaterally oust thousands of herders who have lived all their lives in the State on account of the infiltration of the forests by criminals.

“If this were to be the case, rights groups will be right in expressing worries that the action could set off a chain of events which the makers of our constitution foresaw and tried to guard against.

“We want to make it clear that kidnapping, banditry and rustling are crimes, no matter the motive or who is involved. But, to define crime from the nameplates, as a number of commentators have errone­ously done- which group they belong to, the language they speak, their geographical lo­cation or their faith is atavis­tic and cruel.

“We need to delink terror­ism and crimes from ethnic­ity, geographical origins and religion—to isolate the crimi­nals who use this interchange of arguments to hinder law enforcement efforts as the only way to deal effectively with them.

“The President, who swore to defend the constitu­tion, has spoken against the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) in asking citizens of Northern origin to leave; he did not spare the group based in Sokoto, ‘Muslim Solidari­ty Forum,’ which asked the Bishop of Sokoto to leave and is prepared to do all that the law permits to protect citizens all over the Country in their choice of where they wished to reside and are treated as equal citizens.

“The Government of Ondo, and all the 35 others across the federation must draw clear lines between the criminals and the law abiding citizens who must equally be saved from the infiltrators. Be­yond law and order, the fight against crime is also a fight for human values which are fundamental to our Country,” Shehu stated emphatically.