Worried by the frightening spread of incidents of suspected Fulani herdsmen slaughtering local farmers across Nigeria – especially in Benue and Kaduna states – the Human Rights Writers' Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) today demanded the immediate setting up of a Presidential Commission on Farmers/Fulani Herdsmen Relationship with a mandate to initiate workable measures to stop on a permanent basis the frequent clashes between local farmers and nomadic Fulani herdsmen across the country.

“The commission, which should be made up of vastly trained agricultural and security experts, should also set up a functionaldata base of all Fulani herdsmen and local farmers to enable security operatives ascertain the nationality of the suspected armed marauders who are alleged to be hired mercenaries paid byFulani herdsmen to attack local farmers who prevent them from grazing in their farms,” HURIWA said in a statement issued in Abuja, the Nigerian capital.

The rights group condemned “in the strongest terms, the recent massacre of 40 mourners in Agatu Local Government Area of Benue State by suspected armed Fulani herdsmen.”

It demanded that the National Assembly should urgently convoke a transparent public hearing session “to probe the hierarchies of the security agencies in the flashpoints of frequent mass killings of farmers by suspected Fulani herdsmen to uncover why no one has been apprehended since these series of genocides started and to recommend for immediate sack any heads of the nation’s security agencies thatare primarily responsible for prevention; detection and arrest and prosecution of perpetrators of such heinous crime against humanity.”

HURIWA warned that “if Government at both the state and federal levels fail to combat this ‘epidemic’ of systematic assassination and decimation of actively engaged local farmers who constitute sixty percent of the sources of our national feeding requirements, then sooner rather than later, the whole country could be thrown into food drought occasioned by the ongoing massacre of farmers by suspected Fulani herdsmen.”

The statement signed by HURIWA National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, and the National Media Affairs Director, Miss Zainab Yusuf, also demanded that President Goodluck Jonathan “must compelhis National Security Adviser (NSA), Colonel Sambo Dasuki (rtd.), to activate effective and efficient mechanism to check the spread of such hate crimes and genocide committed against local farmers across the North-Central region of the country by suspected paid armed mercenaries from Chad, Niger and Mali allegedly brought in by Fulani herdsmen to confront and eliminate farmers who may pose as obstacles to their rampage with their cattle on the farms of these hapless farmers.”

The group also raised an alarm that attacks by suspected Fulani herdsmen have spread to some southern states and if unchecked could lead to breakdown of law and order because communities would not fold their hands and watch suspected hired armed gunmen decimate their populace without taken action to defend themselves legitimately.

HURIWA faulted the slow response of relevant institutions such as the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) and the National Refugees Commission to provide immediate and comprehensive reliefs to the displaced farmers who have suffered relentless attacks by suspected Fulani herdsmen in Benue state and Kaduna states.

HURIWA cited Section 16[1] of the Nigerian Constitution which provides that the State shall “harness the resources of the nation and PROMOTE national prosperity and an efficient, a dynamic and self-reliant economy” and also Section 33[1] of Chapter Four of the Constitution which provides that “every person has a right to life and no one SHALL be intentionally deprived of his/her life.”

The group declared that “the failure so far by the Federal Government to proactively prevent the ongoing massacre of members of the farming communities, constitute gross violations of these relevant sections of the constitution and amounts to genocide which may have to be referred to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, Netherlands should the Nigerian government consistently refuse to put a stop to the attack and also fail to arrest, and prosecute the offenders in the competent courts of law in compliance with section 6 of the Nigerian constitution.”

•Photo shows National Security Adviser, Colonel Sambo Dasuki (rtd.)