Anambra State Governor, Professor Chukwuma Soludo, has notified Anambra indigenes resident in the US that criminals terrorising the South east are not Fulani but Igbo indigenes.

There has been the notion that most of the kidnap activities taking place in the South East were done by Fulani terrorists living in bushes in the zone and disguising as herdsmen, with intent to conquer.

But while addressing indigene of Anambra in the US, during a town hall meeting in Maryland, the governor insisted that 99.99 percent of criminals arrested in Anambra were not Fulani, but Igbo.

He said: “The so-called liberators hiding in the forests are homegrown criminals feeding fat on blood money. They come under the guise that they are the ones protecting you from Fulani herdsmen.

“They live in the bushes for months, but no one has ever asked how these so-called liberators survive in the forest. They have to feed, who is paying for their services, don’t they have needs?

“In my three years and three months in office, 99.99% of the kidnappers and other criminals we’ve arrested are Igbo. Let’s stop the lies. Igbos are kidnapping and killing fellow Igbos, not Fulani.”

Meanwhile, a rights group, International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (Intersociety) has countered the governor, insisting that herdsmen were actually in bushes in the zone.

He accused Soludo’s administration of “shielding Jihadist herdsmen since 2022 and dangerously dragging Anambra State into Federal Government’s (Fulani) Ranching compliant State and sitting the State on a keg of jihadist gunpowder.

In a press statement by the Board of Trustees Chairman of the group, Mr Emeka Umeagbalasi, it said: “We’re strongly puncturing Gov Charles Soludo’s Maryland speech in USA, exonerating Jihadist Fulani Herdsmen in Anambra’s Forest and Farmland Insecurity.”

Umeagbalasi added that some communities in Awka South, Awka North, Oyi, Ayamelum, Orumba South and North, Dunukofia, all have camps habited by Fulani terrorist herdsmen.

“The State Government has also severally been found to have joined conventional security establishments in the State and beyond in shielding these jihadists and shifting blame over their atrocities to militant IPOB or ESN or Unknown Gunmen.” (AriseNews TV)