‘Declare Fulani Herdsmen Terrorists Now’ – Archbishop Chukwuma Tell FG

By: Arinze Chijioke

Archbishop of Enugu Ecclesiastical Province Emmanuel Chukwuma has asked the Federal Government to declare fulani herdsmen a terrorist organisation.

Chukwuma said that the rate of killings carried out by the herdsmen on religious leaders, which have often gone unpunished, has become devastating.

The Archbishop who spoke during the South East Geo-Political Zone Security summit themed: Strategic Partnership for Effective Community policing in the South East Zone said that if nothing is done to deal with the challenge, the church will be left with no other option than to resort to self help.

“As a church, we have measures, both physical and spiritual that we can adopt to protect ourselves from this spate of killings. But we do not want to take laws into our hands” he said.

He said that the activities of herdsmen, including kidnapping and destruction of crops on farmlands has had adverse effect on the country’s economy over the years.

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“Our women cannot go to their farmlands anymore for fear of being killed by herdsmen who allow their cows to destroy farms and the government is not doing anything about it” he said.

He maintained that the FG has not won the war against Boko Haram, as it has claimed, adding that it must make efforts to secure lives and property of citizens in the country.

“Our people are beginning to lose confidence on the government’s ability to protect their lives” we do hope that the idea of community policing, initiated by the Inspector General of Police will go a long way in dealing with the change of insecurity” he noted.