By Nnaya Okemini
Coalition of South East Youth Leaders (COSEYL) has called on the Federal Government to call the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN) to order “over its ambitions desire to overun the South East zone.”
The President-General (PG) of the COSEYL, Chief Goodluck Egwu stated this in Umuahia, the Abia state capital while reacting to the call last Thursday by the MACBAN for permission to establish Fulani Vigilance in the zone.
MACBAN spoke at a South-East Security Summit organized by the South-East Chambers of Commerce, Mines and Agriculture, (SECCIMA) in collaboration with South-East Governors Forum (SEGF) in Enugu, Enugu state capital.
He said the MACBAN from all intent and purposes has a secret agenda is to “Fulanize and Islamize” the zone and not interested in its security, saying the permission must be vehemently rejected.
Egwu said if the MACBAN is interested in checking insecurity in the country they should deploy the vigilance to the areas of the northern states where they will be fully engaged.
“For the past 12 years Boko Haram and bandits have been terrorising the northern states and the MACBAN did not deem it fit to establish a vigilance to protect the people from their attacks,” he maintained.
The PG warned governors and traditional rulers in the zone against yielding any portion of land for cattle grazing, insisting that such gestures have always ended in crisis between the land owners and the rearers.
He said if their major challenge is grazing land they should restrict themselves to the north which is far larger than the entire south, “and stop constituting themselves to a security risk to the zone.”
