By our reporter
Benue State Governor, Rev. Fr. Hyacinth Alia, has said the killer Fulani herdsmen who routinely attack his state are not Nigerians, but Malians.
According to him, though they speak Hausa and Fulani languages, the governor said their dialectal variants of these languages are different to the ones spoken in Nigeria, especially the northern part of the country.
Sorrow has continued to grip Benue State in recent times as the herdsmen stepped up their attacks on communities, leading to orgies of bloodshed, arson, and displacement of many residents of the Middle Belt or North-Central state.
Local Government Areas (LGAs) attacked included Otukpo, Ado, Logo, and others.
Speaking on Channels TV’s Politics Today programme on Tuesday, April 22, Gov. Alia insisted that AK-47 and AK-49-wielding foreign Fulanis were behind the attacks.
It is not the first time, however, that a top public officer made the assertion.
Peopleandpolitics.net recalls that on February 20, 2021, the Federal Government of President Muhammadu Buhari made similar claim.
Its Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, who spoke on Channels TV’s Sunrise Daily programme, pointed accusing fingers at same foreign Fulani, arguing that they penetrated Nigeria easily because of the ECOWAS Protocol on free movement of humans and cattle.
These assertions raised concerns as what many stakeholders and other Nigerians have been seeking from government is an end to the murderous menace which has turned parts of the country into killing fields.
Governor Alia said the invaders do not look like the indigenous Fulani of Nigeria.
His words: “We know Nigerians. By our ethnicities, we can identify a Fulani man, a Yoruba man, a Hausa man; we know them.
“Even the regular traditional herders, we know them. They work with cows, herding them with sticks.
“But these folks, the attackers, are coming in fully armed with AK-47s and 49s.
“They do not bear the Nigerian look. They don’t speak like we do. Even the Hausa they speak is one sort of Hausa.
“It’s not the normal Hausa we Nigerians speak. So it is with the Fulani they speak.
“There is a trend in the language they speak, and some of our people who understand what they speak give it names.
“They say they are Malians and different from our people. But they are not Nigerians; believe it.”
