Governor of Katsina State, Aminu Masari has said that the bandits terrorising Nigerians are not aliens like many people tend to believe but are Fulani who speaks indigenous Fulfulde and living with the northerners for 100 years.
He said: “The Fulani are the same people like me, who speak the same language like me, who profess the same religious beliefs like me.
“So, what we have here on the ground are bandits; they are not aliens, they are people we know, they are people that have been living with us for 100 of years.”
Masari made this assertion on Monday on Channels Television’s while speaking during the ‘Politics Today’ programme.
He, however, said that many northerners might not welcome his revelation but averred that his disclosure remains the truth.
According to him, “The infiltration we have from some West African countries and North African countries are also people of the Fulani extraction.
“Majority of those involved in this banditry are Fulanis whether it is palatable or it is not palatable but that is the truth.
”I am not saying 100% of them are Fulani but the majority of them are, and these are people who live in the forest and their main occupation is rearing of cattle.”
He disclosed that over 100 groups are in the forest, adding “all made up of bandits, kidnappers, rapists and armed robbers”. He insisted that all measures would be employed to curtail the situation before the end of the year.
Furthermore, the governor said the restrictions in the last few days have drastically reduced the movement of bandits in large groups.
He said some filling stations in isolated locations service the bandits who mostly move on motorcycles.
Masari said: “We are not totally shutting all the filling stations. In local governments, we said two filling stations will operate and in those filling stations, nobody will sell fuel in jerrycans and gallons.
“There may be some hardship but it is better now to take the hardship now in order to restore normalcy. We have a list of some of these filling stations that are dispensing fuel in jerrycans,
“Herdsmen should stay in one place. Roaming about should not be encouraged. In fact, for us, it is un-Islamic. Why do you have animals that you cannot feed and you have to go to other people’s land and farm and you say that is right? I don’t think it is right.
“We intend to have a law banning (cattle) roaming but before we do that, we would make provisions for where the animals would stay.”
