CAN, Southern And Middle Belt Leaders Flay FG Over Fulani Radio

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BY SEGUN ADEBAYO, ABUJA – Plans by the Federal Government to set up a radio station for herdsmen with the aim of educating and mobilising them to end the perennial clashes involving them and farmers on Thursday attracted bitter opposition from the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) and the Southern and Middle Belt Leaders Forum (SMBLF).

The Minister of Education, Malam Adamu Adamu, had announced on Wednesday that the President Muhamamdu Buhari-led administration had secured an Amplitude Modulation radio licence for herdsmen in an attempt to end the incessant clashes between the two groups.

According to the Minister, “the radio licence will serve as a vehicle of social mobilisation and education, in addition to interactive radio instruction methodology that will be adopted to reach the hard-to-reach segment of our target population.”

CAN, in a press statement on Thursday, condemned the move to set up the radio station exclusively for herdsmen, wondering why the government is not thinking of setting up a similar radio station for bandits in Zamfara, kidnappers in Katsina and militants in the Niger Delta region, among other areas plagued by insecurity.

According to the statement, signed by Pastor Bayo Oladeji, who is the media assistant to the CAN President, Dr Samson Ayokunle, the umbrella body of all Christian groups expressed its stiff opposition to the radio stations, adding that there are grounds to accept former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s allegation as true that the Federal Government was engaged in carrying a “Fulanisation and Islamic agenda.”

On its parts, the SMBLF, in a press statement signed by Yinka Odumakin (South-west); Senator Bassey Henshaw (South-south) and Dr. Isuwa Dogo (Middle Belt), noted: “We totally reject this insensitive decision of the government on the following fundamental grounds:

“It smacks of hypocrisy and deception for a government that has in the last four years denied responsibility on behalf of the Fulani herdsmen for crimes they even owned up to, to now tell us it wants to set up a radio for them to address the same issues.

“Section 55 of the 1999 Constitution recognises English, Yoruba, Hausa and Igbo as Languages in which the official business of the National Assembly can be conducted .There was no mention of Fulani which is not a language most northerners even understand.

“Why its sudden promotion to a language the Federal Government will set up a radio to promote? Will it also set up radio stations for the officially recognised languages and the over 250 languages spoken in different parts of Nigeria?

“We fear seriously that the proposed radio will become a weapon of spreading hate propaganda against other nationalities in Nigeria given the kid gloves treatment with which the Buhari administration has handled the killings of thousands of Nigerians in the last four years.

“We are guided the genocide-aiding role radio played in inciting ordinary citizens to take part in the massacre of Tutsis and moderate Hutus during the Rwandan Genocide. From 1993 to late 1994 RTLM was used by Hutu leaders to propagate an extremist Hutu message and anti-Tutsi disinformation by identifying specific targets and areas where they could be found and encouraging progress of the genocide.

“In 1994, Rwanda Radio began to advance the same message by issuing directives on where to kill Tutsis and congratulating those who had already taken part.

“Using the instrumentality of the Federal Government to set up a radio for Fulani herdsmen will throw a knife at the tiniest of the threads still holding Nigeria together as all illusions of an inclusive country would be removed and the rest of the country would conclude we are now under Fulani Government of Nigeria.

“We therefore demand that the Federal Government should perish the thought of a Fulani radio sponsored by government if it cares in any form about the corporate existence of the country”.

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