SA’AD Abubakar III, Sultan of Sokoto, has urged the federal government to probe the sources of weapons of herdsmen, who have been killing residents across the country.

Abubakar spoke in Sokoto on Sunday, June 25, in his Eid-el-Fitr message to the Muslims in Nigeria.

He said: ‘‘The real herdsmen do not carry guns, but they only move with their cows and sticks.

‘‘Agreed, there are bad eggs among the Fulani, but those carrying arms and perpetrating heinous killings are not herdsmen. Those carrying arms are criminals and they should be treated as such.

‘‘The government should therefore probe the sources of these weapons and take appropriate action; they should face the wrath of the law.

“Government should probe the sources of these weapons and take appropriate action so as to minimise these attacks.”

Abubakar commended the federal government for measures so far taken to combat insurgency in the North-East, adding that “the problem is not yet over.”

The Sultan urged Nigerians to complement the efforts of the security agencies to make Nigeria safe.

‘‘The issue of security is a collective responsibility and not that of the security agencies alone,” he said.

Meanwhile, residents of Ileyo village in the Akure North Local Government Area of Ondo State have called on the state and federal governments to come to their aid as Fulani herdsmen have allegedly sent them out of their farms.

They said since the police had flushed out the herdsmen from the farm of Olu Falae, a former secretary to the government of the federation, the cattle rearers had been destroying the crops in their farms.

The villagers, who a protested on Friday, June 23, along the Igbatoro-Akure Road, alleged that the herdsmen killed one Linus Ogbee, a farmer, on the farm penultimate Sunday, June 18.

Speaking on the development,  Taiwo Ogunleye, the Baale of the Ileyo Village, , said the villagers could not go their farms for the past one week because the herdsmen had taken over the farms.

Ogunleye said further: “We discovered that some herdsmen, who were chased out of Chief Olu Falae’s farm, are now in our farms with their cows. One of the villagers was shot dead; we know they were the ones that shot him. Our youths wanted to go and fight them but we calmed them down.

“That is why we are calling on the government to flush the herdsmen out of our farms. We don’t want chaos in our land, we don’t want fighting; so, the herdsmen should leave our land.

“For the past one week, no one could go to farm so as not to be attacked by these herdsmen.”

Femi Joseph, Police public relations officer of the state Police command, said the command was aware of the development and had deployed some operatives in the area to forestall a breakdown of law and order.

—  Jun 26, 2017 @ 10:00 GMT