Former Aviation Minister, Chief Femi Fani-Kayode has disagreed with Bishop Matthew Kukah’s stance that the Fulani ethnic group is being demonised.
Kukah, who spoke on Tuesday at a colloquium on fake news and hate speech organised by the Olusegun Obasanjo centre for African studies, said that demonising the Fulani could lead to genocide.
According to him, the Fulani were being demonised the same way the Igbo ethnic group was demonised leading to a civil war in which many lives were lost.
“If it is Fulani today, yesterday it was the Igbos,” Kukah said.
However, the ex-minister, who quoted Kukah’s statement, said it was “disingenuous and dishonest” to compare the Fulani’s present situation to that of the Igbo in 1966.
He said, “To compare the situation of the Fulani in the south today to the situation of the Igbo in the north in 1966 is disingenious and dishonest.
“The Igbo did not slaughter the Fulani in the 1966 northern pogroms but rather it was the Fulani that slaughtered the Igbo.
“In 1966 alone no less thsn 100,000 innocent and defenceless Igbos were butchered by the Fulani in the north.
“Today it is again the Fulani militias that are slaughtering thousands of Igbo, Yoruba and other southerners all over the south. They are also killing Middle Belters.
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“The south and the Middle Belt do not have a tradition of killing the innocent and the defenceless but the Fulani do.
“If they do not want to be stigmatised and regarded as butchers and terrorists they must stop their herdsmen, militias and cells from slaughtering our people.
“During the civil war the whole of Nigeria unleashed genocide on the innocent Igbo civilian population of Biafra but that was an isolated event.
“The Fulani have been doing it to others since 1804 up until today.
“Any comparison between the behaviour and experiences of the Igbo and the Fulani in Nigerian history is painful, insensitive and inappropiate.
“The Igbo have suffered too much at the hands of others for them to be compared to the Fulani. It is like comparing the experience of the Jews to the experience of the German Nazis or the Arabs.
“Both races have persecuted and tormented the Jews and the state of Israel more than any other. We must not make such comparisons in the name of political correctness or anything else.”
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