Former Executive Secretary of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), Prof Usman Yusuf has said that the 17 Southern governors should be sensible enough to know that Fulani herdsmen were not responsible for all the crimes being perpetrated in the region.
Prof Yusuf stated this while further reacting to the Asaba Declaration in which the governors banned open grazing of cattle in the region.
In an earlier reaction, he had bashed the governors for not consulting the Fulani herdsmen, whom he said were the target of the ban, before instituting it.
In his latest reaction conveyed in an interview with Saturday Sun, Prof Yusuf said, “Southern governors need to be sensible. They are saying all the security problems in the South are because of Fulani herders who have lived there for generations.
“They are just trying to find an ethnic group to vilify and I warned that they should be very careful. There are over 15 million Igbo living peacefully in the North.
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“We elders and all our traditional rulers, as well as clerics have been trying to keep things down. We have seen seven Hausa Suya sellers killed in Imo; we have seen pictures posted online by ESN IPOB of Fulani families, women and children they killed.
“I have personally interacted with these families. Nobody is saying anything. I blamed Igbo leaders for their silence. If anything happens to the Igbo in the North, the first people that will come out are traditional rulers and the clerics will be calming down the situation.
“But in the South-East, Nnamdi Kanu and ESN are doing that rascality specifically targeting another ethnic group, but I do not hear a word from any Igbo elder. They are in Abuja looking for Igbo presidency.
“The way they are going, South-East will be worse than the North-East. These Igbo leaders that are shouting Igbo presidency will run to Abuja or Lagos. They are afraid of Nnamdi Kanu and are trying to appease him.
“In the South-West, Igboho, who is nothing but an illiterate, a political thug is doing all this nonsense and now calling the shots in the region that claims to be very educated, but everybody is keeping silent.
“The North is looking and watching quietly. All of a sudden, the South-West leaders ran to Lagos to say, they are not for secession.
“You cannot have your cake and eat it. You can’t gather 17 of you in Asaba and give people quit notice and came to Lagos and say, we are not together with them.
“No, you are together. Asaba declaration is unconstitutional, null and void and they need to be very careful.
“Politics is not threat, it is not blackmail. It is reaching out to people.”
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