Amidst growing security concerns, reactions have continued to flood social media following the inauguration of 1,140 Nomad Vigilantes unveiled by Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore Fulani Socio-Cultural Association in Lafia on Wednesday 17th January 2024.
During the inauguration, the Miyetti Allah’s National President, Abdullahi Bodejo, stated that the volunteer vigilantes were carefully selected, screened, and profiled.
Bodejo stated that they will work in line with the country’s existing laws as efforts are under way to raise the number of the Nomad Vigilante to 4000 on or before February 5th .
He urged the volunteer vigilantes to work with other security forces such as the Nigerian Army, the Nigeria Police Force, and other security services as they go about their operations across the 13 local government areas of the state.
While dismissing as false the assertion that all Fulani herders are criminals, Bodejo averred that in every tribe, there are always people who will give a bad name to their kinsmen adding that all tribes have such people.
He said that that the bad narrative about only the Fulani people is not good.
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In a call on his kinsmen to always coexist in peace and harmony with neighboring communities in order to avoid being arrested by security agencies, the leader maintained that any of them who willingly incite trouble on other citizens of the country would be frowned at by the association.
In a swift reaction to this development, a number of persons have taken to social media to criticize the recruitment of the Nomad Vigilante into the fold of the Nasarawa state security architecture.
Reacting, a Facebook user wrote in parts; “Whoever encouraged the formation of such group does not mean well for the state. Nasarawa state has lost its grip because these people proposed it in Benue state and did not succeed because the people are using their brains well but not in Nasarawa state.
The user went further to interrogate the move; “would there be peace if majority of all ethnic groups in the state form their own vigilante group? If an ethnic group at the bottom of the minority can do this what would you expect the majority of the group to do? Where would the funding of the group come from?”
On the contrary, one other user wrote, “tremendous development”.
Meanwhile,the Nasarawa state governor Abdullahi Sule was a special guest at the event that brought together top brass of the Association and other top government functionaries.
As at the time of filing this report, efforts by our correspondent to get the reaction of the Special Assistant to the governor on media Emmanuel Innocent Akwe did not yield result as he appeared not to have been responding to messages sent to his social media handle.
