Eminent leaders of thought from the South and Middle Belt of Nigeria, under the aegis of Nigerian Indigenous Nationalities Alliance for Self-Determination (NINAS), have asked the United Nations to declare the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association (MACBAN) as a terrorist organisation.
Communications Manager to NINAS, Maxwell Adeleye, made this known in a statement made available to SaharaReporters on Monday.
In the statement, the group alleged that the actions or inactions of President Muhammadu Buhari have emboldened Fulani militia and worsened insecurity in the country.
It further described Buhari as a leader who values cows more than his people.
Adeleye said that the group is ready to hold a one million-man march in front of the UN Headquarters in New York, the United States from September 14 to 21, 2021 to show to the world the genocide being perpetrated by murderous herdsmen in the name of grazing in the South and Middle-Belt of Nigeria.
Quoting the Chairman of NIMAS, Prof. Banji Akintoye, he added the group will also be demanding a referendum on self-determination and abolition of the 1999 Constitution.
“The land belongs to the people through the grace of Almighty God. We the Indigenous people of the South and Middle-Belt totally reject the illegitimate and imposed 1999 Nigerian Constitution that hijacks our Self-Determination and Assets.
“We want an end to the ethno-religious killings in Nigeria. We want the Government of Nigeria to stop funding terrorism against us. What is happening today in Nigeria is a state-sponsored terrorism.
“The herdsmen you see in the South and Middle-Belt today are different from the nomadic herdsmen we grew up to know. The current ones are imported members of ISIS, AL-QAEDA, ISWAP and Boko Haram Terrorists being masqueraded as Bandits.
“By the grace of God, we shall be demanding from the world leaders to declare Miyyeti Allah as a Terrorist Group. It is dangerous to safety and peace of the South and Middle-Belt people to call Miyyeti Allah a trade Union, it is a Terrorist group being supported by the current Fulanised Government of Nigeria with a mission to overrun the indigenous people.
“The agenda of these government-backed Terrorists killing and maiming our people in the South and Middle-Belt is to take over our ancestral lands for their Fulani people. You see that it is either Buhari is talking about Cattle Colony today or RUGA tomorrow or Grazing Reserves next tomorrow. He appreciates the Fulani Cows than human dignity.
“The Fulani people have even said it openly on Television that all the land in Nigeria up to the Atlantic Ocean belongs to their great-great grand fathers. They said the oil in the South belongs to them because majority of the land mass in Nigeria are in the North.
“We the Indigenous people now say enough is enough. Therefore, as the World Leaders are meeting for the 76th session of the United Nations General Assembly, we want to use the opportunity to demand for a United Nations Supervised Referendums in our regions so that the indigenous people can decide on what they want for their nationhood.
“First, the fraudulent 1999 Constitution must go down. And this should happen before the 2023 General Elections,” the statement read.