INTERVIEW: No Power Can Remove Us From Ondo Forests, Says Miyetti Allah Leader

As the seven-day ultimatum Governor Rotimi Akeredolu, SAN, issued herdsmen occupying Ondo state forests expires tomorrow, the National President of Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore, Bello Abdullahi Bodejo, has declared that no power can remove Fulani herdsmen from the state’s forests.
In an interview with THE SUN, the Miyetti Allah leader stressed that their people have settled there for over 250 years and so they are not going to obey anybody to leave the place.
He claims the Fulani ethnic group owns all the land in Nigeria.
“All the lands in this country belong to the Fulani, but we don’t have any business to do with land if it doesn’t have areas for grazing; if the land doesn’t have cow food, we won’t have any business with it. We don’t sell land, we don’t farm. What we consider is the areas that have cow food. If the place is good for grazing, we don’t need anybody’s permission to go there”, he stated.

Following allegations of kidnapping and robbery carried out by Fulani herdsmen, Ondo State government has given them seven-day ultimatum to leave the forests in the state, what is your reaction?
The Ondo State governor, Rotimi Akeredolu doesn’t have any right to give such ultimatum to our people. People, including Fulani voted for him to be the governor; so he should be the governor of everybody in the state.

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Fulani have been in the forests he is talking about even before he was born; they have been there for over 250 years. No matter how dangerous a forest may be, Fulani would go and settle there. After staying there for a long time and their cow dung turns the place fertile, people would begin to come there to farm and to settle and from then, they begin to make claims that our cattle were destroying their farms.
We are suing the governor and seeking injunction restraining him and others from carrying out his threat. But even at that, nobody, no power can send the herdsmen out of Ondo State.

When are you going to court as the ultimatum will soon expire?
We are making consultations with our legal team. But before then, the governor and his people should stop embarrassing our people in the forests and all their businesses.
No any herdsman will obey the governor; the herdsmen will not step an inch out of Ondo forests; they are going nowhere.
We won’t obey the governor; it is only the constitution of Nigeria that we obey. We have been in that area before he was born, how can he just grow up and ask us to leave; no Fulani will leave that place.

THE SUN