Johnson Suleman, the founder and
president of Omega Fire Ministry Worldwide, has asked the federal
government to compel Kaduna State Governor Nasir El-Rufai to produce Fulani herdsmen to whom money was paid so as to disabuse the minds of Nigerians that Christians are not the target of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration.
The cleric in an e-mailed statement to The Trent
by his communications adviser, Phrank Shaibu, said the failure to
compel El-Rufai to produce the herdsmen who purportedly collected money
from the Kaduna State Government is an indication of the insincerity of
the Buhari administration.
“The governor of Kaduna State confessed
that he paid money to some Fulani herdsmen as compensation to stop the
killings in Southern Kaduna. That means he knows those who have
committed atrocities against Christians. He must be made to produce them
to answer to charges of murder and other crimes,” Apostle Suleman
declared.
“El-Rufai can be safely regarded as an
apologist of the herdsmen, and with a fact. On July 12, 2012, he tweeted
the following:’We will write this for all to read. Anyone, soldier or
not that kills the Fulani takes a loan repayable one day no matter how
long it takes.’
“The governor’s response to the killings
in Southern Kaduna has been consistent with this mindset. In a recent
chat with newsmen in Kaduna, the governor made different remarks to
substantiate his love for the herdsmen and their activities.
“First, he said when he became governor,
he traced the attackers to Cameroon, Chad, and Niger and sent a message
to them that one of their own, a Fulani like them, was now governor.
This comment displays a dramatically bigoted mindset. A governor of a
state in Nigeria was making appeals based on ethnic kinship and
brotherhood to a group of foreign killers of people in his state! In
other words, he was appeasing his murderous foreign kinsmen at the
expense of indigenes of his state who are not his ethnic kinsmen but
whose safety and interests he swore to defend. The governor shocking
statement indicates that ethnic solidarity trumped his constitutional
obligations to protect Southern Kaduna citizens from the external
threats of foreign Fulani herdsmen”
Apostle Suleman’s statement came ahead
of the invitation by the Department of State Services (DSS) to report at
their office in Abuja on Monday, for reportedly asking members of his
church to defend themselves if the Fulani herdsmen attacked them.
But the General Overseer, through his
communications adviser said the Federal Government would be engaging in
double standards by asking the DSS to invite him while allowing El-Rufai
to move about scot free, while adding that the fact that the latter has
immunity does not preclude him from investigation.
“There’s no end to the killing of
Christians in Kaduna. Those behind the heinous crime are known to the
Governor. Yet no one has been charged for murder. Instead people like us
who speak the truth are being persecuted. The federal government must
not give the impression of partiality or suggest that Christians are the
target of this administration”, he added.
Continuing, Apostle Suleman wondered why
his recent speeches have been branded by agents of the federal
government when all he has done is to remain consistent in telling the
truth irrespective of whose ox is gored.
Said he: “Which is worse? Saying the
truth or offering money to murderers? Did El-Rufai offer money to
ghosts? For you to pay someone money, the person must have a known and
fixed address. As chief security officer of the state, was it not his
business to arrest and put these hoodlums on trial? How come no one has
been caught or being prosecuted for the massacre in Southern Kaduna?
Obviously, there’s more to it that meets the eye”.
The head of the Omega Fire Ministries
further admonished security agents not to allow politicians and ethnic
warlords to use them to achieve parochial objectives, warning that such a
development may lead to grave consequences for the nation.
0 comments:
Post a Comment