A Senator representing Southern Borno senatorial constituency, Ali Ndume has claimed that injustice suffered by Fulani herders led to the herdsmen crisis and banditry that is currently a problem in the country. Senator Ndume made this remarks when he appeared on Focus Nigeria, a programme on African Independent Television (AIT).
Speaking about the challenges of insecurity in the country, Senator Ndume blamed the lack of law enforcement by the security forces in the country for the rising cases of insecurity.
He claimed the nations security forces is weak and listed several other challenges that has made them ineffective.
Speaking further, he said, “in fact what led to this herdsmen crisis and the banditry out there is because of the injustice that started growing among the herders.”
Explaining what he meant, he said herders normally use sticks and cutlass, but they resorted to using AK-47 to fight back against cattle rustlers who attack them with AK-47 to steal their cattle.
He suggested these cattle rustlers have now migrated to become bandits who kidnap people for ransom.
“These days you don’t hear about cattle rustlers, you hear about bandits. After cattle rustling, now banditry has come in. They discover that if you pick a person and you make a call and ask for a ransom of maybe N10 million, you can negotiate for N5 million.”