“Even when other criminals strike, it is Fulani herdsmen. It is stereotyping. It is finger-pointing which is not based on facts. I am not saying that there are no challenges about Fulani herdsmen due to climate change, dwindling resources and things like that. Yes, we have those challenges. But it is not every criminality perpetrated in the country that is done by the Fulanis’ President Muhammadu Buhari’s Special Adviser on Media and Publicity Mr. Femi Adesina has said Adesina in an interview with an online newspaper also said that what former President Obasanjo said ‘cannot be taken as the gospel truth any longer, he cannot be taken as neutral saying ‘His opinion then cannot be taken as the gospel truth any longer.’
Femi Adesina’s interview in parts “But then to now say the entire country has been taken over, to say that the government is failing, is political. Nigeria is still there, it is very solid. It will remain solid. It will remain one, and the challenges will be overcome.
“Government is not the only institution responsible for security. It is a collaborative thing between the government and the governed. Government at the federal level is not the only one responsible for security.
“But what do we find? You find some people, they will go and cause trouble at the local government (level), and they will be calling President Buhari, who is at the centre, to come and resolve it. “You have government at the federal level; you have government at the state level. And you have government at the local level. All of them-federal, states, and local governments, must collaborate to end this security challenge. The people as well as the traditional institutions have their roles to play. It is a collaborative thing.”
On Herders/ farmers clashes,
“The herdsmen/farmers’ clashes are causing security challenges. There are also political Fulani herdsmen; those ones have been created by hidden hostile hands who want to de-market the government.
“The Fulani issue is there but it is no way near what has been trumpeted, and what has been claimed. To some people in the media, there is no other criminality in the country except Fulani herdsmen.
“Even when other criminals strike, it is Fulani herdsmen. It is stereotyping. It is finger-pointing which is not based on facts. I am not saying that there are no challenges about Fulani herdsmen due to climate change, dwindling resources and things like that. Yes, we have those challenges. But it is not every criminality perpetrated in the country that is done by the Fulanis.
“We have always lived with Fulani herdsmen in this country. They drive their cattle from different parts. When the rains are here, you see them. They move southwest and they get forage for their cattle and all that. And when the rains go and the water recedes, you find them following the water as it recedes.
In the process, they drive their herds into farmlands and it becomes an issue. There was a way that problem was settled in this country before.”
“The problem was there in the first republic, even in the second republic. But it was not as bad as we have it now because climate change has affected vegetation and the water table. Lake Chad, for instance, is ten percent of its former size.
That has seriously affected grazing and availability of resources because the herdsmen follow the water. They follow where there is green grass to feed their animals.” Buhari’s appointment not lopsided..
“No, the direction is clear. If some appointments have not been made, it does not indicate that you don’t know the direction. The direction in which this government is going is very clear. Direction is determined by policy. It is determined by pronouncements. “It is determined by things you had done in the first term, which you are consolidating in the second term. It is not the appointment that has not been made that will determine the direction.
“One thing is to appoint the brightest and the best; another is to take care of the agitations against some members of the President’s first term team.
Throughout that term, people were always complaining about lop-sidedness in appointments, about ethnicity, nepotism and stuffs like that.
