Herdsmen under the auspices of Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore Fulani Socio-Cultural Association have defended Bauchi State Governor, Senator Bala Mohammed, over his comments that herders should possess AK-47 rifles for self-defence.

The group, in a statement titled ‘His Excellency Abdulkadir Bala Mohammed– Executive Governor, Bauchi State: The gradual emergence of a courageous northern leader’, signed by the National Secretary, Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore, Mr. Saleh Alhassan, on Thursday described the Bauchi State helmsman as the only lone voice among his peers in the North in defence of Fulani pastoralists being persecuted across Nigeria.

The Fulani organisation slated Governor Samuel Ortom of Benue State over his perceived hatred for the Fulani race, saying that Ortom’s achievement in office since 2015 to his “impoverished” citizens was his “obnoxious” anti-open grazing law in the state.

The group also attacked the Ondo State Governor, Rotimi Akeredolu, that despite ‘his claimed to be a senior lawyer” proved to be a “disgrace to the legal profession”.

Akeredolu was accused of being the brain behind the creation of ‘Amotekun’ allegedly unleashing terror on herders and Northerners in the south-western states of Ondo and Oyo.

The group stated “Governor Bala Mohammed has treaded where angels are scared to tread in the past. He has taken what every politician will consider as political risk in the past by holding divergent views where others have failed or chickened out. So, his current position on the herders/farmers conversation is not strange or out of context.”

“Governor Bala Mohammed has refused to be like Governor of Benue State H.E. Samuel Ortom, whose only achievement is the rising of ethnic militia and gang leaders that have been visiting mayhem of killings in his state.

 “Akeredolu will be held accountable for the ongoing genocide against innocent pastoralist and northerners living in the South-West.”