Tabital Pulaaku International (TPI), a Nigerian NGO, has asked the international community and the media to convince the right federal and state authorities to take the steps needed to stop killing Fulani herders in Taraba.
The group also asked the government to stop forcing pastoralists out of some parts of the state illegally and to stop burning down their homes.
The group’s Secretary General, Dr. Mohammed Sale, said in a statement released Friday in Abuja that the pastoralist villages in question are in the Gashaka, Gassol, and Bali Local Government Areas of the state.
He says that if this keeps going without being stopped, it could affect the peace and stability of the whole country.
“For the past few weeks, hundreds of innocent pastoralists who have lived in these places for decades—including women, children, the elderly, and young adults—have been killed in large numbers and had their homes set on fire. This behavior is most accurately defined as genocide.
“We strongly condemn the continued mass killings of Fule pastoralists in Taraba State in the most recent afflicted areas, as well as the state overall.”
“Our group therefore firmly feels that it owes the government a duty to remind it of its fundamental duty, which is to protect the lives and property of the population, at this time.”
He said, “We draw the attention of all the national security agencies (the Inspector General of Police, the D-G of DSSS, the Chief of Defence Staff, the Chief of Army Staff, the Chief of Air Staff, the Chief of Defence Military Intelligence, and the NSCDC chief) to these ongoing genocidal actions.
Sale claimed that eight Fulbe communities in the state’s Gashaka (Garbabi and Barmani) and Bali (Kungana, Jatau, Gazabu, Maihujja Karekare, and Kosa) LGAs had already received verbal vacation notices from their traditional leaders.
He says that the notice tells them they can’t stay in their original or ancestral settlements and doesn’t tell them where they should go instead.
He said that their basic human rights had been violated, which is what Chapter 4 of the 1999 Constitution says.
“As a direct result of this vacation notice, militia groups have taken the initiative in forcibly evicting the pastoralists in these towns, working in collusion with residents of the impacted communities and supported by state government vigilantes.”
He said that these law-abiding Nigerians were sent away because it seemed like the goal was to wipe them off the face of the earth.
The Fulbe and other ethnic communities and cultures in Nigeria, Africa, and the diaspora are among those that TPI seeks to promote peace, understanding, and togetherness among. TPI is a non-governmental organization run entirely by volunteers.
