The National President, Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore, Bello Abdullahi Bodejo has explained the age-long relationship between a Fulani herdsman and his cattle.
He disclosed in an interview published by Saturday Sun that the herdsman sees his cow not as a possession but as a brother.
The Miyetti Allah said that this explains why Fulani herdsmen embark on reprisal attacks when their cows are killed.
Bodejo said, “They love their cows beyond description, you can’t separate them from their cows to go and stay inside town or city.
“The cows have names. The way you give your children names when they were born is the same way they name their cows. Even a person who has one thousand cows, those cows have individual names and he knows them by name; the cows have fathers, grandfathers and grandchildren.
“What you have in human beings – the ways names are given to people, the same way Fulani give names to their cows. We are cow lovers, that is why sometimes if you kill their cows somewhere they go there to look for justice, because they see like somebody has killed their brothers; they must go to see who did that and they won’t leave that person.”
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Bodejo condemned the seven-day ultimatum issued by Governor Rotimi Akeredolu for Fulani herdsmen to vacate the forest reserves of Ondo State.
He added that the ultimatum would be challenged in court.
“The Ondo State governor, Rotimi Akeredolu doesn’t have any right to give such ultimatum to our people. People, including Fulani voted for him to be the governor; so he should be the governor of everybody in the state.
“Fulani have been in the forests he is talking about even before he was born; they have been there for over 250 years. No matter how dangerous a forest may be, Fulani would go and settle there. After staying there for a long time and their cow dung turns the place fertile, people would begin to come there to farm and to settle and from then, they begin to make claims that our cattle were destroying their farms.
“We are suing the governor and seeking injunction restraining him and others from carrying out his threat. But even at that, nobody, no power can send the herdsmen out of Ondo State,” Bodejo stated.