A former Chief of Naval Staff, Admiral Samuel Afolayan (rtd) has accused the police of knowing the sponsors of Fulani herdsmen committing atrocities across the nation but failing to effect their arrest.
Afolayan made this known over the weekend in an interview with The Punch.
He said he got the information after reporting attacks on his farm in Kwara state by some herdsmen to the police.
According to the retired admiral, the police said they could not effect any arrest because the herdsmen’s sponsors were very influential people.
He said that though the herdsmen had destroyed his farm on numerous occasions in the past, he kept quiet in order not to escalate the tension in the country.
Afolayan disclosed that on the few occasions that he apprehended some herdsmen and detained their cattle for destroying his farm, the herdsmen forcefully claimed them back.
He said he decided to speak up on the issue for the first time this January.
Afolayan disclosed that the influential owners of the cattle lived as far away as Zamfara.
According to him, when he requested that one of them be brought to the state for investigation, the police told him it would be difficult.
“I said that is injustice. How do you remand a boy that is of no consequence when the boy had already told you that the owner of the cows is in Zamfara State?
“He gave the number of his employer and I said the police should invite the man who owns the cows and they were telling me that it would be difficult.
“What is difficult in that? The police can arrest anybody wherever he or she lives in Nigeria.”
Afolayan urged the federal government to step up its efforts in curtailing the excesses of the herdsmen.