The Middle Belt Forum, MBF, has said the people of the Middle Belt are left with no option but to resort to self-help to defend themselves given the failure of the Federal Government to put an end to the ceaseless killings by suspected armed herdsmen in that geopolitical zone of the country.
The MBF also lampooned the Federal Government for failing to move decisively against the armed marauders despite knowing their location and hideout.
The National President of the MBF, Dr. Bitrus Pogu, who on Tuesday, in a statement, was reacting to the Christmas Eve attack on Plateau State communities by suspected armed herdsmen, which claimed over 120 lives, alleged that the failure of the government to ensure the protection of the lives and property of the people amounted to its complicity in the matter.
According to Dr. Pogu, "Section 14(b) of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria stipulates that 'the security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government".
"Conversely, the unrelenting massacre of our people in the Middle-Belt States, particularly recently on the Plateau, has shown without any vestige of pessimism that the government and security forces are complicit in the ethnic cleansing of the indigenous ethnic nationalities who are not part of the Sokoto Caliphate.
"It is no longer news that the hideout from which these insurgents/terrorists launch their attacks on the States of Plateau, Benue, Nasarawa, Taraba, and Southern Kaduna has been known to the government and security forces for decades, yet they have deliberately fortified this evil theatre from any destruction, thus providing a safe haven for these terrorists to smuggle arms, train their mercenaries, and unleash unimaginable terror on innocent citizens without any provocation whatsoever.
"Mahanga, a forest that lies at the foot of the hills of Bokkos Local Government Area, LGA, of Plateau State and borders Wamba LGA of Nasarawa State to the south, is the infamous launching ground of all attacks against our people in the last two decades and fully known to government and security forces.
"The complicity of the government and security forces is that they have shielded this autonomous Fulani community, which is known to house all manner of weapons, including missiles, that are used to destabilise the peaceful coexistence of the country without ever invading and uprooting them from the forest.
"This same tactic of nurturing and fortifying terrorist camps finds expression in the Mandara hills in Borno and Alagarno, where the military moved the entire residents of over 11,000 people from Sabon Gari, leaving the whole road between Biu and Dambua for the terrorists to operate freely, even collecting tolls on the highway.
"This implicates the government in collusion with these armed non-state actors to kill and maim our people with the intent to eclipse our heritage and existence.
"Our resolve to confront headlong this abysmal and surreptitious extinction of our people is anchored on our quest for the liberation of Middle-Belt States from the oppressive and tyrannical manipulations of external forces that have retarded development in our region."
Continuing, Dr. Pogu said, "We shall take the bull by the horn to defend our people as the last option left to us, predicated on our land, our people, and our heritage.
"It is pertinent to note that the divide and rule tactic over the years employed by our adversaries has accounted for the political subjugation of our people, thereby limiting our access to economic power, which concomitantly renders us vulnerable and defenseless in the face of carefully orchestrated strategies to eclipse our heritage and continued survival.
"The plight of ethnic nationalities in the states of Nasarawa, Gombe, Adamawa, Borno, Yobe, Kebbi, Bauchi, Kaduna, Niger, Kwara, Taraba, Benue, Plateau, Kogi, and Abuja (FCT), who are daily butchered like chickens, ricochets the imbalance and unfairness of the northern oligarchy to our indigenous people of the Middle Belt, who are daily treated as lesser humans without dignity and worth, which is an inherent endowment of God on all humanity.
"We shall never again accept the ignoble and inferior status imposed on our people by the caliphate and the Nigerian government acting in connivance with security forces to drive us out of our ancestral homeland.
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"This is in view of the fact that our forefathers who fought to keep this country united are warriors who deserve nothing but respect and honour.
"Our governors should rise up to the responsibility of safeguarding the lives of the citizens through the maximum utilisation of vigilantes in communities under attacks to stem the tide of these massacres since they lack autonomy over the military and police forces.
"In view of the helplessness of governors in the midst of these attacks, state police is the only option left to secure this country from a full-blown war as arms stockpile is on an alarming increase, indicating the ineffectiveness of the government in guaranteeing the security of lives and property of Nigerians.
"The government should note that the occupation and renaming of communities by the Fulani after dislodging our people is part of the grand plan of the northern oligarchy to stamp our people out of their ancestral homeland, which we will resist to the point of death without faltering. Enough is enough."
