One of the umbrella bodies of herdsmen in Nigeria, the
Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore, has alleged that policemen along the Abuja-Kaduna
Expressway are arresting innocent Fulani herders, branding them as kidnappers
and forcing them to pay huge amounts of money as bail.
National Secretary of the group, Saleh Alhassan, pencilled
this allegation in a statement on Friday. The statement was titled, ‘Arbitrary
arrest and criminal extortion of Fulani herders’.
According to him, innocent Fulani herders grazing cattle in
villages along the highway have been arbitrarily arrested by the police in
recent times and they have had to cough out thousands of naira as bail.
The spokesman said constitutionally, bail is free “but for police personnel at Katari Police Station, situated along the Abuja-Kaduna Expressway, bail is for the highest bidder”.
“Suspects are forced to either pay for their freedom or they
are tortured. The Police personnel are going about abducting our herders, branding
them kidnappers or robbers and forcing them to pay bail under torture.
“Our herders, who are undertaking their lawful ventures,
have been victims of this arbitrary arrest and demand for bail.
“Many relatives of these herders have forcefully cough out
N200,000 to 1.5 million naira to bail out their subjects from the hands of
these police officers.
“This is unacceptable, and we demand immediate action.
“While we have already informed the police headquarters of
these happenings, we felt it necessary to also let the world know this, in view
of the growing hatred, stereotyping and prejudices against our herders and
Fulani ethnic group in the country,” the statement read in part.
Alhassan urged the police hierarchies to clamp down on the
personnel allegedly involved in the act.
A text message sent by our correspondent to Force Public
Relations Officer, Frank Mba, seeking police comments on the matter was not
replied to as of the time of filing this report.
The Abuja-Kaduna Expressway is infamously one of the
volatile highways in the country notorious for kidnapping, banditry and other
heinous crimes.
In September 2021, many Nigerians were aghast that the
National Youth Service Corps in its handbook listed the Abuja-Kaduna Highway as
one of the high-risk roads in the country, asking family members of prospective
corps members to prepare ransom to be paid to criminals in case the young
graduates are kidnapped.
A number of corps members have been kidnapped in recent
months. The rate of kidnapping on major roads have forced many corps members to
abandon road transportation and opt for air and rail transportation to connect
their base to their states of posting which is usually outside their
geopolitical zone.
But in October 2021, incorrigible bandits operating along
the Abuja- Kaduna road also bombed a
rail track along the Abuja-Kaduna route. A Nigeria Railway Corporation train
was subsequently attacked by the bandits and the driver of the train and the
passengers had escaped by a whisker.
Many Nigerians are extremely disappointed in the regime of
the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), who rode to power on the
heels of combating the security challenges plaguing the country in 2015 but the
situation seems to have been aggravated in the last six years.
The Minister of Justice and Attorney-General of the
Federation, Abubakar Malami (SAN), recently said kidnappers have also been
declared as terrorists after a Federal High Court sitting in Abuja declared
bandits as terrorists of late.
But beyond rhetorics and media grandstanding, many Nigerians
want quick prosecution of kidnappers, insurgents and terror financiers
including over 400 bureau de change operators arrested in Kano, Borno, Abuja,
Lagos, Sokoto, Adamawa, Kaduna and Zamfara, whose files have been in the office
of the AGF since the beginning of 2021.
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