Elder statesman, and chieftain of Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Chief Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu, said those clamouring for disintegration of the country are not even the greatest threat to her unity.
Iwuanyanwu believes that Fulani herdsmen are the greatest threat to the nation, insisting that if they are not checked now, their actions will break the country.
The PDP chieftain stated this in an interview with DailySun, he said the way herdsmen are going about with AK-47 riffle, causing mayhem, rape women, take over people’s land, destroy farm land is something that needs to be checked. According to him, these herdsmen are doing all these with impunity, while the federal government look the other way round.
Speaking contrary to what millions of Nigerians believe, Iwuanyanwu said IPOB Oduduwa or AREWA won’t even break the country.
He said; “I want to tell you that the problem of unity in this country is not the Igbo or Biafra, not the Oduduwa, not the Niger Delta, not even the Arewa, the problem we have in Nigeria is the herders who are killing people, going about with their AK 47 rifles, rape women, take over people’s land, destroy farm land and they do all these with impunity.
According to him, “The essence of government is protection of lives and property, but the government has not protected lives, there is no way you can talk about the unity of a country, nobody can feel happy where his life is not safe, he can’t move freely, that’s the greatest threat to this country’s unity, the Igbo are not going to be the people to break Nigeria, I don’t even believe the Yoruba will, I don’t believe the Ijaws will, the break will come from this people who are continuously killing and dispossessing people of their property – herdsmen.
“Ten years ago, we woke up to hear a strange group called Boko Haram, that group we know nothing of said they are going to kill all Nigerians unless everybody will stop western education.
They wanted everybody to imbibe Islamic education, that was embarrassing to everybody because Nigeria since 1914 has agreed to come together, every part of this country has acquired western education, we had freedom of worship so nobody can force anybody to worship his own God.
“This herdsmen, the excuse they give is that their cattle are rustled, if a cow is rustled, it’s not the whole village that stole it, a civilised person will report the matter to the police, but these people instead kill, rape and burn houses.
“So, when I say the threat to the unity of this country, I’m not mistaken, it’s not IPOB, its not Yoruba or Arewa because the Arewa I know which I’m their patron of their youths, including Tiv, I know they are not supporting this, so I would like leading Fulani members to come out openly and talk to Nigerians, tell us what is happening, if there are difficulties, we will know how to solve it because we are not happy.
“To me, the death of any Nigerian, it doesn’t matter where he comes from, should pain everyone of us, it should be like the death of any of our brothers and sisters, so I don’t feel happy each time I hear this, look at what is happening in Kaduna State, people would be sleeping at night and some people would come and rape them.
“I mentioned this few years ago that we all should rise and fight Book Haram, no group is safe, it’s happening today, you can see today they’re gradually crawling to every part of the country, now it’s graduating to kidnapping, before rogues come at night to steal property, now they come in daylight to steal human beings, I believe kidnappers and Book Haram are the same group and this people who say they are cattle rearers, they are not because cattle rearers we know don’t carry AK 47 rifles.
