Why Fulani are the real genocide victims in Nigeria – Miyetti Allah

The National Secretary of the Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore, Engr. Saleh Alhassan, has declared that the only form of genocide happening in Nigeria today is the one allegedly being carried out against Fulani pastoralists for more than two decades.

Speaking on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily on Thursday, Alhassan said:

“If we must be honest in this country, if there is anything close to genocide in Nigeria, it’s genocide against the Fulani pastoralists in the last 25 years across the country from Plateau to Benue to Zamfara to Kebbi State.”

According to him, Fulani herders have been “deliberately targeted, killed, displaced,” while some state governments have “criminalised pastoralism” through anti-grazing laws.

He accused those pushing narratives of Fulani-led massacres of being “genocide town criers” seeking global attention and foreign aid, particularly referencing a bishop who presented reports abroad instead of engaging Nigerian institutions.

“What he is looking for is foreign aid. He failed to contextualise the actual conflict,” he said.

The Miyetti Allah official insisted that pastoralists are often wrongly blamed for violence, claiming subsequent investigations repeatedly reveal that local communities are behind many of the attacks attributed to herders.

“The way the conflict is being viewed as if pastoralists are out there to kill and destroy people that is not the truth. That is not the narrative.”

Alhassan further accused Nigerian security agencies, government officials and the media of consistent silence whenever Fulani communities are attacked.

“Pastoralists have been devastated in Kebbi, Niger, and Benue in the last three weeks  and not a single word from security agencies or even the media.”

His comments come amid rising insecurity across Nigeria’s North, where hundreds have been abducted in recent weeks including schoolchildren in Kebbi and Niger States, worshippers in Kwara, and a pastor and his wife in Kogi.