Police extortion of Fulanis rampant in South West – Group

Fulanis  are fast becoming a subject of harassment and extortion at checkpoints  by the police in the South West part of the country,  a rights group, Progressive Mind for Development Initiative (PMDI), has alleged. Its  President, Comrade Abubakar Abdulsalam, who made the allegation  at a press briefing in Lagos,decried the development  and implored the  Inspector […]

Fulanis  are fast becoming a subject of harassment and extortion at checkpoints  by the police in the South West part of the country,  a rights group, Progressive Mind for Development Initiative (PMDI), has alleged.
Its  President, Comrade Abubakar Abdulsalam, who made the allegation  at a press briefing in Lagos,decried the development  and implored the  Inspector General of Police, Mr Solomon Arase to curtail excesses of his men who are in the habit of stigmatising all Fulanis as killer herdsmen.
He said:“Our studies revealed among other things, that you will be separated, the moment a police officer who scans through passengers of a commercial bus discovered you to be of Fulani ethnicity. In most cases, they hide under the guise of looking for killer herdsmen only
to detain, harass and extort their victims after they must have been alienated from other passengers.
“Our investigation had even confirmed that this is most common in many
of the southern western states.These law abiding Fulani men going about their legitimate businesses are always being intimated or sometimes dehumanised.”
He  also called on Nigerians to desist from name-tagging criminal elements who kill people at random as Fulani herdsmen.
“The opinion of every Nigerian is that the attacks were and are being masterminded by Fulani herdsmen. This looks to us in PMDI as though the perpetrators of the dastardly acts have bewitched every Nigerian. Or, could it be safely said that we are all bereft of the sense of history?’’