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Governor Chukwuma Soludo of Anambra State has argued that the notion that Fulani herdsmen are responsible for the rising wave of kidnappings and violent crime in the South-East is not true.
Speaking to Anambra indigenes at a town hall meeting in Maryland over the weekend, Soludo asserted that nearly all the criminals apprehended in his state are, in fact, local residents rather than outsiders.
Soludo said, “The so-called liberators hiding in the forests are homegrown criminals feeding fat on blood money. They come under the guise that they are the ones protecting you from Fulani herdsmen,” the governor declared.
The Governor also wondered who provides the logistics of the militants’ activities, saying, “They live in the bushes for months, but no one has ever asked how these so-called liberators survive in the forest. They have to feed, who is paying for their services, don’t they have needs?”
Soludo also provided figures to underscore his point: “In my three years and three months in office, 99.99% of the kidnappers and other criminals we’ve arrested are Igbo. Let’s stop the lies. Igbos are kidnapping and killing fellow Igbos, not Fulani.”
He was dispelling what he termed, “a false narrative” that Fulani herdsmen have taken refuge in the region’s forests to carry out terror attacks.
The governor’s stance has sparked off debate both within Anambra and among the wider Southeast community.
Responding, the International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (Intersociety) issued a statement on Monday, contending that the governor’s administration has shielded jihadist herdsmen since 2022 and accusing it of transforming Anambra into a ranching-compliant state at the behest of the Federal Government.
The rights group also warned that this policy risks placing the state on a keg of jihadist gunpowder just at it insists that Fulani herdsmen are indeed operating in the secluded parts of the Southeast, a claim that Soludo firmly rejects.
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