What Happened In Bokkos Is Genocide, Not Herders-Farmers Clash – Dalung

Former Minister of Youth and Sports Development, Solomon Dalung, has said attacks of herdsmen on communities cannot be addressed without sincerity.

Naijaonpoint reports that Dalung said the killing of at least 52 residents of Bokkos, in Plateau, was genocide and not herders-farmers conflict.

Speaking with Arise News on Monday, the Plateau State indigene noted that the government must designate the herdsmen as terrorists.

“If we must be very honest in dealing with the plateau situation, first, we will have to stop pretending that it is herder-farmers clash. Not at all. It is terrorism. It is genocidal because it has met the international definition of genocide. When a group of people attack another group with the intention of wiping them off the face of the earth, it is genocide. When you employ a policy of starvation and trying to use that to wipe a community or a group of people, it’s genocide. So what is happening is genocidal,” he said.

The former Minister said the federal government must take action, distance them from their ethnicity and designate them as a terrorist group.

“The problem is for the Federal Government to designate these people with their rightful names, consider them criminals, and stop even attaching ethnic identity to them. Yes, predominantly they belong to an ethnic nationality. But I don’t see them as operating in the overall interest of that particular ethnic nationality.

“Rather, they are criminals. And so if we do not treat them as criminals, we will miss the point and we’ll continue to hold visits to Plateau State by government officials and they will be on top of the situation while the criminals are on top of the situation,” he stated.

Dalung further dismissed the capacity of the Ministry of Livestock to address the increasing cases of herdsmen attacks across the country.

“Let us not be hiding about Ministry of Livestock. Ministry of Livestock cannot even do anything about this problem,” he noted.

He explained that in the attack, in Bokkos, no animal was wrestled and no animal invaded farms. He stressed that the herdsmen invaded the communities, killed and injured many.

He also blamed political will as one of the reasons herdsmen attacks continued to be a security challenge in the country.

“If you sum up this, you will come back to this issue of lack of a political will because if the political will to deal with the situation is there, these people will be given their rightful designation. They are terrorists. There was no farm or other animals that were either wrestled by the community or they trespassed into any farmland that resulted into this series of attacks we are hearing,” he added.