By: Luka Binniyat
KADUNA – The Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar III, a Fulani, Monday distanced himself from killer herdsmen, and called for their arrest and prosecution.

This was even as the estimated population of women and children made widows and orphans from the Boko Haram carnage in the in Maiduguri town has hit 68,600, according to the Governor of the state, Alh. Kashim Shetima.

The Sultan who spoke at the opening ceremony of the 2-Day Annual Pan-Northern Groups Summit on Security, Socio-economic and political development in Kaduna said that killer herdsmen should be mistaken to be representing Fulani of Muslims Interest in Nigeria:

The Sultan of Sokoto at that Installation ceremony of Oba Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi 51th Ooni of Ife

He said: “There are very terrible herdsmen who kill. But they are acting on their own, they are criminals and they must be treated as criminals. Therefore the Federal Government should prosecute them.

“It is disheartening to hear when people say Fulani herdsmen want to Islamise Nigeria and that is why they are killing.

Any Fulani herdsman who kills is not acting the script of Fulani community in Nigeria, neither is he working for the Muslim community,” he said.

Speaking on the state of Northern Nigeria, the Sultan of Sokoto said, unity of Northern Nigeria is non-negotiable if the region must develop and have a common front.

He lamented that, the North of today was not the North that Sardauna of Sokoto, Sir Ahmadu Bello left behind, adding that, there is ethnic awareness among northerners now, than ever before.