Pastor says Buhari was informed of herdsmen attacks 18 months ago

The Senior Pastor of the Latter Rain Assembly (LRA), Tunde Bakare has released a letter written by a former Nigerian High Commissioner to Canada Prof. Iyorwuese Hagher, informing him of impending attacks by Fulani herdsmen, 18 months ago.

The outspoken pastor said that the President and his team have failed in the area of security.

Bakare also said “By not advancing and vigorously executing policies aimed at pre-empting or preventing these killings even with sufficient warnings: I am reminded of the open letter to President Muhammadu Buhari by a former Nigerian High Commissioner to Canada and Second Republic senator, Prof. Iyorwuese Hagher. Permit me to quote excerpts from that letter:

‘Your Excellency Mr. President…I am pained that you ignored my advice in my private memorandum to you dated 30th July 2016. I had warned you of the possibility of a horrendous genocide in Benue, Plateau, Taraba, Southern Kaduna, and Southern Adamawa States.

‘I asked you to be proactive and stop the genocide that has been ongoing but which would burst out in the open and shock the world within 18 months. Your office replied my letter…thanking me ‘immensely’ and giving me the assurances that the advice would be heeded…I regret to now inform you that it is seventeen months since my warning and prediction and your government did nothing to pre-empt or prevent the genocide.'

Cable News also reports that Bakare said “Nothing indicts the current government greater than its failure in one key performance area that ought to be its strength: security.

“Despite recent setbacks, we acknowledge the gains in the war against Boko Haram, but highly disturbing is the mayhem being continually unleashed by herdsmen on communities in different states across the country, including Benue, Taraba, Plateau, Adamawa, Kaduna, Enugu, Edo and Ogun States, leaving trails of weeping and wailing.

“The recent killings in Benue State are akin to the last straw that is set to break the camel’s back. Not only has the government failed to stop these killings across the country, it has done so against the backdrop of conspiratorial silence, choosing rather to label such attacks ‘an issue of communal misunderstanding’, as the Inspector General of Police recently did in respect of the Benue attacks; it has treated the menace with kid gloves even after the Global Terrorism Index 2015 described ‘militant’ herdsmen as ‘the fourth most deadly group of 2014’.

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“Worse still, some of these killings have reportedly been carried out in collusion with the military.”

APC Senator tells Buhari to resolve herdsmen crisis

Senator Shehu Sani recently told President Buhari to forget about the call for him to run in 2019, and work towards ending the clashes between Fulani herdsmen and farmers.

According to The Guardian, Sani said that it is not right to be talking of re-election, when people are losing their lives and properties are being destroyed.

The Senator criticised the campaign for Buhari’s second term, describing it political sacrilege and an insult on the conscience of Nigerians.

Also, Nobel Laureate Prof Wole Soyinka,criticised President Buhari’s administration for not doing enough to stop the killings by Fulani herdsmen.