2019: We’ll decide on Buhari, Atiku soon – Miyetti Allah

The Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore, a Fulani socio-cultural association, has said that it will soon decide who to back between President Muhammadu Buhari of the APC and his main challenger, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar of the PDP.

The National President of the association, Alhaji Bello Abdullahi Bodejo and National Secretary, Engr. Saleh Alhassan made the declaration in Abuja at a news conference on Sunday.

Their comments were coming on the heels of a two-day National Delegates Meeting of the association.

“We have ensured that our members are massively registered in the elections and should exercise their franchise in peaceful manner wherever they would cast their votes. We expect our members to fully turn out to cast their votes.

“We are happy that the stereotyping of Fulani herdsmen has gone down due to the fact that the two perceived leading presidential candidates are Fulanis.

“The polity has benefitted from this development as we now have campaigns being issues-based and not on ethnicity, religion or other primordial sentiments. We believe this is healthy for the nation.

“On who we are going to support, we are still weighing what the two perceived leading candidates would bring to the table, what they have in stock for the pastoralists that are facing numerous challenges across the country and when we finished our assessments, we will invite the world to know our direction.

“But for now, we are asking our members to get ready with their PVCs and wait where we can negotiate the best for them, especially on their economic livelihood. We would look at the agenda that the two or any of the presidential candidates have for our members,” Bodejo said.

Alhassan on his part while reading the communiqué of the conference, said members demand action against continuous policies of segregation by some state governors seeking to criminalize the economic livelihood of pastoralists through the enactment of the obnoxious anti-open grazing law.

“Delegates appealed to President Muhammadu Buhari to call these governors promoting segregation laws to order as their actions are a fundamental threat to peaceful co-existence and food security in the country,” he said.