TheCable

Nasir El-Rufai, governor of Kaduna state, has cautioned against tagging every herder as a criminal.

The governor stated this on Thursday, when he received a delegation from the Church of Nigeria, Anglican Communion, led by Henry Ndukuba, the primate.

According to a statement issued in Kaduna on Thursday, the governor said it was a dangerous trend to label all herders as criminals, adding that there are good and bad people in every ethnic group and religion.

He noted that such profiling could cause a crisis in the country.

“There was a time in the history of this country when armed robbery was the exclusive preserve of people of a certain part of the country but they were never profiled as ‘X’ armed robbers,” he was quoted to have said.

“Advance Fee Fraud (419) is also unique to some parts of the country, but their ethnicity is never tagged when calling them Yahoo boys.

“I think in the same manner, we should be very careful in assuming that every herdsman is a criminal, or every Fulani is a herdsman, or every herdsman is a killer.

“This is a dangerous trend that can ignite crisis in this country. There are criminals amongst them and we must identify and deal with them.”

El-Rufai appealed to leaders to help in ensuring peaceful coexistence among  different groups.

He also assured the people of Kaduna of their safety, adding that the northern governors had engaged in consultations concerning the issue of security in the region.

The governor expressed concern about the increasing insecurity in the state, and maintained that banditry has become an issue which must be dealt with.

“The informants, those that supply them food and drugs, live within us. The bandits may not live with us, many of them live in the forests, but their logistics chain consists of people that live with us,” he said.

“They are the ones that identify those to be kidnapped because kidnappers target people in their homes.”

He however, added that the state government was taking further steps to protect vulnerable areas.