We’re also victims of crime, we’ve lost 2m cows to rustling, says Miyetti Allah

Baba Usman, national secretary of Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria, says the herders are also on the receiving end of insecurity in the country.

In an interview with PUNCH, Usman said criminality should not be associated with just one tribe, religion or ethnicity.

He explained that the herders are also victims of the crimes just as some of them are among the criminals perpetrating the crimes.

According to him, the social menace has cost the herders over two million cows.

Usman also disclosed that it is not true that the south-west is under a siege by herders as claimed by the Yoruba Council of Elders.

He said there is no influx of herders in the region as some of them have been residents for decades.

“Were the herdsmen not victims of the crime that has been taking place in the country? Over two million cows have been lost as a result of cattle rustling and the herdsmen were not described as bandits or cattle rustlers,” Usman said.

“So, they are also at the receiving end of all the crises in the country. Crime does not discriminate between tribes and religions. There is nobody you do not find in crime. The Yoruba are there; the Igbo are there; even among the herdsmen, there are criminals.

“As much as I know that herdsmen are not spared from the activities of criminals in the country, some of them too are criminals. But we in the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria do not represent any criminal.

“We only represent those herdsmen that rear cows as an occupation — the peaceful ones. We don’t speak for criminals. We are not a criminal organisation. We are a peaceful organisation.”