Residents of Asaba, Delta State capital were overwhelmed by perplexity on Sunday after discovering a threat letter, allegedly giving Governor Ifeanyi Okowa 72-hour ultimatum to withdraw his support for the ban on open grazing or risk the state capital being attacked.
The letter dated 13th June, 2021 and titled “Fulani Jihadist Warning: An Open Message of 2 Paragraphs To Delta State” was said to have been pasted in strategic locations in the state capital including the fence of the Living Faith Church aka Winners Chapel at Infant Jesus Road in Asaba.
Our Reporter in Asaba said even though the threat letter is concise of what the so called jihadists intended to do, the residents are not taking things for granted, adding that some of them are planning a counter defence mechanism “since the security forces have glaring shown bias in defending non Fulanis”
According to him, governors of the 17 southern states had at its meeting in Asaba recently banned open grazing of cattle in the region, even as the ban was rejected by the Federal Government and the Attorney-General of the Federation, Mr Abubakar Malami,.
AGF claimed that the decision of the governors violates the rights of herdsmen to free movement.
In the same vein, President Muhammadu Buhari also rejected the position of the governors and ordered for the restoration of the grazing routes across the country in an interview last Friday.
Our Reporter described the letter as unsigned and revealed that it threatened that Fulani Jihadist fighters will attack Asaba and Governor Okowa’s Agbor Town if he fails to withdraw his support for the ban on open grazing in the state.
“This is to inform Delta state that the Fulani’s of Usman dan fodio leadership, shall do everything it can to uphold the legacy of our heritage of open grazing for we are nomadic people from origination and shall never negotiate the ownership of Nigeria and West Africa and Sub-Sahara.
“We hereby demand the governor of Delta state to immediately withdraw is early stand for the call to barn open grazing in 17 regions in not less than 72hours from the above date and also, withdraw his position as the leading voice for the governors, as no occurrence we don’t have the first-hand information, even before the hosting of the South-south. South-east and South-south governors meeting in Asaba.
“Failure to adhere to this demand for been the host of the 17 governors, Delta state, most likely the city of Asaba and Agbor, shall encounter severe consequences than that of Bornu, Kebbi, Kastina, Kaduna, Enugu, Benue, Oyo and many more that will not respect the Fulani’s heritage, as we take responsibility for the detonate explosive uncovered in the state capital secretariat, which should serve as warning to the Delta state government for what is to come, should the governor fail to abide to our demand.
“We highly advice all Fulani’s and Northerners, including the security personnel to live Delta state as soon as possible for the wind of our action is now present in the land, for failure of the governor to adhere to our call, this shall live us with no choice.”
Acting Police Public Relations Officer of the Delta State Police Command, Bright Edafe, a Deputy Superintendent of Police confirmed to have seen the letter, but added that the police are putting measures in place to avert any possible breakdown of law and order in the state capital or any part of the state.
His word, “the author of the letter failed to signed and unmasked his or her identity. As far as I am concern, it may be political. The painful part of it is that, they may have used indigenes to paste the purported letter across the state capital”.
Uche Nwosu is a two time Shell Petroleum PLC award winner in the year 2000;
He won the Shell Award on Investigative Journalism and Environmental Cleanliness.
