Human Rights Activist, Femi Falana (SAN) would on Monday, 25th of April, file a case of genocide and ethnic cleansing at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague and the Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS, Court against Fulani herdsmen for their continued massacre of the innocent people and farmers in Jukunland, of Southern and Central Taraba State.
Falana, however, urged the Federal Government to take urgent and drastic action against the massacre being perpetrated by Fulani herdsmen against innocent farmers across the country before they throw the nation into another avoidable war.
The Senior Advocate of Nigeria expressed shock at the scale of the “unprecedented massacre of unarmed farmers” being killed by these herdsmen in Jukunland in Taraba State and the other parts of North Central Nigeria every day, describing the situation as “a mindless pogrom”.
Mr. Falana made this known when he received in his office, leaders of the Jukun Development Association of Nigeria, who had come to submit to him, a 1000 page document detailing the targeted cleansing of their people by the rampaging herdsmen.
He said: “It is very clear by the pictorial and other evidence contained in this evidence that the people of the North Central Nigeria are going through terrible things daily in the hands of these herdsmen. Lives and properties are no longer safe from these people who killed and maim, and rape women at will just because they wanted their cattle to graze on other people’s farmlands”.
The lawyer, therefore, charged the Federal Government to move security agencies to Taraba State in order to protect the lives of innocent Nigerians who are being killed in their farmlands daily these “blood sucking” herdsmen, before the people resort to self-help.
Earlier, the national president of the association, Mr. Benjamin Bako, said the group had approached Falana to help defend their cause and draw attention to the plight of their people who are being killed every day by the ravaging herdsmen.
The JDAN leader, however, expressed surprise that most of the violence had gone unreported in the mass media, despite the large and worrisome scale of the pogrom.
“Jukun Development have officially compiled a 1000 paged document containing details of Fulani herdsmen atrocities, including names of all the individuals killed and properties destroyed by the herdsmen in the last four years in Jukunland to human rights lawyer Chief Femi Falana (SAN), who had been briefed to formally file a case of genocide on behalf of the association”.
Bako while submitting the document, urged the rights activist to fight for the right of the jukun people and other tribes to live in their ancestral homelands peacefully, wondering why President Muhammadu Buhari has kept mute all this while despite the avalanche of security report that must have been reaching him concerning the deteriorating development in Southern Taraba.
He called on Nigerians and the international community to stand up and condemn the genocide and ethnic cleansing ongoing in Southern and Central Taraba, before it spread to other parts of the country.
Mr. Bako said the association has since submitted copies of the document to Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and other rights organisations around the world.
