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| Chief Femi Falana (SAN) |
Human rights lawyer,
Chief Femi Falana (SAN), will next Monday file a case of genocide and ethnic
cleansing at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in Hague, Netherland and
the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Court against Fulani herdsmen
for their alleged massacre of the innocent people and farmers in Jukunland of
Southern and Central Taraba State.
THISDAY
Live report continues:
Falana
also called on the federal government to take urgent and drastic actions
against the massacre being perpetrated by Fulani herdsmen against innocent
farmers before they throw the country into another avoidable war.
The
Lagos-based lawyer expressed shock at the scale of “unprecedented massacre of
unarmed farmers” allegedly being killed by herdsmen in Jukunland in the state
and other parts of Nigeria everyday, describing it as “a mindless pogrom.”
He
lamented the crises yesterday when he received in his office the leaders of the
Jukun Development Association of Nigeria (JDAN) who had come to submit to him a
1,000 page document detailing the targeted cleansing of their people by the
rampaging herdsmen.
“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 property are no longer safe
from these people who killed, maim and rape women at will just because they
wanted their cattle to graze on other people’s farmlands,” he said.
Falana
therefore charged the federal government to move security agencies to the
North-central region of Taraba State in order to protect the lives of innocent
Nigerians “who are being killed in their farmlands everyday by these blood
sucking herdsmen before the people resort to self-help.”
The
National President of the Jukun association, Mr. Benjamin Bako, said the group
had approached the Senior Advocate of Nigeria to help defend their cause and
draw the world attention to the plight of their people who are being killed every
day by ravaging herdsmen.
Bako
disclosed that JDAN had compiled 1,000 page document to back their claim,
detailing the atrocities of the herdsmen in their land in the last four years.
He said it was baffling that most of the violence had gone unreported in the media, despite the large and worrisome scale of the pogrom.
He said it was baffling that most of the violence had gone unreported in the media, despite the large and worrisome scale of the pogrom.
“Jukun
development association has officially compiled a 1000 paged document
containing details of Fulani herdsmen atrocities, including names of all the
people killed and property destroyed by the herdsmen in the last four years in
Jukunland to Falana who had been briefed to formally file a case of genocide on
behalf of the association,” he stated.
The
association president, while submitting the document, urged the human rights
lawyer 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 silent all this while despite the avalanche of security reports that must
have been reaching him concerning the deteriorating development in Southern
Taraba.
Bako
called on all Nigerians and the international community to stand up and condemn
the genocide and ethnic cleansing ongoing in Southern Taraba before it spreads
to other parts of the country.
He added that the
association had since submitted copies of the document to Human Rights Watch,
Amnesty International and other rights organizations around the world.
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