National President of the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association, MACBAN, Baba Othman Ngelzarma, on Tuesday dismissed claims that the group is a criminal organization.
Ngelzarma explained that those trying to designate MACBAN as a terrorist organization do not understand the internal workings of the group.
In an interview on Arise Television’s Morning Show, he noted that killer herders are not members of MACBAN, stressing that there are other splinter groups of Miyetti Allah.
He said: “MACBAN does not represent any criminal activities, we are never a criminal group, we are an association that was duly registered in 1986 and was registered by General John Shagaya when he was the Minister of Internal Affairs, a Christian from Plateau State.
“His Eminence, the Sultan of Sokoto is the Chairman BoT of MACBAN, so we never represent any criminal activities in this country and we are never a criminal group.
“Let me make it clear that MACBAN is not the only rearing group in the country, we have a lot them, ranging to about 30 pastoralist groups that all have members, but because MACBAN is well structured and the only Democratic group of pastoralist in the country, every pastoralist identify with it and people think that all pastoralists are members of MACBAN.
“The dynamics of this crisis must be well understood before a solution can be proffered and because the pastoralists in the country are those practicing pastoralism which is the only solution for them to survive.
“They are not educated on how to monidenize, so they are doing this for the animal to survive.
“Whoever is trying to designate MACBAN as a criminal group does not understand anything about MACBAN. MACBAN has been engaged with USAID for years, Search for Common Ground for Humanitarian dialogue for years on how to mitigate crisis with farmers, modernize production system.
“We lost about eight of our state chairmen to banditry attack, just this year alone we lost a state Chairman in Kwara, who was killed in his house, we lost a Chairman in Katsina, he was assassinated in his house, his wife and daughter were taken away.”