Mafindi Umaru Danburam, leader of the Miyetti Allah group in the North-East, has dissociated his colleagues from the endorsement of President Muhammadu Buhari credited to the national body.
The group also endorsed the candidature of Atiku Abubakar, presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
Danburam recently resigned his position as the North-East chairman of the group following the group’s endorsement of Buhari.
Speaking in Yola on Sunday, he said: “Miyetti Allah had, at no time, sat to decide which presidential candidate to support.
“I resigned my office as Mortheast leader of Miyetti Allah since news broke about the purported endorsement of President Buhari by our national body. So we’re here to tell the world that if someone is priding himself as a Fulani man, Atiku is more, because he occupies the revered stool of the second in command at Adamawa emirate as the Waziri.
“If someone prides himself as a Fulani herder, Atiku is more, because he owns more than 1,000 heads of cattle, compared to 150.”
Also speaking at the event, Mohammed Ango, a chieftain of the group, criticised the present administration of the All Progressives Congress (APC), saying: “Fulani people have lost more dignity under the Buhari administration than any other in history.
“Today, our people are branded as killers, branded as kidnappers or robbers, just because some people are misrepresenting us. Before now, the relationship between herders and farmers was not this bad; we can all attest to this. Our people, for instance, could pass the night in the house of say, a Bachama man in Numan, but now all that has been eroded.”
Ahmed Umar Fintiri, Adamawa governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), who received the group on behalf of Atiku, thanked the group for clearing the air.
He admonished them not to buy into the deceptive tendencies of the APC, stressing that “only the PDP government, led by Atiku, will reunite Nigeria”.
A traditional symbolic Fulani ritual of distribution of kolanuts, to signal irrevocable bonding into the Atiku project, was one of the highlights at the event.
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