Former presidential aide Reno Omokri has urged former Governor of Kaduna State Nasir El-Rufai to explain why the genocide in Southern Kaduna stopped immediately after his tenure in office as governor ended.

In a Facebook post, Omokri wrote as caption to a photo of El-Rufai, "Explain why the Southern Kaduna Genocide stopped immediately you left office."

In 2016, El-Rufai revealed to some journalists how his administration paid money to some Fulani herdsmen for them to stop killing in Southern Kaduna.

He said: “For southern Kaduna, we didn’t understand what was going on and we decided to set up a committee under Gen. Martin Luther Agwai (rtd) to find out what was going on there. What was established was that the root of the problem has a history starting from the 2011 post election violence.

“Fulani herdsmen from across Africa bring their cattle down towards Middle Belt and Southern Nigeria. The moment the rains starts around March, April, they start moving them up to go back to their various communities and countries.

“Unfortunately, it was when they were moving up with their cattle across Southern Kaduna that the elections of 2011 took place and the crisis trapped some of them.

“Some of them were from Niger, Cameroon, Chad, Mali and Senegal. Fulanis are in 14 African countries and they traverse this country with the cattle.

“So many of these people were killed, cattle lost and they organised themselves and came back to revenge.

“So a lot of what was happening in Southern Kaduna was actually from outside Nigeria. We got a hint that the late Governor Patrick Yakowa got this information and he sent someone to go round some of these Fulani communities, but of course after he died, the whole thing stopped. That is what we inherited. But the Agwai committee established that.

“We took certain steps. We got a group of people that were going round trying to trace some of these people in Cameroon, Niger republic and so on to tell them that there is a new governor who is Fulani like them and has no problem paying compensations for lives lost and he is begging them to stop killing.

“In most of the communities, once that appeal was made to them, they said they have forgiven. There are one or two that asked for monetary compensation. They said they have forgiven the death of human beings, but want compensation for cattle. We said no problem, and we paid some. As recently as two weeks ago, the team went to the Republic of Niger to attend a Fulani gathering that they hold every year with a message from me."

However, the genocide in Southern Kaduna never stopped as it grew worse, with many rendered homeless and displaced from their ancestral lands.

Fortunately, since Governor Uba Sani took over from El-Rufai in 2023, the genocide has stopped, with development and tranquillity restored in the region.

Governor Sani on Thursday revealed that his administration was able to achieve peace without paying any sum to bandits.

He told Arise TV, “Looking at security issues, we just have to sit down and analyse what the symptoms and the drivers of insecurity are. I agree with you that Boko Haram is more of an ideological issue. But when you are talking about insurgency in the North West, it’s an economic matter. That’s why when we came in, I said, Look, we can’t resolve it with a kinetic approach only.

“When I started, a lot of people were criticising me, saying ‘you are trying to pay bandits’. But I told them a man who fought for justice and for the downtrodden can’t sit down with the bandit and pay him.

“So they were surprised only two weeks ago when I came up with my own programme, where I gave houses to the victims of insurgency instead of compensating or giving anything to the bandits. I haven’t given one naira to the bandits but I have built houses for the victims of banditry in Kaduna State.”

ASA