Elder statesman and former National Secretary of Afenifere, Senator Femi Okurounmu, has made a startling claim that the no visa policy implemented under former President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration was a calculated strategy to bring a large influx of Fulani into Nigeria.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with PUNCH, Okurounmu alleged that the policy, introduced during Buhari’s tenure, encouraged foreign Fulani groups to enter Nigeria in significant numbers under the guise of regional integration, but with underlying political and ethnic objectives.
According to him, these groups were motivated by a belief, previously discussed at an international Fulani congress, that Nigeria was destined to be their homeland.
The elder statesman traced the origins of the ongoing insecurity in parts of the country, particularly in Benue, Plateau, and Southern Kaduna, to the actions and policies of the Buhari administration.
He suggested that the administration’s leniency and silence towards the activities of violent herdsmen was not incidental but part of a broader plan to settle foreign Fulani groups in Nigeria.
These groups, according to Okurounmu, were not only involved in the displacement of local populations but also in establishing parallel governance structures, collecting taxes, and occupying farmlands and villages in several northern states.
He linked the unchecked violence and killings in affected areas to this demographic influx, which he believes was sanctioned at the highest levels of government.
In his words: “Another factor was Buhari’s administration’s ‘no visa’ policy. It was a deliberate policy to bring in lots of these Fulani because they had held a Fulani Congress somewhere outside Nigeria, where they believed that Nigeria was destined to be their home. They believed that the conditions were favourable to them, to come and make Nigeria their home and Buhari policies encouraged them.”
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