Fulani herdsmen not responsible for Benue attack – Said Ibrahim Idris

– Police IGP, Ibrahim Idris has updated president Buhari on the strategies the police is putting in place to secure flash points in all over the country

– Idris says the police job is to apply the law irrespective of tribe

– Meanwhile, Governor Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti state has cautioned the police over its handling of the investigation on the Ile-Ife crisis

The inspector general of police (IGP), Ibrahim Idris, has said herdsmen are not behind the recent killings in Zaki Biam, Benue state. Idris made the statement on Friday, March 24, shortly after briefing President Muhammadu Buhari on the security crises in the country, including Zaki Biam crisis and Ile-Ife crisis in Osun state which resulted in the death of many Nigerians. He said “… I don’t think it’s Fulani herdsmen, it was an activity of a criminal who is using some of his criminal gangs in the state to harass people that I have assured the governor when I met with him few days ago.”

The police boss said the purpose of the meeting with the president was to update him on the strategies the police was putting in place to secure flash points in all over the country, the Nation reports. He said:“I came to see the President to update him on the deployment of the police in our effort to ensure that we have security all over the country. “Obviously it’s to share with him our deployment strategies on ground our deployment to some of these flash points all over the country, especially Benue which is the current one, deployment to Kaduna state which started some few weeks back and deployment to the Ile-Ife crisis where recently we have a lot of police officers both special squads and investigation team on ground to conduct investigation on the matter.”

Responding to questions that policemen only arrested people from one section of the country during the Ile-Ife crisis, Idris said the police job was to apply the law irrespective of tribe. He said: “You know we are police officers, crime has no tribe if you are a criminal you are a criminal. Crime has no face; we don’t look at crime in the identity of where you are coming from. As far as you are a criminal and the police find you wanting we apply the law.” Meanwhile,

plusmilang.com reports that Governor Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti state has cautioned the police over its handling of the investigation on the recent crisis in Ile-Ife, Osun state. The governor, in a statement issued in Ado Ekiti on Thursday, March 23, by his special assistant on public communications and new media, accused the police of displaying ethnic bias in its investigation of the crisis.

He condemned the mayhem and described the loss of innocent souls as unfortunate but added that the bias police investigation of the crisis is not good for the unity of Nigeria and its people. Similarly, a pan-Yoruba group, Oodua People’s Congress, (OPC), has given the federal government 48 hours to arrest the Fulani/Hausa suspects involved in the crisis in Ile-Ife, Osun state.

Eye witness narrates the Ile Ife crisis to plusmilang.com