Miyetti Allah leader, Saidu Saleh, was killed by gunmen allegedly for preventing them from kidnapping people and rustling their cows. Now his family members are asking who would protect them the way their breadwinner protected society, ONIMISI ALAO reports.
Alhaji Saidu Alhaji Saleh, a zonal chairman of the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN) who was killed on August 2 in his home in Mayo-Belwa, Adamawa State, left three wives and eighteen children.
One of the children, 18-year-old Adamu, told our correspondent who visited the family house over the week, “Nigeria says Fulani people should go to school. Now, I have a diploma in law but I can’t find any job.”
Adamu who also nurses the ambition of higher education, expressed regrets that his father was cut down not long after he promised to provide whatever sum he would need for further his studies.
He said: “My father who had only Quranic learning desired that I should have all the western education that he missed. After my diploma in Law, he asked that I should target the highest educational level possible. He said I should pursue admission for a degree programme right away; that he was willing to sponsor me to any level that I could reach,” Adamu said.
But the father, Saidu Saleh, met his end in the hands of gun-trotting bandits who stormed his residence and riddled him with bullets.
Alhaji Saidu who made his living buying and selling cattle, was a zonal chairman of Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN) in charge of eight local government areas of Adamawa State, namely Jada, Toungo, Ganye, Mayo-Belwa, Numan, Demsa, Lamurde and Shelleng.
Saidu who was 52, spent much of his life working to cleanse MACBAN of the bad eggs within its membership and to protect the communities around his zone by helping the law enforcement agencies identify and prosecute the kidnappers, cattle rustlers and other criminal elements who were terrorizing the communities.
The Adamawa State Public Relations Officer of MACBAN, Jika Mohammed, recalled to our correspondent how the late MACBAN leader moved against the criminal elements.
“Alhaji Saidu, who was famously called Kolaku, was a thorn in the flesh of criminals. Kolaku was fighting them. He was taking these criminals or seizing their weapons and giving them to the police. He was working hand in hand with the police and that was how we sustained peace.
“Before Kolaku’s intervention, kidnapping was rampant in the zone. Nobody could sleep or go to the farm with any sense of safety. But he stopped it. That meant he stopped the criminals from their business. That was why they came to kill him.”
The Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO) for Adamawa State, DSP Suleiman Yahaya Ngurore, corroborated the MACBAN image maker’s account, saying, “The deceased was a brave man who had been cooperating with the police ever since the Commissioner of Police requested for cooperation in fighting kidnapping and cattle rustling in the state. He as a leader in MACBAN was among those who answered our call and always joined the police in going about fishing out the criminals.”
The criminal elements had constantly warned Saidu to ‘mind his business’ and to let them mind their own business.
“Before they came to kill him, they had for long been calling him on the phone, telling him to stop killing them. He was killing their business, so to them, he was killing them. They were telling him to take his hands off their business,” the MACBAN PRO said.
For refusing to heed their warning, the criminal elements came calling that cold morning, precisely at 2.29 am, of August 2.
Recalling the incident, Saidu’s first wife, Hajia Zainab, said, “We were all sleeping, but suddenly we had sounds of people hitting our doors. Then we heard gunshots. They burst into the room where he was. The wife he was with told him, ‘It’s like the people who want to kill you have come.’ Our husband could do nothing other than offer his prayer.”
The MACBAN PRO described Saidu Saleh as a good man who truly meant well for his family and the society.
He said: “Kolaku was a Fulani cattle dealer who also worked with Miyetti Allah for over 20 years.
“He was MACBAN chairman for this LGA (Mayo-Belwa) for about 10 years before he became zonal chairman. As a cattle dealer, he used to go to various markets, buying cattle and sending them to other places, including the Southeast, through his boys.
“He had only Quranic learning but was zealous with educating his children. Many were in primary school. Many others were in secondary school.”
The Adamawa State Police Command had officially recognised Saidu’s crime fighting efforts only two weeks before the bloody onslaught against him by the men of the underworld.
The state Commissioner of Police, Audu Madaki, had on July 15, 2019 presented to him and a couple of other community leaders, a plaque of recognition for his work with the police in the fight against crime in the state.
It is unclear whether the police recognition of Saidu’s ‘wistle blowing’ posture became the final straw that broke the criminals’ back, but they evidently went against him fully prepared.
They scaled the fence of his bungalow by first cutting off a section of the barbwire topping the fence.
A neighbour who witnessed the operation from the safety of his house, said: “Three of the bandits climbed in while the rest surrounded the house outside. All of them carried big guns. I heard shots, evidently by those inside. Then they came out to join the rest and they drove away.”
Saidu’s killers drove away, leaving in the house his corpse and his three wives and 18 children, and his father and mother in a separate compound around the neighborhood.
“We don’t know how we will live without our husband. We are now the mother and father of the house,” the first wife, Zainab, said.
The wives pleaded for intervention, including a scholarship for the highest educated of the children, diploma-holding Adamu, to go for further studies, or a job for him so he could help some of his siblings.
Zainab said: “We appeal to government and Nigerians to do more about bandits. People in our communities need their freedom. Our husband was killed because he was fighting the bandits for the people to be free. He is gone but we have to work out our own existence.
“One of our boys has a diploma and is employable. A chance for him to further his studies is equally desirable.”
Adamu who finished from the College of Legal Studies, Yola, with a diploma in Common Law last year, specified that he was trained for jobs in courts, in government ministries and parastatals, in local council administration offices, in the various military and paramilitary agencies, among other places.
Adamu said: “Government and the rest of Nigeria have seen what happened to my father after taking the sides with the people and fighting criminals. Now, we don’t know who will help the family.”
For now, only the state police command is known to be doing something, essentially doing its duty of trying to track down Saidu’s killers.
The PPRO Ngurore, said: “The killing of the MACBAN zonal chairman will not deter the fight against criminals. We are going after the killers. The police will trace and apprehend them and ensure that justice takes its course.
And we have been assured by other leaders like the late MACBAN zonal chairman that his death will not end the concerted efforts against criminals.
“Only yesterday (Sunday, August 4), we held a meeting with them. We concluded that we would not allow ourselves to be frustrated. We resolved to wake up to the fact that the remnants of the criminals are still around us and we should be vigilant.”
