KADUNA State Governor Nasir El-Rufai has said that the Fulani man never forgets and will always take revenge whenever he suffers injustice.

El-Rufai stated this at a webinar organised by the Africa Leadership Group on Thursday.

He was asked to clarify a tweet he made in 2012 where he had said, “Anyone, soldier or not, that kills the Fulani, takes a loan repayable one day no matter how long it takes.”

El-Rufai had been asked why he made the comment and if the Igbo would be justified to take revenge on other Nigerians that killed them during the Biafran War.

Reacting to a question of whether it was right for the Igbo man to avenge the death of his kinsmen killed during the Nigerian Civil War, the governor said it would be different if a Fulani man died in the war. He added that it would also not be an issue if the Fulani man died of a crime he was convicted of.

“If a Fulani man dies in war, it is different. If a Fulani man is arrested by the authorities and convicted, it is not an issue. What the Fulani never forgets is when he is innocently targeted and killed and the authorities do nothing. He will never forget and he will come back for revenge. This is it.

“So, it is better to understand the context of what I tweeted which had to do with an issue in Plateau State in 2012. I hope you get the context. So, it is not that Fulani will never forget. Anyone that goes through pain and sorrow either forgets or doesn’t forget, but when it is extrajudicial, when it is extra-official, the attitude is completely different.

“This is the context in which Fulani never forgets. It is not in every context. As I said, I lost relations during the war. It doesn’t mean I still hold a grudge. We’ve moved past that.”

The governor said when 29 students of the Federal College of Forestry Mechanisation, Afaka, Kaduna State, were abducted, the plan was to attack and kill the bandits even if it meant some students dying in the process.

El-Rufai added that Kaduna was currently at war and such would only be considered as collateral damage, a price he would be willing to pay instead of paying ransom.

The governor, however, said before this could be done, the bandits hurriedly changed location which led to the students spending over a month in captivity.

“Two days after the abduction of the Afaka young people, I was assured by the Air Force and the Army that they knew where the kidnappers were with the students and they had encircled (them).

“We were going to attack them. We would lose a few students but we would kill all the bandits and we would recover some of the students. That was our plan. That was the plan of the Air Force and the Army… But they slipped through the cordon of the Army. That is why they were not attacked.

“We know it is risky, we know in the process we may lose some of the abductees, but it is a price we have to pay. This is war, there will always be collateral damage in war and we will rather do that than pay money because paying money has not solved the problem anywhere in the world.”