Anambra governor debunks Fulani invasion claims, says false narrative pushed Igbo youths into kidnapping and armed crime
Governor Chukwuma Soludo of Anambra State has revealed that nearly all individuals arrested for violent crimes in the state over the past three years are of Igbo origin, dismissing long-standing claims that herders were responsible for insecurity in the region.
Speaking during a town hall meeting with Anambra indigenes in the diaspora at Metro Points Hotel, New Carrollton, Maryland, United States, Soludo said his administration has uncovered a troubling trend of homegrown criminality. He explained that initial assumptions linking Fulani herders to violence in the South-East were not only incorrect but dangerously misleading.
“I have been in office for three years and three months. If we have arrested 100 criminals and kidnappers, 99.99% of them are Igbo youths,” the governor said. “That was part of the lies pushed as propaganda — that the Fulanis were behind it all. That lie led our youths into kidnapping because it became the next lucrative job after ‘Yahoo’ and drug trafficking.”
According to the governor, the vast majority of criminal camps dismantled in Anambra by security agencies were run by Igbo youths. He stressed that the victims, too, have mostly been Igbos, adding that people from neighbouring states now refer to kidnapping operations in the area as “the Anambra job.”
“Even those from other states now call it the ‘Anambra job’,” Soludo said. “They go to their villages, buy motorcycles, and come here to join the business. They get taken into the bush, trained in the act. But when they are eventually arrested, they claim it’s the Fulanis.”
Soludo admitted that he himself initially bought into the narrative of an external invasion, believing that Fulani militants were preparing to overrun the region. “I came with that same false narrative, that the Fulanis are invading our people, that they are just waiting for a whistle to be blown before they take over,” he said. “Therefore, we thought we were the liberators. So we, Igbos, went into the bush to chase them out.”
But over time, the reality became unavoidable. “Nobody asked how those claiming to be liberators survive in the forest for one, two, or even six months. How do they feed?” he asked, implying that the so-called liberators were running well-organized criminal operations rather than selfless resistance campaigns.
“I want you to quote me right — 99.99% of all the criminals we have arrested are Igbos. All these camps are Igbos,” Soludo emphasized.
The governor urged Anambra indigenes in the diaspora to invest in the state and contribute their skills and resources to its development. He said the region’s image must be reclaimed from criminal elements and rebuilt through joint effort and community action.
