Nigeria Armed forces Conveys Troops To Battle Fulani Herdsmen As Govt Arrange To Build Ranches Across The Country

CDS Gabriel Olonisakin on Tuesday said the nation’s security forces had been deployed to hunt down marauders attacking farming communities in the country under the guise of herdsmen.
Olonisakin, who was represented by Maj. Gen. Edward Nzeh, at a one-day public hearing on “tackling the perennial conflicts between the herdsmen and farmers”, organised in Abuja by the Senate Joint Committee on Agriculture and National Security and Intelligence, noted that President Muhammadu Buhari had ordered him to tackle the menace and secure peace in all the communities recently attacked by the herdsmen.

He said that troops had been deployed to hunt down marauders terrorizing farming communities across the country, noting that a joint task force would be set up in the short run to actualize this goal. Nzeh also said that the CDS was working out a strategy to secure and protect ranches whenever and wherever they were established in the country.
He also said that security had been mandated to fish our criminal elements among the herdsmen and retrieve their dangerous weapons, so that they could be peace in the land.
Also, Federal Government yesterday, said that establishment of ranches across the country would provide a lasting solution to the frequent violent clashes between the herdsmen and farmers in Nigeria. Minister of State, Agriculture, Senator Heineken Lokpobiri, stated this while making a presentation at the public hearing, which was attended by many stakeholders.
Lokpobiri noted that the constant problem between the Fulani nomadic herdsmen and communities particularly in the Southern Nigeria was the direct effect of the climate change resulting from global warming and desertification in the Northern Nigeria, which negatively affected the vegetation of the region. He explained that these herdsmen had no option than to migrate southwards to find pastures for their animals which now faced starvation in the North.
The Minister however, observed that nomadic cattle rearing had become obsolete and out of tune with contemporary realities in the world, saying that the Ministry of Agriculture was designing a policy to modernize the old system and bring into operation the modern and more productive cattle rearing method.
He stated that similar conflicts occurred in the United States of America many years ago but the government of the country resorted to ranching, which according to him, ended the crisis permanently in that country.
[Daily Post]