According to him, permanent solutions to the conflicts would require a lot of planning and funds, which is lacking at the moment.
He said: “I can’t give you a date when the herdsmen/farmers conflicts will end
“To solve this problem requires a great deal of planning and expenditure. The budget we have, can’t cope; the state governors must be involved. Other stakeholders who want to keep ranches, cattle must be involved.
“The ministry would work on access to land and land tenure security which is expected to address farmers-pastoralists conflicts.
“Quarrelling, hauling abuses at each other, raising suspicions, anger and all that will not help. We have a problem, we must solve it and solutions are not that difficult to find.
“A country which has at least 45 million hectares of empty land has no business allowing farmers and cattle rearers to fight,” he stated.
Similarly, a former Lagos State Police Commissioner, Abubakar Tsav, backed the Ogbeh on his claim that the clashes would not go away overnight. He argued that not even the anti-grazing law, already passed by both Benue and Taraba states, was enough to put an end to the incessant clashes.
“They ought to have consulted widely. Herdsmen have a right to movement under the constitution to carry out their businesses. By creating ranches, states will improve and expand their revenue base. A law which has ethnic and religious connotations can only tear us apart as a people in one nation. The current law without alternative grazing area is an indirect way of sending herdsmen out of the states.”
1 comment:
Government should do something to end it.
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