Senate President Bukola Saraki has appealed to herdsmen and farmers across the country to maintain peace as the National Assembly is ready to proffer lasting solution to the perennial clashes over grazing by cattle rearers.
Speaking yesterday when a group of herdsmen from Kautal Hore Socio-Cultural Association, Jigawa State branch, visited him, the Senate president, who described the perennial clashes between farmers and herdsmen as unfortunate, also appealed to the herdsmen to maintain peace at all times.
“The National Assembly and all the stakeholders have been meeting on how to ensure that there is permanent peace between the two major groups in the nation’s agricultural system.”
He expressed concern over the recent frequent clashes, explaining that Nigeria was not the only country where farmers and herdsmen co-exist.
“There must be peace. There must be peaceful coexistence and there cannot be peace when human lives are being wasted. The National Assembly will stop at nothing to ensure that there is peace. We will not stop working until there is peace between the farmers and herdsmen in this country. Please be patient,” Saraki appealed while promising that the Senate would soon come out with suggestions on how to end the conflicts.
Earlier, chairman of the group, Umar Kabir Hadejia in his speech titled ‘Appeal for an Intervention,” said the Fulanis were traditionally nomadic pastoral people who rear their cattle and sheep across the vast territory of Nigeria as the largest nomadic group in the world.
He lamented that due to urbanisation, there had been an increasing trend of conflicts between farmers and the pastoralists largely due to the Fulanis seeking fertile grazing lands for their developmental purposes.
This action, he said, had resulted in violent attacks and reprisal counter attacks between herdsmen who felt that their way of life was being threatened on one hand and the farmers on …Read More
Source:: Nigerian Pilot
