Tinubu Tasks FG On Herders-Farmers’ Crisis

• Canvasses urgent stakeholders’ meeting, legislative actions

BY EDMOND ODOK – National Leader of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, has canvassed an urgent stakeholders’ meeting as the panacea for herders-farmers crisis in the country.

For him, the Federal Government must convene a meeting of State governors, senior security officials, herder and farmer representatives, along with traditional rulers and religious leaders to address this quagmire that is daily plunging the country deeper into avoidable fault lines and ethnic divides.

Similarly, he said the proposed reform of the Nigerian law enforcement apparatus towards state and community policing must be pursued with vigour while also expediting action on the legislative and administrative measures required to make this a reality.

In a statement that he personally signed on Saturday, the former Lagos State governor said; “Both innocent and law-abiding farmer and herder need to be recompensed for the losses they have suffered” so far from the crisis.

The statement, which is the APC chieftain’s first bold intervention on this burning national issue, said; “Both need further assistance to break the current cycle of violence and poverty. In short, the continued progressive reform of many of our rural socio-economic relationships is called for.”

According to him, the Federal Government cannot continue with its passive disposition given that; “The herder-farmer dispute has taken on acute and violent dimensions. It has cost too many innocent lives while destroying the property and livelihoods of many others.”

Asiwaju Tinubu, who noted that the frequent clashes are aggravating “ethnic sentiments and political tension” across the country, said; “despite efforts by those in positions of high responsibility and public trust, the crisis has not significantly abated.

“Sadly, others who should know better have incited matters by tossing about hate-tainted statements that fall dangerously short of the leadership these people claim to provide. We all must get hold of our better selves to treat this matter with the sobriety it requires.”

Regretting the violence that has ensued from the recurrent clashes as well as the fretful consequences of such violence if left unabated, the former Lagos Chief Executive said rising from the stakeholders’ meeting, each governor should therefore convene follow-up engagements in their respective “states to refine and add flesh to the universal principles by adjusting them to the particular circumstances of their states.”

“In addition to religious and traditional leaders and local farmer and herder representatives, these meetings shall include the state’s best security minds along with experts in agriculture (livestock and farming), land use and water management to draw specific plans for their states”, he said

The APC leaders said to accomplish the crucial goal of lasting solutions to the herders-farmers confrontations, wise policy moves should include the elements of maintaining reasonable and effective law enforcement presence in affected areas; and helping the herders’ transition to more sedentary but more profitable methods of cattle-rearing where unoccupied public land can be fenced into grazing areas or ranches and leased to herders on a very low-cost, nominal basis.

Others include; assisting farmers increase productivity by supporting or providing subvention for their acquisition of fertilizer, equipment and machinery; and establishing a permanent panel in each state as a forum for farmers, herders, security officials and senior state officials to discuss their concerns, mitigate contention and identify trouble and douse it before it erupts.

Warning of likely consequences if conscious efforts are not geared towards finding lasting solutions to the lingering crisis, Tinubu said; “We have a decision to make. Do we attempt the hard things that decency requires of us to right the situation? Or do we allow ourselves to be slave to short term motives that appeal to base instinct that run afoul of the democratic principles upon which this republic is founded and for which so many have already sacrificed so much? In the question itself, lies the answer.”