In a move to end farmer-herder conflicts, the National Commission for Nomadic Education (NCNE) has established seventeen model education centres in eleven states gazetted for grazing reserves across the country.
Addressing newsmen Tuesday in Kaduna, during a two-day training workshop for Nomadic Education staff, Executive Secretary of the Commission, Professor Bashir Usman, said that the workshop was aimed at addressing the incessant farmer-herder conflicts affecting the overall livelihoods and education of both nomadic pastoralists and crop farmers.
He said that the education centres were established in carefully selected grazing reserves located in Adamawa, Taraba, Yobe, Gombe, Plateau, Nasarawa, Niger, Kaduna, Zamfara, Sokoto and the Federal Capital Territory, which he said have already been carved out, demarcated and gazetted.
He said that, currently, there are 416 grazing reserves in the country spread across the six geo-political zones of the country, with a total of 3.4 million hectares of land, out of which 141 are gazetted, while 275 are yet to be gazetted.
He said: “The main idea of having ranches is to provide state of the art grazing resources for livestock pastoralists in the country; with a view to curtailing the unending farmer-pastoralists conflicts that are posing serious threat to peace and security. These conflicts have seriously affected the lives and livelihoods of the pastoralists and farmers; including the schools and other infrastructure put in place by the Commission and other stakeholders in nomadic communities.
“In our effort to combat the ugly phenomenon of farmer/pastoralist conflicts, the Commission has established 17 schools and a Peace and Conflict Resolution Unit to bring about sustainable peace and development in the country and reduce the effect of such conflict on the education of children from the affected communities. Stakeholders should double their effort of giving quality education by being more determined in ensuring that all out-of-school nomadic children, totaling 5.4 million, are enrolled in our schools.”
Also speaking, Chairman Governing Board of the NCNE, Prof Gidado Tahir, said that the training will provide practical and relevant approaches and useful insights on the best way of conducting the identification, mapping and clustering of pastoralists communities in the grazing reserves selected for ranching in Nigeria.
“In other words this is a further demonstration of the importance that the Commission, as a critical stakeholder, attaches to the Federal Government’s policy directives of finding a lasting solution to the farmer-pastoralist conflicts that is posing a very serious threat to peace and security in our dear country, especially those in the frontline States of Adamawa, Taraba, Benue, Plateau, Nasarawa, Kaduna, and Zamfara,” he said.
