The senator representing Adamawa South at the National Assembly, Binos Dauda Yaroe, has attributed the increasing rate of farmers, herders’ clashes in the country to insincerity on the path of the federal government in dealing with the challenges.
The senator called on the federal government to ban cattle movement across the country in order to tackle the challenge, expressing disappointment with the handling of livestock transformation programme in Gongoshi grazing reserve in Adamawa state, located in his senatorial district, stressing that since the programme was launched in 2019 by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, nothing was done to implement the programme.
Binos stated this in an interview with Blueprint in his home town of Mayo Belwa after supervising the distribution of 800 bags of fertilisers to farming population in his senatorial district as part of his empowerment programmes.
“It is something that has to be holistically addressed in 2019. The federal government launched the livestock transformation programme here in Mayo Belwa at Gongoshi grazing reserve, we expected that they would follow up and actually implement it but since then, nothing has been done. So, government has to be serious, government has to be since and government has to be determined to address this problem once and for all. That’s how to ensure peace between farmers and herders.”
“The problem we are having is the incursion of foreign herdsmen into our areas. You find out that, herdsmen coming may be from Cameroon, Niger and other places. When they are moving they put in their cattle on the farms to eat up the crops by the time you come your farm have been destroyed and you will not even find the people responsible.”
“So we have to curtailed cattle movement in the country if we are serious to end these clashes. We know all the people that are rearing cattle in our communities we used to know them before where their cattle stayed and where they moved to even in dry season but today you see people with cattle you don’t know where they came from so government has to determine the movement of this people and controlled it.
He expressed regret that whenever people express concern on national issues or suggest the way out of the challenges they are always vilified or accused of grand standing against the government, especially if they are members of the opposition.
He recalled that when he expressed similar concern in the past, he was vilified but today he is vindicated as many Nigerians are now expressing similar concerns.
