Ekiti State government has warned Fulani herdsmen and farmers in the state against any action that could lead to breakdown of law and order in any part of their grazing and farming areas.
The state’s Commissioner for Agriculture and Food Security, Dr. Olabode Adetoyi, gave the warning, yesterday, at a tripartite meeting of stakeholders in Ado-Ekiti.
The commissioner, who explained that the meeting was convened to fashion out ways to end incessant clashes among farmers and Fulani herdsmen and serial kidnaps in the state, said that farmers and herders’ clashes usually get to its peak during the dry season with high rate of North to South migration of cattle.
Adetoyi, therefore, urged all participants to bare their minds on how a lasting peaceful co-existence could be achieved, stressing that agriculture could only thrive in a peaceful environment.
In his own remarks, Chairman of the meeting, who is also the Special Adviser to the Governor on Security Matters, Brig.-Gen.
Ebenezer Ogundana (rtd), traced some of the factors responsible for serial attacks between the farmers and herders to the use of under-aged children for grazing.
Ogundana said that the little children do not know the values of the crops being destroyed, urging the leadership of the cattle rearers to control the young ones.
The Commandant of the State Security Network, code-named Amotekun Corps, Brig.-Gen. Joe Komolafe, appealed to all stakeholders, particularly the farmers and the residents, to always report cases of crops destruction and influx of migrating herders to his office at the local council levels.
The representative of farmers, who is Chairman, Igbira Community in Oye Local Council, Mr. Asuku Salami and another graduate farmer, Mrs. Olanrewaju Babalola, appealed to government and security agencies to end the incessant destruction of their farms, which had been their only source of livelihood.
The Seriki Fulani of Ekiti State, Alhaji Isiaka Ibrahim; Chairman, Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association, Alhaji Muhammad Nasamu and Chairman, Miyetti Allah Vigilante Group, Mr. Mohammed Abubakar, assured that the herders would co-operate with government to ensure peaceful co-existence.
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