CDD: National livestock plan will address farmer-herder conflicts

The Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) says the National Livestock Transformation Plan (NLTP) will address the conflicts between herders and farmers if implemented adequately.

Speaking on the sidelines of a conference on Thursday, Idayat Hassan, CDD director, said the NLTP is “crucial” to addressing the farmer-herder conflict.

The conference was organised by CDD in partnership with the United States Institute of Peace (USIP).

In the past months, there have been clashes between pastoralists and farmers that led to many deaths and destruction of property across the country.

Represented by Shamsudeen Yusuf, CDD programme officer, Hassan said civil society organisations (CSOs) have a role to play in putting a stop to the conflicts between farmers and herders.

“We are looking at how we can work with civil society organisations (CSOs), particularly the NLTP committee set up by the government to implement the National Livestock Transformation Plan which we think is quite crucial in addressing the farmer-herder conflict,” the CDD director said.

“There are a lot of challenges when talking about scarcity of economic resources and water resources etc.

“We think NLTP if adequately implemented, will be sufficient to address some of these problems and for us as a CSO, we are to provide support to the government.

“One of the key things which we think is important is for people to be aware about this, because implementation cannot be done in isolation of people who are the direct beneficiary of the intervention.”

Hassan said the dynamics of the conflict needs to be understood before “justice” could be done to it.

“CDD commissioned a research to look at the concerns as regards to rural banditry and to see how that has contributed to the farmer-herder conflict,” she said.

“We need to be supportive of the government interventions and what new ideas we can bring up.”

During his presentation, Nathaniel Danjibo, a research fellow at Institute for Peace and Strategic Studies, University of Ibadan, said in the course of their study women farmers and herders alleged that they have lost about 2,000 husbands to these conflicts.

“Women farmers and herders say they lost husbands (more than 2,000) and children to the conflict – they become victims of rape and gender violence,” Danjibo said.

“It is only in one state, the women talked about rape. In Benue and Nasarawa, the women used the word ‘molestation.’ That leaves us with the thought that there is a lot to dig out from the women about their experiences.”