Farmers-herders crisis: We don’t have enough security personnel, says Ogbeh

Audu Ogbeh, minister of agriculture, says the federal government does not have enough security personnel to guard every village in the country.

Ogbeh said this on Thursday while speaking at a town hall meeting organised by the federal government to address farmers-herders crisis.

The minister said everything must be done to end the pastoral movements.

“Unless you have units of 10 or 11 soldiers to guard each village, there is no way that the current security network can cover the needs of villagers who may be attacked in the afternoon or night. That was one of the things we studied on Tuesday,” he said.

“NEMA is redesigning the settlements in the villages to bring more communities together so that people don’t live too far apart. Otherwise, we don’t have enough security to guard every settlement.

“We have to do everything we can to end these pastoral movements, slowly and in the large scale later. We have 415 reserves. Some have been encroached upon while others are still there. We have to provide water and grass, and protect the herdsmen from cattle rustlers, who are also Fulani.”

On his part, Abdulrahman Dambazau, minister of interior, said government is working to curb proliferation of arms into the country.

He also denied the statement credited to President Muhammadu Buhari on the intrusion of armed men from Libya.

“His Excellency the president, did not say Libyans are coming in. What he said that as a result of crisis in Libya, quite a huge number of weapons have found way into the country, not just Nigeria, but the whole of the ECOWAS sub-region,” he said.

“Because of this we organised in conjunction with ECOWAS commission of recent between 24th and 26th of last month (April). We organised a conference of the movement of transhumans of free movement of goods and services.”

Dambazzau said as long as Nigerians stick to their biases, solution to the farmers-herders crisis would not be found.

“Herders are not necessarily Fulani, these clashes are over resources – purely land and water – which are becoming scarce due to several factors. One is degredation as a result of climate change. The other factor include population growth. These are issues we need to look at seriously,” he said.

“The second dimension has to do with critical local elements who are involved in armed robbery, kidnapping, cattle rustling as mentioned by the minister of defence. The third dimension which is a political one, is the creation of militia or vigilante by state governments. We have in Benue, Tshaku who has been linked to Boko Haram activities.”