The Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), the mouthpiece of northern Nigeria, has expressed support for the call of the southern governors to ban open grazing of cattle.
The ACF chairman and immediate past minister of agriculture, Chief Audu Ogbe, made this known in a statement on Monday, May 17.
The governors in the southern part of Nigeria had put an embargo on open grazing in the region.
According to Ogbe, the ACF does not see any reason to object to a decision taken in the best interest of all.
He said: “The fact of the matter is that the crisis emanates from the belief by most herdsmen that they are free to enter any farm, eat up the crops or kill anyone raising objections. Nobody or society can accept that.
“The current high price of Garri is one obvious reason for this behavior. Few cassava farms cannot grow to maturity before it is harvested by the farmers. So, food security is already being threatened.”
Ogbe, however, said there is the need to advise the governors in all states not to think that merely banning open grazing would end the crisis, stressing that the bulk of the violent herders are the ones marching in from neighboring African countries in large numbers. He said the herders who show no regards to boundaries whether state or regional have to be stopped.
He added: “The Umar Abdullahi Ganduje formula must be adopted to stop the entry into Nigeria of cattle from West Africa. The solution is for Nigeria to seek an amendment to Article 3 of the ECOWAS protocol, especially as regards the free movement of cattle and other livestock without special permits.”
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