Forum wants more action to tackle farmer-herder crisis

The Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) has called for more actions to resolve the protracted farmer-herders crisis in the country.

The organisation made the call on Monday in Abuja at a two-day ‘National Dialogue on Managing Farmer-Herder Relations in the Nigeria: Issues and perspectives.’

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The Director of CDD, Idayat Hassan, said that the center is ready to partner with stakeholders to tackle challenge of farmers and herder conflict, especially in the North West of Nigeria.

She also noted that high level of neglect by federal government has demonstrated incompetence in tackling insecurity in Nigeria.

Hassan, represented by Dr. Chris Kwaja, said, “These are communities that were living together for long. These are communities that have a shared future and co prosper, because when they reinforce themselves in terms of the kind of services they give to each other, the society will be better off apart from oil, agriculture, and when I say agriculture, I’m talking about crop production, livestock production, they are the mainstay of the Nigerian economy outside Solid Minerals.

“Until we invest heavily in this sector, and when I say heavily in this sector, I’m not talking about the elitist approach to investing in agriculture, where we politicized financial interventions.

“We need to provide support for this critical production for supply economy. And I think if we do that, then we will be able to deal with many of the issues we see around the neglect of these people within the communities. The sufferings that they pass through when it comes to their being victim, either death, injuries, dislocation from their livelihoods.

“In the past few years, the farmer-herder conflicts have gradually transitioned to other forms of crime leading to loss of lives and destruction of property. Recent reports on the region have confirmed the conflict’s contribution to increasing security challenges with herders evolving rapidly into heavily armed bandits,” she said.

On his part, a United States Research Fellow at the Hudson Institute, James Barnett, urged government to create and support vigilante groups and others security outfits to tackle insecurity in the country.

He said, “Lack of security presence in rural communities, you often don’t have much police, military need to formed their own outfits. I think that it’s very important that these types of groups need to have a more kind of standardized and professional approach.”

Also speaking at the event, the Technical Manager, Peace Action for Rapid and Transformative Nigerian Early Response (PARTNER), Mercy Corps, Lapang Chrisantus Defuna’an, said, “We need people with character, we need people who understand the issues. Government is not doing enough to address issues of insecurity, and reasons being that, we cannot imagine how many percent of Nigeria budget have been allocate to security. Has anybody been able to track the security budget for Nigeria?

“A lot of issues have happened with ministers of defense associated with the purchase of weapons and others. Nobody has told us whether this person has been found culpable or not, whether he has been brought to book or not. A committed country, with a committed government to address the issue of security can easily be seen from its security budgets.”